The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Robert A. Heinlein
I waited a long time to read this book, and I was a little disappointed. I guess if many people say that it is one of the best science fiction books ever, how can you live up to that? This is my 3rd Heinlein book, and I’d say that it falls in the middle between Starship Troopers (very good) and Stranger in a Strange Land (quite disappointing). I could identify with all the characters in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but it was less a sci-fi book than it was a political revolution thriller, with a sci-fi back-drop. Now that’s not completely fair, since one of the main characters was an intelligent computer, but it was mostly about revolution.
As a book written in the early 1960’s (and read in 2016), Heinlein did a decent job of predicting the future. He correctly predicts that China is a major player in the future (not the case in the 1960s). He also predicts artificial intelligence nicely, and his description of living life on the moon was very accurate and believable.
He also seems to see that software would be important in computing, but missed the decreasing size and importance of hardware - that would have been tough to guess.
All of the tech - like space suits and pressure domes under the surface - made sense, and so did the ability of lunar inhabitants to modify laser drills into weapons. Spaceships orbiting, orbital dynamics and trajectory were all well thought out.
Forgivably, he did get a few things wrong - he came up with this idea that being in space (or on the moon) for any amount of time physiologically changed your body forever, meaning that you could not return to Earth (but maybe he needed that for the story).
Disappointingly though, he got communications all wrong - telephone sets, cables and a central office will apparently always be needed; didn’t foresee anything like cell phones (certainly walkie-talkies were around in the 60’s; that could have been a hint). And newspapers were still a thing for the latest news, however, that may have been tough to guess in the 60s.
He also dreamed up social structures that were unique to the moon - where there were too many men and not enough women. The result was complex sharing marriages with multiple women and multiple (and more) men.
The story plodded along for a long while detailing the progress of the revolution. It wasn’t until the final 50 pages (of 300) where the action got intense. After that, it was quite good.
However, I think I’m done with Heinlein. Well, at least for the foreseeable future...
