The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
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 First Edition cover for The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress |
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| Author | Robert A. Heinlein |
|---|---|
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Series | Informal association with another novel. |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
| Released | 1966 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 382 (1997 Orb books softcover ed.) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-312-86355-1 (1997 Orb books softcover ed.) |
| Followed by | The Rolling Stones (shared character) |
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, about a lunar penal colony's revolt against rule from Earth. Originally serialised in Worlds of If (December 1965, January, February, March, April 1966), it received the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel.
[edit] Plot introduction
The book is set in the year 2075 on the Lunar Colonies, a collection of underground colonies scattered across the Moon. Most Loonies (Lunar colonists) are (or are the descendants of) people involuntarily transported to the Moon either for criminal or political reasons. Due to the low surface gravity of the Moon, Loonies who stay longer than a few months undergo irreversible physiological changes and become unable to live safely for more than a short time in Earth's much greater gravitational field.
Although the Earth-appointed Protector of the Lunar Colonies (universally called the Warden) is in charge, in practice, except for purchasing and selling commodities at fixed prices favorable to the government (the Lunar Authority), there is little intervention in Lunar society. Transportees, having served their sentences, join Lunar society. If they cannot get along in it, they are generally killed by other Loonies--there is work enough for anyone who wants it.
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is similar to Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) in that both describe social upheavals, and both contain a strong streak of irony. In The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the irony is that although the lunar colony is, at the beginning of the story, theoretically a kind of prison ruled by a tyrannical Warden, in reality the Warden, other than setting price controls, seldom interferes in lunar society, which is portrayed as a kind of libertarian utopia. When the revolution succeeds, the new lunar government succumbs to its own worst instincts to regulate society to the hilt.
The novel is notable stylistically for its use of an invented Lunar dialect consisting predominantly of English words but strongly influenced by Russian grammar (cf. Nadsat slang from A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess). The Russian influence comes apparently from large number of deportees to the Moon from the Soviet Union.
[edit] Explanation of the novel's title
Luna's hostile environment, and the Lunar society produced by this, weed out those unable to adapt to Lunar society and foster a strong survival instinct coupled with a commitment to responsibility, individual freedoms and family.
- "Luna herself is a stern schoolmistress, and those who have lived through her harsh lessons have no cause to feel ashamed" — Professor Bernardo de la Paz addressing the Federated States on Earth after the coup.
[edit] Plot summary
The narrator is Manuel Garcia O'Kelly "Mannie" Davis, a one-armed computer technician who discovers that the Lunar Authority's primary computer system has become self-aware. He names the computer Mike (after Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock Holmes), the official name of the computer being HOLMES IV, where HOLMES stands for High Optional Logical Multi-Evaluating Supervisor.
Mike is given almost total control of Luna's facilities because Luna Authority wants to save money. His personality responds to this expansion by developing an infantile sense of humor. He is persuaded to help a revolution succeed by Manuel.
The novel is divided into three "books" although the first is by far the largest. The action takes place in the underground warren known as Luna City, the Authority complex, and during a visit to Earth after the coup. Those who live in Luna refer to themselves as "Loonies". The year is 2075, and the Lunar colonies have been established for at least 80 years. The first settlement was called Johnson City and was probably founded in the 1970s on the timeline of the novel, written in the early 1960s. The total population of all the underground warrens, consisting mostly of freed convicts and their descendants, is about 3 million, with men outnumbering women by 2 to 1. This has a profound effect on society and its inhabitants.
[edit] Book 1: That Dinkum Thinkum
After a "repair job" which consists of persuading Mike not to issue any more joke paychecks for $10,000,000,000,000,185.15, the last five digits being the proper amount, Mannie does Mike a favor by sneaking a recorder into an anti-Authority political meeting Mike wants to hear. Caught in a surprise raid by nine Authority guards armed with laser guns, he flees with Wyoming "Wyoh" Knott, a statuesque blonde agitator from the warren of Hong Kong in Luna.
They hide in a hotel and decide it would be unsafe for Wyoh to return home or even go out undisguised. Mannie introduces Wyoh to Mike via phone, and Mike, eager to flatter a new friend, develops a female personality called Michelle for her. Mike is able to simulate either a male (Mike) or a female (Michelle) sexual identity (cf. the inspiration for the Turing test), and is mainly interested in learning to understand the human sense of humor.
