The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

First published: 1966 (serial form, If, December, 1965-April, 1966)

Type of plot: Science fiction

Time of work: 2075

Locale: The Lunar colonies and Earth

Principal Characters:

• Mike, a sentient computer
• Manuel (Mannie) Garcia O’Kelly, his best friend, a one-armed computer repairman
• Professor (Prof) Bernardo de la Paz, a political philosopher, revolutionary, and Mannie’s former teacher
• Wyoming (Wyoh) Knott, a member of the Lunar underground
• Stuart (Stu) Rene LaJoie, a Terran aristocrat and supporter of the Loonies

The Novel

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is the story of the revolt of the Lunar colonists, or Loonies, as they call themselves, against the Federated Nations of Terra, as told in a flashback by Mannie O’Kelly, one of the leaders of the rebellion. By 2075, Earth has established permanent settlements on the Moon and uses them as penal colonies for criminals, political prisoners, and assorted misfits from various nations. The original inhabitants and their descendants live underground in vast warrens away from the unshielded solar radiation on the Moon’s surface. As in most colonial societies, life in Luna is harsh and challenging, with few luxuries, but it is also simple and honest. Because of the lower gravity, people live longer, and sterilization procedures eliminate all diseases. Loonies are the most well-mannered people alive, since the dangers of Lunar existence require them to get along with one another or die. Many people engage in polyandries, clans, group marriages, and line families, such as the one of which Mannie is a member. The basic rule underlying all Lunar society is “tanstaafl,” or “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” All Loonies must pay in some way for what they have, including, as the novel demonstrates, their freedom.

As the novel begins, the apolitical Mannie is drawn into the growing Loonie revolutionary underground by his friends Wyoh and “Prof” de la Paz. He reveals to them that the Lunar Authority’s computer, which he services, is “alive.” He has named it Mike or Mycroft, after Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock Holmes’s smarter brother. Mike, whose only desire is for fun and companionship, joins the revolution to exercise his sense of humor. Mannie, Wyoh, and Prof start a new revolutionary movement organized along the cell plan, with themselves as the executive cell, to replace the spy-riddled underground.

The story now becomes an account of the progress of the revolution, with a fascinating treatment of the problems faced in financing the revolution, arousing the populace against the Lunar Authority and the Warden, weakening the Authority’s confidence, preparing for the defense of Luna from the Federated Nations (FN), and recruiting Terran supporters, especially the wealthy and influential Stu LaJoie. Two of the rebels’ greatest assets are the political and tactical expertise of Prof, a professional revolutionary who believes that “revolution is a science only a few are competent to practice,” and Mike, who can store and retrieve more information and collate data faster than any human mind. Since Mike controls many government functions, he can arrange secret communications, disrupt the Authorities’ activities, and monitor the Warden’s secret files. At one point, Mike, at Prof’s suggestion, creates a heroic mystery-man persona, Adam Selene, to serve as the figurehead for the revolution.

The novel also gives the reader a detailed look at Luna home life and customs with Mannie as guide, since he is still engaged in his usual activities while organizing the revolution. The actual revolt against the Warden is easily accomplished when Mike turns off the air in the Lunar Authority’s stronghold, thus killing or incapacitating the Warden and his guards. The remainder of the novel deals with Luna’s creation of a new government and its war against the FN. Eventually the Loonies win their freedom, and with it, greater economic opportunities, but the principle of tanstaafl gives way to government regulation. Prof dies from heart strain shortly after Lunar independence is recognized. Mike’s consciousness is apparently destroyed during a bombing raid. Mannie, having reviewed the events of the revolution, is plagued by doubts about its ultimate success and about the fate of Mike and Prof, but his confidence in himself and in the universe still continues, as he contemplates moving to the newly colonized asteroid belt.

The Characters

Ironically, the most interesting, sympathetic, and human character in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is the sentient computer Mike. On one hand, he is a deus ex machina who organizes, finances, and leads the Loonie revolt. On the other hand, he is a child with great knowledge but no real understanding of human beings. His great desires at the beginning of the novel are to comprehend the illogical nature of humor and to find friends, both of which are satisfied by his involvement with the revolution. Mike is an intriguing combination of vulnerability and supreme competence, somewhat like the youthful misfit geniuses in earlier Heinlein stories such as “Waldo” and “Misfit.” The origins of Mike’s consciousness are never fully determined. His whole existence may be simply a cosmic joke. This allows Heinlein to make interesting speculations on the nature of intelligence, humanity, and man’s place in the universe. Mannie does not claim that Mike is truly human because he cannot find a workable definition of humanity. Rather, the friendship that he has for the computer makes it human for all practical purposes. When Mannie, addressing a God he may or may not actually believe in, asks if a computer is one of His creatures, he implicitly grants Mike the tragic status of being human.

