The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

[Brenda]

And it is important to remember that this is fiction. Heinlein had his thumb on the scale. It is unlikely that line marriage would ever work out in real life, with real people.
By authorial fiat, he was able to decree that partners would not be jealous, and would not favor their own offspring over others in the 'line'. This is not any more unreasonable that decreeing that there shall be FTL drives on the space ships. And then, like a good SF author, he went with the implications of his assumption. Fascinating and fun fiction -- but not a template for real life.

[Andreas]

I find it interesting to note how this discussion focuses on the feminism/sexuality aspects of this novel.

I wouldn't have guessed that, because there are so many more (and even more central) themes to be found.

[J.D.]

Brenda wrote: "There is also a nice Darwinian philosophy underlaying the whole work. Manny is highly competent, because he is descended from people who, if they were not competent, immediately died ..."

This is a big theme through a lot of Heinlein stories. He had Lazarus Long state that stupidity was the one universal capital crime, and I'd be willing to bet that RAH himself didn't think that protecting people from their own stupidity was necessarily good for the species.

[[deleted user]]

Brenda wrote: "There is also a nice Darwinian philosophy underlaying the whole work. Manny is highly competent, because he is descended from people who, if they were not competent, immediately died..."

A good part of that Darwinism is social. At one point Manny relates that half of all new arrivals die within the first year. Many of those are from failure to observe safety procedures. But he says the majority are Eliminated (shown to an airlock and given a total immersion course in breathing vacuum.)

If you're going to create a society "that only works if everyone living in it thinks enough like the author" (K.V's words), one way to do it is dispose of anyone who thinks differently.

[Joseph]

Does anyone know if Robert Heinlein had someone in his life that was an amputee? Both Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress have amputees in prominent roles.

"No longer a miner i explained that was before I lost this wing raised left arm, let her see seam joining prosthetic to meat arm (I never mind calling it to a womans attention; puts some off but arouses maternal in others-averages. These days im a computerman"

[Brenda]

He was in WW2 so he must have known veterans.

[Joseph]

Derp, of course. Thanks

[Jim]

I thought Heinlein was medically discharged from the Navy in the 30's. What did he do during WWII?

He actively supported the military, so I'm sure he knew disabled veterans.

[[deleted user]]

Jim wrote: "I thought Heinlein was medically discharged from the Navy in the 30's. What did he do during WWII? "

According to his Wikipedia biography, "During World War II, he did aeronautical engineering for the U.S. Navy,.... at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard." Isaac Asimov & L. Sprague de Camp worked at the same shipyard at that time.

[Jim]

Thanks. Civilian employee then, not active military.

[[deleted user]]

G33 is right...RAH was a high mucky-much on a research unit at the Navy Yard, they did good work....advances in areo eng. and Asimov came up with a dye for downed piolts to dump in the sea water so they were easier to spot and rescue (a harder thing to develop than it sounds). They saved alot of lives.

RAH had volentiered for active service, but turned down for medical resons. His lungs were scarred from TB he picked up in the navy years before.

[Joseph]

Just about anyone that was in the military comes out with some sort of pension. It does not mean you have to be missing a limb but every job has it's dangerous. Take for instance the relatively safe (from enemy fire) job of cleaning the inside fuel hold of C-17 transport. Personally I would rather risk enemy fire than do that one.

I just really appreciate his depiction of amputees in his books. Instead of casting them as damsels in distress they are strong characters that take the lead and guide the story.

Says the man that can only count to 15 using his fingers and toes, and still plays a killer game of golf.

But what started all of this for me was the original quote:

"No longer a miner i explained that was before I lost this wing raised left arm, let her see seam joining prosthetic to meat arm (I never mind calling it to a womans attention; puts some off but arouses maternal in others-averages. These days im a computerman"

That is exactly how I roll, I tell woman but never dwell on it. I always thought woman just felt less judged being around someone "wounded and scarred" rather than merely creating a maternal response.

Robert Heinlein when I learn how to bring people back to life your first on my list.

[Brenda]

The other enormously empowering story Heinlein wrote about handicapped persons was "Waldo". He was as far as I know one of the first writers who seriously used handicaps as character building. (Not just pirates with their peg legs, part of the local color.) The term 'waldo' has actually passed into the English language, the ultimate accolade for a writer.

[Joseph]

Do not discount the appeal of (peg legs) pirates. bootleggers, adventurers those willing to pay the price for their misadventures :).

Is this the book you are talking about Brenda?

http://www.amazon.com/Waldo-Magic-Inc...

[Brenda]

Yep. And now I am recalling THE SHIP WHO SANG, by Anne McCaffrey, which essentially involves innovative things to do with people with profound disabilities.

[[deleted user]]

Joseph wrote: "Is this the book you are talking about Brenda?..."

Yup. That's one incarnation. "Waldo" is a separate novella, about 100 pages, originally published in Astounding Magazine, and then published in a book with a separate story, "Magic, Inc.", which is also about 100 pages.

