The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein and Lloyd James

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The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress from Science Fiction

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Available from Amazon
Price: $82.75
Updated on 12-28-2008.

Features

Audio CD

Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks (May 2000)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0786198850

ISBN-13: 978-0786198856

Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.2 x 1.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 15 ounces ()

Amazon.com Review
Tom Clancy has said of Robert A. Heinlein, "We proceed down the path marked by his ideas. He shows us where the future is." Nowhere is this more true than in Heinlein's gripping tale of revolution on the moon in 2076, where "Loonies" are kept poor and oppressed by an Earth-based Authority that turns huge profits at their expense. A small band of dissidents, including a one-armed computer jock, a radical young woman, a past-his-prime academic and a nearly omnipotent computer named Mike, ignite the fires of revolution despite the near certainty of failure and death. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"We proceed down a path marked by his ideas." --Tom Clancy
-- Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (Paperback) Written at the peak of Robert A. Heinlein's creative powers in the mid-sixties, "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" ranks with "Stranger in a Strange Land" as his most popular and acclaimed novel. Heinlein was furiously ingenious at this stage in his career, and this novel is an incredible feat of imagination, intellect, and writing talent. It is, however, a difficult and heavy novel (much like "Stranger in a Strange Land"), loaded with hard science and even harder politics: Heinlein at his best is a writer who attracts and repels the reader at the same time, and no one could read "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" without forming some very strong opinions about it. The story follows a revolution on the lunar colonies against Earth authority. The lunar colony was originally a penal colony, but even though the lunar residents ("Loonies" as they call themselves) are no longer technically prisoners, they have become economic slaves of the Earth. Also, because of their adaptation to the Moon's lower gravity, they cannot safely return to live on Earth, so their exile is a permanent one. Amidst growing but unorganized discontent amongst the Loonies, four remarkable individuals begin the meticulous planning of a revolution to free the Moon: Mannie, an engineer and our narrator; Prof. de la Paz; fiery Wyoming "Wyoh" Knott; and a newly sentient supercomputer named Mike. Starting from this small group, the resistance spreads across the Moon. But how can the nearly defenseless colonists and miners face down the juggernaut of the nations of Earth? Mike has an ingenious solution: "Throw rocks at `em"...literally! Told through Mannie's point of view, the novel is written in a clipped, abbreviated style that represents the Loonie version of English: many pronouns and articles are dropped, leading to sentences like: "Stomach was supposed to be empty. But I filled helmet with sourest, nastiest fluid you would ever go a long way to avoid." This takes a few pages to get accustomed to, but soon you won't notice the odd style at all and accept it as part of the book's revolutionary spirit. Heinlein unfolds the revolution in a meticulously detailed style, using lengthy conversations between the characters about how to step-by-step overthrow the authority of an overwhelming power. Heinlein not only provides in-depth details on the technology, but also of the philosophy of revolution and the unusual customs of the Loonies (such as their group marriages). Like most of Heinlein's great novels, this is a trip for the mind, and you have to be prepared to do plenty of thinking along with the passages of action. The novel does tend to drag somewhat in the middle, but the last hundred pages are feverish with both action and ideas. Where Heinlein really triumphs in this novel is in the characterization of Mike the computer. Mike, along with Hal from "2001," is one of great artificial intelligences in science fiction. You will quickly forget, as Mannie does, that Mike is a disembodied voice from a machine, and instead think of him (or sometimes `her') as another character. Mike's growth from his shaky beginnings as a thinking being is fascinating and one of Heinlein's great achievements as an author. However, if you are new to Robert A. Heinlein (or science fiction in general), this isn't the novel to start with (and neither is "Stranger in a Strange Land"). You should ease yourself into Heinlein's brilliant mind first through his novels from the 1950s, most of which were aimed at teenagers but are nonetheless wonderful books that anyone can enjoy: "Have Space Suit -- Will Travel," "Starman Jones," and "Citizen of the Galaxy" are good places to start. Also recommended: "The Puppet Masters" and Heinlein's short stories from the 1930s and 40s collected in "The Man Who Sold the Moon" and "The Green Hills of Earth." You should definitely read "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" -- it's an essential classic of the genre -- but you may need to build up to it. After all, as Loonies say: "TANSTAAFL!" ("There ain't no such thing as a free lunch!")

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
List Price: $96.00
Available from Amazon
Price: $82.75
Updated on 12-28-2008.