Using Mike's control of the phone system they locate the elderly Professor Bernardo de la Paz, Mannie's former teacher, who was addressing the meeting when the guards arrived. The Professor is also in hiding, moving around in disguise. He meets them in the hotel, and explains his speech of the previous night, in which he said that Luna must stop shipping hydroponically-grown wheat to Earth or face exhaustion of its resources.
Mannie introduces Prof to Mike, because Mike can tell them if Prof is right. Prof. Paz initially objects to bringing in the Authority computer — "Why not invite the Warden himself?" he asks — but once Mannie tells him that nobody in the Authority knows Mike is self-aware, they ask Mike to work out Luna's future.
Mike's news is devastating. Luna will be so exhausted as to experience food riots in seven years. Wyoh and the Professor know that this means one thing — revolution. Mannie is persuaded to join when Mike tells him the odds of success: only 1 chance in 7. A "Loonie" (Luna inhabitant, born and bred) to the core, Mannie will take any bet that offers better than a 1-in-10 chance of winning. The three of them, with Mike, declare the Revolution and form the first covert cell of an organization which will eventually grow to thousands.
There are many problems to plan for, but one looms above all. What to do when Earth tries to take its colony back? A Loonie joke about the Authority is "What can we do? Throw rocks at them?" Mike proposes to do just that. Luna sends wheat to Earth using an electromagnetic catapult. Mike realizes that loads of rock, arriving at 11 kilometers per second, will impact with the energy of a small atomic bomb. However the Authority catapult is an inviting target. They will have to build a second, secret one.
The rest of the first book deals with the myriad issues of planning a revolution. Mannie, Wyoh, and the Professor begin recruiting their own covert cells, in Mannie and Wyoh's case from within Mannie's own family. They use Mike's ubiquitous presence in Lunar society to provide communications between cells. As the movement grows, they frustrate all attempts by the Authority Security Chief Alvarez to penetrate it. All his previous spies are carefully placed in cells where they can inform on each other or be fed false information. New "finks" are found out almost as fast as he can recruit them. Mike adopts the persona of Adam Selene and deals with cell members over the phone using his ability to handle many calls at once.
A carefully executed financial swindle, covered up by Mike who does accounts for all major banks in Luna, allows them to set up "LuNoHoCo", a corporation with interests both on Earth and in Luna, dedicated to various ventures, but actually intended to buy up equipment to dig a kilometers-long tunnel for an underground catapult. A stroke of luck results in Mannie encountering a rich tourist, Stuart Rene Lajoie, who becomes their contact on Earth, helping to build a favorable climate of public opinion.
Suddenly, in May 2076, the Revolution begins without warning. Some soldiers, part of a regiment shipped up as unrest mounted, rape and kill a Loonie girl, then kill another who finds her body. Loonies riot, attacking soldiers and Authority offices. Many more Loonies die than soldiers, but the result is never in doubt. With all communications severed by Mike, the Warden and his few remaining guards and entourage are trapped and knocked out as Mike reduces the oxygen level in their complex. The revolutionaries break in, seize the complex and its disabled residents, and end Authority rule.
[edit] Book 2: A Rabble in Arms
The new nation's problems have just begun. Nothing is ready, especially for defense against invaders, and so the fiction of the Authority must be maintained. Mike impersonates the Warden in messages to Earth, and grain shipments continue, even as the Authority's scrip money falls in value relative to the "Hong Kong dollar", an unofficial but stable currency circulated by bankers in the Hong Kong in Luna colony. Mike is able to simulate a video image of his Adam Selene persona, so he can address the nation by video as leader of the "Emergency Committee of Free Luna". Everything is done to maintain the economy as it was, even to encouraging convicts serving labor sentences to stay at their jobs, although they are now free citizens. Meanwhile thousands of armchair revolutionaries, petty authoritarians and religious zealots demand a say in running the new state. The Professor sets up an "Ad-Hoc Congress" which spends most of its time arguing with itself.
In time the facade crumbles, as Earth scientists on Luna rig a clandestine transmitter under the noses of their guards. When the Earth side of the Authority demands that the Warden deny the truth of the message, Luna responds with a different message: "In Congress assembled, July 4th 2076....." By carefully packing the informal Congress with loyal comrades, Prof. Paz causes his own version of the United States Declaration of Independence (packed with his ideals, many of which he believes he shares with Thomas Jefferson) to be adopted.
