The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

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The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about a Lunar colony's revolt against rule from Earth. It was published in 1966 and the year after it received the Hugo Award for best novel. Heinlein himself considered it his best book.*

• June 1984, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0425075710
• July 1, 1996, Tor Books, hardcover, ISBN 0312861761
• June 15, 1997, Orb Books, paperback, ISBN 0312863551
• September 1, 1997, Sagebrush, library binding, ISBN 0613262654
• May 1, 2000, Blackstone Audiobooks, CD audiobook, ISBN 078611763X

The novel is narrated by Manuel Garcia O'Kelly Davis (Mannie), a one-armed computerman whose accidental discovery of the self-awareness of an intelligent computer ignites a revolution against the hated Lunar Authority. The computer, dubbed Mike (after Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock Holmes), assumes the nom de guerre of Adam Selene, chairman of the revolution. The wise Professor Bernardo de la Paz (Comrade Bill), the beautiful rabble-rousing Wyoming Knott (Comrade Betty), and Mannie (Comrade Bork) form the top-level cell in a plot to liberate the Moon from Earth's control. Hazel Meade, a young girl with "no cushions," leads the Baker Street Irregulars (and later becomes Grandmother Hazel in The Rolling Stones).

The three central premises in the book are the legitimacy of rebellion against unjust authority (the American Revolution of 1776 is often cited), the superiority of libertarian principles, at least in a frontier society, and the inevitability of encounters with emerging machine intelligence. Heinlein argues (or, more precisely, illustrates) that it is possible for a society to organize itself using a minimal government with all necessary services paid for by users on the basis of necessity. (However, neither the revolution nor the society are truly libertarian. The former is engineered by the conspiracy of the individuals listed above, while the latter is controlled centrally by Mike.)

However, the stated reasons for the rebellion involve economic necessity: Luna is exporting so many goods to Earth (and receiving so little by return shipment) that according to Mike's statistical forecasts, its resources will be exhausted in something on the order of seven years. (Since Earth sits at the bottom of a deep gravity well, the only feasible solution is one of engineering; a key plot point is the development of a method of shipping goods to Luna that is not prohibitively expensive.)

Nor, arguably, does Heinlein seem to be hopeful that the rather anarchic libertarianism of Lunar society will survive for very long. By -- and even well before -- the end of the novel, Manny is decrying the authoritarianism of many of his fellow Loonies and the regimentation they would impose on his free society. ("Rules, laws -- always for other fellow.") This theme is echoed elsewhere in Heinlein's works (notably those featuring Lazarus Long) -- that real, albeit temporary, liberty is to be found among the anarchic (but polite to a fault!) pioneer societies out along the advancing frontier, but the regimentation and legalism that inevitably follow also bring restraints that chafe true individualists. (For that matter, we learn in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls that this is just what happens to Luna.)

In general and in Moon, Heinlein seems somewhat pessimistic about human beings' tendency to "saddle themselves with governments." Readers who know of Heinlein's fondness and admiration for Mark Twain may hear an echo here of Huckleberry Finn's discomfort with the Widow Douglas's attempts to "sivilize" him.

The book is the origin of the acronym TANSTAAFL ("There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"), and helped popularize the constructed language Loglan, which is mentioned in the story as being used for precise human-computer interaction.

The book is noteworthy, although by no means unique among Heinlein's work, for its assumptions about race and racism. Heinlein's forte was to describe his fictional future societies through the use of telling details rather than heavy-handed expostulation. One of those details in Moon is a thorough and thoroughly unselfconscious racial integration, most remarkable to Heinlein's readers for being unremarkable to the Lunarian colonists. But Heinlein does not predict that racial harmony will be universally true in the future; the reader doesn't realize how thoroughly integrated the lunar society is until Manny, on a mission to the United States, is arrested for miscegenation after he innocently shows a picture of his extended family to his Southern hosts. Some insight into Heinlein's character is gained by recalling that the novel was published in 1966, during a time of significant turmoil over race relations and the future of race relations in the United States.

The novel is also notable stylistically for its use of a fairly thick (but still readable) Lunar dialect consisting predominantly of English words but strongly influenced by Russian grammar. It is likely that in this respect Heinlein was influenced by Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange.

The setting of the novel was re-used much later by Heinlein for his late-period novel, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.

Tim Minear of Angel, Firefly and Wonderfalls is currently working on a screenplay based on the novel.

Notes

*Conversation with Hayford Peirce in Papeete, Tahiti, 1980, about his works.