Way Too Late Review: ‘The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress’

We’re going to start a new series here at Project-Nerd. In this new series, one of our writers will look at a classic and give you a review for it. They can pick a book, movie, comic series, video game, basically anything they want. For our first shot at this I’m going to review a true sci-fi classic, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. Heinlein is a heavyweight in the science fiction world, winning four Hugo Awards including one for this book. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress was written in 1966, and while I wasn’t alive then I figured it’s time to experience this classic novel for myself.


 

Hugo

TANSTAAFL: There Ain’t No Such Thing As a Free Lunch, is the motto of the Lunar colony at the heart of this story. Set in 2075, the Moon has been colonized but was set up as a penal colony for the Federation Nations of Earth. The politics of the world have changed from what we know but aren’t too hard to figure out.

The Moon as a prison creates some unique challenges. Due to the gravitational differences people sentenced to the Moon are unable to return home to Earth when their sentence is complete. And since there is no atmosphere and no way to leave the Moon—they don’t keep ships there—this isn’t a prison the way you are used to them. There are no guards or system of complete control.

So, the Moon has a society where prisoners who are serving their sentences live alongside those who have completed their term but can’t go back home. They aren’t kept in cells but instead live much like you or me, free to do what they want. They have families and farms and send their grain back to Earth to help with the food shortages. The Lunar Authority handles this and sets the prices to be paid for grain and the cost for water and air and other necessities for living on the Moon. But unrest is moving among the people of Luna.

Tanstaafl

The people of Luna have a valuable resource but don’t control it they way they think they should. The Authority sets all the prices and makes all the profit from their hard work. They are the ones who are mining the ice and farming the grain that make the whole colony work but they aren’t receiving their fair share of the rewards, at least that’s what a few among them think. The answer to this is revolution. This revolution is made possible not just by the people working towards it but by a very smart computer.

The computer, a HOLMES IV (“High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV”), is the “smartest” computer that humans have ever built. And to the surprise of its technician, Manny, it is very much self-aware. Manny finds this out when the HOLMES IV decides to pay someone about $10,000,000 more than what they normally earn. While diagnosing the error that caused this issue Manny finds out that it was done because the computer thought it was funny. Manny starts calling HOLMES IV Mike, short for Mycroft from the Sherlock Holmes series of books and becomes his friend. Manny’s most important function for Mike is not as a computer technician but helping him understand jokes.

With the help of a super-computer capable of thought and extreme problem solving our story is now ready to take off and start its revolution. I don’t want to go into to much detail here as the methods they use and what they do is some of the best parts about this book but I felt that I needed to fully explain the setting and these two main characters. Manny is our storyteller and you get to know him and those close to him very well. A good revolution story is about the people, not the actual revolution.

Heinlein

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress reads very well. Heinlein creates and utilizes a broken version of English that is at the same time easy to read but different enough that I reread the first few pages many times to help get used to it. It throws you far enough off balance that you’re not entirely comfortable while reading, almost like you’d feel walking around at 1/6th the normal gravity you’re used to. It’s an incredibly clever way to keep the reader off balance.

The writing is full of description and some levity. They will be making these huge decisions about revolution and new governments and using gravity wells to “throw” rocks at Earth and Mike will ask Manny if he’s had a chance to look over any of the jokes that Mike gave him. The clarity with which Heinlein writes many different characters with many different viewpoints and in a society that is different than ours but completely believable is the real prize here.

With this new series we wanted to touch on how the classic holds up. Books are different than movies or video games, the technology that goes into making them hasn’t changed much in the past few hundred years so they tend to hold up much better. That is certainly the case here. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a classic and as such influenced many other works, but reading it for the first time now, it still feels fresh. I don’t remember ever thinking, “Wow, that’s just like that one book,” or anything like that.

If you like to read great science fiction you have to pick up The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. I know I’m probably late to this party for most of our sci-fi readers out there. I actually have to thank my wife for getting this for me for Valentine’s Day and giving me the chance to thoroughly enjoy this classic.

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