Desert Island Books – Robert A Heinlein – The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

I started reading Robert A Heinlein when I found his ‘juveniles’ in our local branch library’s Junior section. Farmer in the Sky, Tunnel in the Sky, Red Planet and so on. There were also a couple of books by Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke in there, ideal reading now that my appetite for SF had been whetted by Star Trek, Doctor Who, UFO and other 70s television offerings. But there weren’t that many of them. In fact, about a year before I went to secondary school, it was apparent to me and the nice lady librarians that I’d read pretty much everything in the Junior section, many of the books multiple times. This posed a problem because I wouldn’t be issued tickets for the Adult section until I went to secondary school, according to the rules.

A good librarian knows when a rule is more of a guideline. We came to a gentlewoman’s agreement that I would be allowed into the Adult section to read SF. After all, if books by Heinlein et al were in the Juniors, that would be perfectly safe, wouldn’t it? Clearly none of them had ever read I Will Fear No Evil… Well, I certainly found that an eye-opening introduction to just how different the world could look from inside someone else’s head.

But of all the Heinlein I read, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is the book that’s stayed with me. It was my first introduction to a writer using historical events as a basis for a science fiction novel. I soon spotted the parallels with the American Revolution/War of Independence and the Russian Revolution. The mentions of a radically different political situation on Earth fascinated me. I liked the depth and substance added by the digressions and discussions about self-determination, passive resistance and how to organise a subversive network in secure cells. All of which took place in a world where everything has be to paid for; air, water, food. Where people dig their homes out of the moonrock and live in all manner of family structures which weren’t happening in Dorset in the 70s. Or at least, if they were, I didn’t know about it. A dangerous world and not just because vacuum and radiation can kill you. It’s a world where blinkered thinking and selfish greed driving those in unearned authority prompts brutal opposition that leaves no room for compromise. Even the language this story was told in had its intriguing peculiarities. So much of what I’ve loved about recent SF reads, from Ian McDonald’s Luna, to Chris Beckett’s Dark Eden books, can be traced back to this story.

Forty or so years later, I realise this was where I first encountered all sorts of things that were solidly SF back then and are now part of real life. Virtual reality, as fake personalities are constructed from pixels within a computer to further the revolution and protect those really behind it. Think how close to such realism our computer games have become. Surrogacy. The notion of Wyoh, the professional host mother was astonishing to me as a teenager. Now? That would hardly raise an eyebrow, though there might be some medical concerns.

Which prompts further thoughts on Heinlein’s attitudes to women and their roles in society in this particular novel. He’s so often accused of being a reactionary, right-wing writer these days. Really? I’m not convinced there’s over-much evidence here. Yes, in many ways, it’s a book of its time, but not in the way that those who want to excuse old-fashioned misogyny use that phrase so often. This moon is also a racially integrated society, let’s not forget. Which isn’t to say that elsewhere in Heinlein’s books, his attitudes and ideas can be problematic, all the more so where his writing disappears down the rabbit hole of his personal obsessions. All of which leads me to conclude that it’s both difficult and dangerous to make sweeping statements about one author’s entire body of writing, especially when that work extends over decades. (And sees me extremely keen to read Farah Mendlesohn’s forthcoming work on Heinlein)

Then there’s Mike, the dinkum thinkum. The AI by accident. The computer who becomes self aware as more and more processing power is added on to his mainframe in haphazard fashion. Who decides what he really wants to know is what makes something funny. Who wants a friend. A benign artificial intelligence. So different from the eerie menace of HAL or the impersonal functionality of Star Trek’s computer. I loved Mike. I still long for some such discovery in a computer lab somewhere…

Author: Juliet

Juliet E McKenna is a British fantasy author living in the Cotswolds, UK. Loving history, myth and other worlds since she first learned to read, she has written fifteen epic fantasy novels so far. Her debut, The Thief’s Gamble, began The Tales of Einarinn in 1999, followed by The Aldabreshin Compass sequence, The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, and The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy. The Green Man’s Heir was her first modern fantasy inspired by British folklore in 2018, and The Green Man’s Quarry in 2023 is the sixth title in this ongoing series. Her 2023 novel The Cleaving is a female-centred retelling of the story of King Arthur, while her shorter stories include forays into dark fantasy, steampunk and science fiction. She promotes SF&Fantasy by reviewing, by blogging on book trade issues, attending conventions and teaching creative writing. She has served as a judge for major genre awards. As J M Alvey, she has written historical murder mysteries set in ancient Greece.

6 thoughts on “Desert Island Books – Robert A Heinlein – The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

  1. Starship Troopers has the compulsory History and Moral Philosophy courses where the students are told the ‘right’ answers to moral questions.

    The hero is fleetingly described as black but I for one missed this completely until it was pointed out. Nothing in the book reflects his race.

      1. The hero is described as filipino which is you know different.

        I really love that someone besides me has read more Heinlein than Starship Troopers after having clearly only watched the film.

        For someone who’s career spanned pre-Atom bomb to the early 80’s, Heinlein clearly underwent a massive change in personality and beliefs. His early stuff is _horribly_ racist, reflecting a “yellow peril” mentality that is very hard to reconcile with his later years.

        Definitely a lot to find problematic in Heinlein, but there’s an intention to avoid misogyny and racism, even if he doesn’t get it right, and boy did he keep trying. I spoke to a woman of colour friend from America about some of his books and she was just wowed that he even tried.

        I think the thing that I’ve been thinking about most frequently is his insistence that women should be armed so that they could shoot men who tried to harm them and how that would change “rape culture” in the US. I mean, I don’t _think_ it’s the answer, but I think that’s a theme that comes up a _lot_ more than any “fascist” ones. Let’s face it, he was a wild Libertarian in places, (and had weird views on the attractiveness of old men to young women, LOL) but then again… he was writing SF in America and his liberalism was the pro-equality for everyone sort which is oft forgotten about.

        1. I can thoroughly recommend Farah Mendlesohn’s ‘The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein’ as a fascinating and fair-minded assessment of the man and his work.

  2. I can find a kindle/ebook version of “Stranger in a Strange Land” but not “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”

    What does that say about the popularity of one, “Stranger,” To, in my opinion, a great book like “Moon”?

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