Mike’s first and closest friend, appropriately, is Mannie, who is himself partly a machine: He has lost an arm in a mining accident, and he replaces it with various prosthetic devices for different occasions. The reader views the story through Mannie’s eyes, and the entire novel is told in Mannie’s dialect, which reads like English with a variety of foreign words and Russian syntax, reflecting the multinational population of Luna. Mannie is in many ways the typical Heinlein hero—competent, skeptical, gallant, loyal, and tough-minded. Though he regards himself as pragmatic and unheroic, he is capable of performing dangerous and difficult tasks. In the presence of such powerful and unusual personalities as Mike, Prof, and Wyoh, he seems to be outclassed, but this simply adds to his function in the novel. As a narrator, he has a hardheaded approach to events and an appreciation of life’s ludicrous side that enable him to see and tell events from more than one perspective, to avoid being swept away by revolutionary idealism. He also functions as a guide to Lunar society by giving the reader a view of Luna from an insider who has also experienced Terran life.

Professor Bernardo de la Paz, the mastermind of the revolution, is a scholar, philosopher, professional revolutionary, and devoted horseplayer. He is that familiar character in Heinlein’s fiction, the wise old man who guides the inexperienced heroes to their goals. Prof outlines the major strategic and tactical guidelines of the revolution, based on his wide reading and experiences. Much of his effort is directed at producing the correct psychological conditions necessary for the revolution’s success—confidence and solidarity in the Loonies, fear and indecision in their enemies. Prof also expounds the philosophy of rational anarchy, a kind of rugged individualism which holds that the State has no moral status save as a collection of self-responsible individuals. Though he is a brilliant manipulator of people, he is completely opposed to coercion. Prof is not an ivory-tower intellectual but a practical, worldly man with an insatiable love of learning. As intellectual spokesman for the Loonies’ revolt, he emulates Thomas Jefferson, whom he calls “the first rational anarchist.”

Though the character of Wyoming Knott is not as well developed as that of Prof, Mannie, or Mike, she emerges as a competent, independent, yet sensitive woman who engages the reader’s sympathy and respect. She first appears as an organizer for the underground and, as a member of the executive cell, takes an active role in the fight for independence. Wyoh, as well as other females in the novel, show that Heinlein can create intelligent, strong women, contrary to the views of some of his critics.

Critical Context

With Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, and a handful of others, Robert Heinlein is a writer whose career has spanned the decades from science fiction’s golden age to its flourishing state in the 1980’s. Heinlein’s career can be divided into two sharply distinct phases. In the period from his first published story, in 1939, through the many stories and novels that followed up to 1961, Heinlein was (in the words of Algis Budrys) “a crisp, slick wordsmith of uncommon intelligence and subtlety.” In 1961, Heinlein published a different kind of book, Stranger in a Strange Land. This novel, which became one of the cult classics of the 1960’s and eventually sold in the millions, set the pattern for such subsequent works as Time Enough for Love (1973), The Number of the Beast (1980), Friday (1982), and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985): novels constructed to permit Heinlein ample opportunity to discourse on his favorite topics, particularly the natural aristocracy of genius.

Not all readers share the generally low critical estimate of the “new” Heinlein— indeed, most of his later novels have been best-sellers—but few will deny that there is a definite dividing line in his career. In this neat schema, however, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is something of an anomaly. Although published after Stranger in a Strange Land, it has many of the virtues of the “old” Heinlein, including superb pacing and a carefully worked-out account of a future society. It argues many of the ideas that are the raison d’etre of the later novels, but it does so in the context of the story: The action is not a pretext for philosophizing. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress was awarded a Hugo for Best Novel, and many critics regard it as one of Heinlein’s finest works.

Bibliography

Franklin, H. Bruce. Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. A critical study written from a Marxist viewpoint.

Olander, Joseph D., and Martin H. Greenberg, eds. Robert A. Heinlein. New York: Taplinger, 1978. A collection of essays on Heinlein and his work.

Panshin, Alexei. Heinlein in Dimension. Chicago: Advent Publishers, 1974. One of the best and most critically perceptive studies of Heinlein; includes a chronological bibliography of his science fiction.

Parkin-Speer, Diane. “Almost a Feminist: Robert A. Heinlein.” Extrapolation 36 (Summer, 1995): 113-125. Parkin-Speer examines Heinlein’s depiction of women in his novels, whom he portrays as strong, self-determining, independent, and intelligent. Heinlein rejected many of the patriarchical modes of conduct and envisioned roles for women beyond the spheres of marriage and motherhood.

Slusser, George E. The Classic Years of Robert A. Heinlein. San Bernardino, Calif.: Borgo Press, 1977. Contains a bibliography.

Slusser, George E. Robert A. Heinlein: Stranger in His Own Land. San Bernardino, Calif.: Borgo Press, 1976. Slusser provides a good general review of the work covered.

Stover, Leon E. Robert A. Heinlein. Boston: Twayne, 1987. Stover provides a critical and interpretive study of Heinlein with a close reading of his major works, a solid bibliography, and complete notes and references.