The Loonies are not, for once, NRA spokesmen they're admirable even though unarmed. Heinlein even lets the demands of the story mitigate two of his hobbyhorses: guns and women. Heinlein never misses a cue little things like burial customs, three-dimensional thinking ('cubic' not 'area'), hotels that don't ask for registration, all work together, and make it seem like everything is worked out. The plot, the characters, the complications come up because we're dealing with the moon: low gravity tough-minded ecology the power given to the (scarce) women the rebels' military strategy. It's emphatically not simply a retelling of the American or any other Revolution. It seems, however, that Heinlein got his Russian from dictionaries- the accent in 'spacebaw' is wrong and God should be Bokh, not Bog. I like it it's one of the few serious attempts to represent future linguistic change. Some people can't get used to Manny's unusual syntax. Prof by contrast is outrageous but outrageously interesting.) Not human enough? No way the book is packed with human interest, as well as a fascinating society described inside and out, and so real that you feel that you could find your way around it without a guidebook- and you'd like to try. Talky? You bet never more entertainingly.

Started to omit articles and pronouns just like dinkum comrade Manny. He prefers the juvies thinks Moon is too talky, doesn't have enough human interest. I found much of it perceptive particularly the insight that most Heinlein heroes are the same individual at three different ages: naive but promising middle-aged, pragmatic, and competent and old, cynical, and very competent.īut on one thing he's wrong, wrong, wrong: he doesn't like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I recently- well, 1994, but who's counting?- read Alexei Panshin's Heinlein in Dimension, a book Heinlein devotees- they're something of a cult on the Net- swear at.

Part 1 of an occasional series of essays presenting more verbiage on books too much has been said about already Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

The moon's a harsh mistress book