Both stories are also available in the anthology The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein (expensive but in print), or Waldo w/o Magic in A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, Volume One (out of print but apparently cheap used on Amazon.)

[[deleted user]]

Brenda wrote: "Yep."

Sorry, Brenda. I didn't mean to step on your reply, I just didn't refresh the page after I typed.

[[deleted user]]

intresting you guys bring up RAH and amputees...this is only lossely conected, but RAH at one time had a standing offer, give a total of a gallon of blood to the Red Cross, get your book signed...if i rember right it was the only way RAH would sign your book for many years...no "Gallon Club" card from the Red Cross, no signed book...

[Jim]

I wonder if that's why I originally became a blood donor. I had a gallon card at one time. I got it going at my last job - we had enough people they'd come in & set up a few times a year - but never kept up with it down here. Besides, all the questions & such now make it a pain. Takes 3 times longer than it used to.

[Phil]

Easily my favorite adult Heinlein. My favorite Heinlein overall is Citizen of the Galaxy.

I think the thing that elevates this one is that the characters breathe and interact in pragmatic, ambiguous ways. As people have said further up the thread, some of his books are preachy. This one is just political in interesting ways. I felt like it posed questions and ideas rather than having, say Michael Valentine Smith deliver sermons. This might be because RAH was in flux at the time and didn't feel that he knew all the answers yet.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

OK I finished it. Here's my review if anyone is interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Basically, I admired it more than I liked it. I'm reserving the right to re-read it at a later date to see if it grows on me.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Also, Jim I think you mentioned the Wikipedia page for this book, which I found to be a must-read for anyone who's read this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moo...

But if you haven't read the book be advised there are plenty of spoilers. You might want to read the book first.

And the Wikipedia page duly notes that TMIAHM may be turned into a movie. However there appear to be a lot of changes made to the story (as I would suspect, since a lot of the Heinleinisms wouldn't translate well on a movie screen, especially to a modern audience) so they are calling it "Uprising."

[Jim]

Good review. I think a re-read might help somewhat, Randy. The language gets easier & actually becomes fun, so long as the kids don't beat it to death - 2 of mine did.

The characters will never get better, IMO. Manny & Prof are the same character at different ages. When Hazel grows up to play grandmother in The Rolling Stones, she's Prof in drag. As bad as he is at characterization, at least he tried hard to make women equal. He never managed it, but did very well for the time.

Heinlein did very well in not pushing his politics or odd marriages compared to his post 1970s books. At least the characters asked a lot of questions of the former rather than totally hammering at the same points. None of the conspirators really had any answers & it was a mess, which seemed somewhat accurate & it wound up being a lot like what we had by the time they finished, which is was supposed to. As for the marriages, he did a lot more show than tell than was his wont later on, too.

I first read it as a young teen not too long after it was written, so much of the issues in it today were disguised & it earned a beloved place in my library.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Jim wrote: "Good review. I think a re-read might help somewhat, Randy. The language gets easier & actually becomes fun, so long as the kids don't beat it to death - 2 of mine did.

The characters will never ge..."

Thanks Jim. Funny thing is, as soon as I finished the review, I thought of a lot of things I should have put in but didn't. I think I could still be sitting here writing the review. There's definitely something to be said for a book that can generate that much discussion. I 'enjoyed' reading Ready Player One more than TMIAHM but I could never have written that much about it.

I never even mentioned Mike in my review. It seems odd that I left out a central character without whom revolution would have never been possible. But rather than being simply a deus ex machina plot device who solves every problem, Mike is a pretty interesting take on AI for 50 years ago. I mean, a computer obsessed with jokes? Most AIs in Sci-Fi usually lean to the dark side, a la SKYNET.

It's funny, I read The Cat Who Walks Through Walls a few years ago when a neighbor loaned it to me. Hazel's in that one too, but of course never having read TMIAHM or The Rolling Stones I had no frame of reference to enjoy seeing her again. I understand there's a few references to TMIAHM in TCWWTW, but probably not enough for me to re-read it - I'll just settle for the Wikipedia summary instead.

I was really irritated by Heinlein dwelling on the nature of group marriages while reading the book, but even that has a sort of logic to it. Heinlein clearly is a "question everything" kind of guy, so he sits down and thinks, "if the moon was sort of a dumping group for convicts, what would the population be like...?"
Obviously there would be a shortage of women. Heinlein certainly chose a less obvious solution, maybe reflecting some of his own beliefs, I don't know. I think we could all imagine if the lunar colony had been designed by, say, George R R Martin?

Thinking back on the book, it fits well with my theory that most Sci-Fi from, say, 1980 and earlier, is "idea" fiction. For example, I've read a bunch of older Arthur C Clarke books, and they all have the same plot: "Here I am, exploring the moon/Mars/deep ocean/etc, and let me tell you all about what this world is like. Oops! Just had a problem (end of chapter) but here's how I solved it. Oops, another problem (end of chapter) but I fixed that one too. Now here's a really big problem (end of chapter) but I fixed that too. Yup, this is a really great place in the future, and I'm sure glad science is here to help me solve all these problems." The idea (space elevator, abandoned alien spacecraft, monolith, etc), or sometimes the exotic location, drives the story for the most part. Characters aren't too essential, usually there to provide a viewpoint or maybe just to go out and change the flat tires on the lunar rover. TMIAHM is chock full of ideas. Plenty enough for more than one book.

Not to be cynical, but if this book was written today it would have to be flogged into a multi-volume series, with movie/TV rights and no group marriage or other potentially offensive political stuff. Reading this book took me back to a day when I could change radio stations and not hear the SAME SONG ON EVERY STATION!! (Sorry, just got out of the car after picking my daughter up from basketball practice. Too much Calvin Harris.)

[Jim]

Randy wrote: "Thanks Jim. Funny thing is, as soon as I finished the review, I thought of a lot of things I should have put in but didn't. I think I could still be sitting here writing the review. ..."

If The Cat Who Walks Through Walls was one of your early trials of Heinlein, I'm surprised you came back for more. I certainly understand not rereading it.

Some books need a second or third read to ferret out the interesting points without being distracted by wondering how the story goes. I've always thought this book fit in that category. There's a lot to be said for reading it at different ages, too. Life experience changes perspectives. I'm very happy that you think this aged fairly well, because the world has change considerably since this was first published in 1966.

Your point on the tech is well made, but I don't think you take it quite far enough. Clarke's idea were so far out that they were fantasy for most (e.g. monolith, alien wrecks, & space elevators). We take a lot of knowledge for granted now that wasn't popularly known back then. We had just started going into space, so the idea of weightlessness or different gravity was a completely alien concept to most. Remember, Armstrong wouldn't walk on the moon for several years.

Think about this for a moment: Most hadn't heard about, much less grasped, Clarke's idea of geosynchronous satellites. There were only a few satellites in orbit & they didn't do anything relevant to the common man. Today even little kids are used to the idea of satellite TV & men living in space. What was fantasy then is commonplace now.

Heinlein's biggest contribution to my life was making space into something comprehensible & possible to me. His explanations often seem pedantic or elementary today, but they weren't back then. His ideas of gravity wells, the catapult, growing grain IN the moon, & dropping rocks were a different order of SF from many of Clarke's visions. When I mentioned it to any adults, they thought it was way too far out to even discuss, though. I was weird for even thinking this was possible even after we'd landed on the moon.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

That's really a great perspective, Jim. I was two years away from being born when this book came out. I watched the moon landing, supposedly, as a toddler standing in front of my parents' first TV, a black and white model that they purchased just for the occasion. What a different world it is that we live in now! Reading old science-fiction, I think, requires at least a little bit of perspective to understand what the world was like at the time the book was written. Only then can you appreciate the author's vision about how the world would change (and why) instead of getting distracted by punch card programming and old fashioned telephones.

TMIAHM ages well because the theme of personal freedom is timeless. Heinlein emphasizes the Loonie culture where many of the customs are certainly strange to us but none of it is harmful to anyone else. Of course the Loonies would rebel; in fact it's hard to imagine them NOT rebelling eventually. My favorite science fiction has always been the kind that comments on today's society (1984, Brave New World, a lot of PKD), which Heinlein manages to do quite well in this book. The principles the colonists stand for are freedoms we all want for ourselves, yet we can think of ways in which these freedoms slip away over time without cautious vigilance.

[Jim]

Thanks. You're certainly right on the theme. As a US citizen, the plot of the book is pretty much what we were taught in school about our own revolution.

And you're right about understanding the times. Heinlein slipped in a lot more than new science in this novel. His discussions of marriage were quite revolutionary, too. LBJ & the Civil Rights Act were brand new, yet he had non-nuclear, mixed-race marriages. Women's Lib was just getting its legs, yet he had women in charge of families. Neither of these seems like a big deal now, but they were practically blasphemy to many back then.

I agree, the punch cards & phone lines are a bit tough to take, but they're pretty minor. I really liked that Mike was the phone & so many other systems. This was before networks, yet managed to convey the same feel.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Jim wrote: "I really liked that Mike was the phone & so many other systems. This was before networks, yet managed to convey the same feel."

Another way this book was terrific. It must have been very difficult for someone in 1966 to imagine that so many systems would be controlled by computers on an every day basis. I don't think 1966 was too far removed from the days when you would pick up your phone and tell the operator what city and number you were calling (I always think here of Dick Van Dyke calling someone in New Rochelle).

[Jim]

The phone system wasn't quite that primitive in the mid 60s as I recall, but I was pretty young. We had a party line until around 1966 or 67 when they finally ran enough lines that we could get a private line. While incoming calls were on a Morse code signal & all the others could answer & listen in, I think we could always dial my grandparents in another state directly. Still, you're right, it was well done.