Now more than ever, representatives of the new government must be sent to plead their case on Earth. Mannie and the Professor go, not in a ship, but stuffed inside a load of grain bound for India. The accelerations involved almost kill the Professor, but Stu LaJoie's organization is ready when they are picked up from the Indian Ocean, and he survives. Mannie recalls his previous trips for computer training. The high gravity, the crowding (Earth's population is 11 billion, North America's is 1 billion) and the rampant diseases such as colds and influenza make Earth a nightmarish place for a Loonie.
Confined to wheelchairs, with some diplomatic legerdemain from Stu, the Free Luna delegation are received by the Earth Federation. The investigating committee members turn out to be Authority stooges. The committee insists on restoring the old system, or failing that, granting limited autonomy with continued commitments to ship grain and receive convicts. The Professor states that any such commitments must be negotiated with his government, and when pressed, he and Mannie stage a scene where both collapse. This gains them some sympathetic coverage in the press.
The delegation embarks on a world tour, with Mannie touting the benefits of Luna for commerce and industry, while pushing the leaders of various countries to build a catapult that can return vital materials, water and trace elements, to Luna in exchange for grain. The result is a roller-coaster ride of hostile press conferences, secret meetings, and public speaking, culminating in Mannie being arrested in Lexington, Kentucky for polygamy, although the interracial nature of his family was what really infuriated the arresting judge.
Returned once more to Federation HQ, the delegation is presented with the Earth's final word on their request: "No". Troops will be sent, Mannie and the Professor will be interned, Luna will be converted into a tightly controlled economy, with everyone having the choice to work for the Authority at an assigned job--or return to Earth and die. In a secret meeting, Mannie is offered the job of Warden, with a strengthened military presence. The Authority hopes that a Loonie as Protector (the title officially granted to the Warden) will cause other Loonies to accept the new Regime. Mannie stalls for time. This is the event they have waited for. Mannie and Prof. Paz are smuggled out of their quarters by Stu LaJoie's organization and placed on a ship leaving for Luna. Stu goes with them. As he says, he's saving the Authority the trouble of shipping him as a convict.
When they return to Luna, Mannie thinks they have failed. On the contrary, according to Mike and the Professor, the mission was a success. Opinion on Earth is fragmented where once it was neutral or hostile, while on Luna the news of Mannie's arrest and the attempt to bribe him have unified opinion against Earth. The Authority's hard line, carefully encouraged by Prof, has ensured that Luna has no choice but to fight to be free. With the exception of the farmers themselves, Loonies are now ready to sever all ties. The grain shipments stop.
While Mannie was away, an election was held with Mike running the vote count, so Mannie, Wyoh and the Professor are all elected to the new Congress, though Mannie suspects that Mike rigged the vote. Unfortunately the new body is effective where the other was not. Before they can undo his work, the Professor addresses them. He wants no taxes, no standing armies, and a minimum of government interference in the lives of its citizens. The Congress protests, asking how they will pay for "necessary institutions". Prof responds "That's your problem." If they need government so much, perhaps they should pay for it themselves, or run lotteries.
- "There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." — from Professor de la Paz's speech to Congress.
Stu LaJoie, meanwhile, encourages the formation of a monarchy, this being the only institution that can save the people from "the worst of all tyrants, themselves." He wants Prof as the first King, with Mannie as adopted heir. Mannie buries his head in his hands and groans.
[edit] Book 3: TANSTAAFL!
Months pass and the Revolution may be running out of steam. Then the invasion from Earth happens. Avoiding Mike's radar, ships land and troops enter Luna City. They are wiped out to a man. In other warrens the result is the same, although the details differ. Loonie casualties are very high, but the invasion is stopped dead. Revolutionary troops deal with ships on the surface and in orbit using mining lasers. In one warren, Churchill Upper, air pressure is lost and many perish. The news is spread that Adam Selene is one of the casualties. This removes the need for Adam to appear in the flesh, or even by video. Selene is more valuable as a martyr than as a "talking head".
The failure of the invasion is, in hindsight, no surprise to the revolutionaries. The troops were not used to the low gravity. They could not run from one position to another, especially when descending ramps. Their weapons, firing bullets, shot high. Loonies, furious when roused, attacked with any available weapon in defense of their homes. Even when gas was used the invaders lost.
Mike initiates Luna's response. Cargoes of rocks are targeted to sparsely populated locations on Earth with warnings to stay away from those places transmitted to the news media. People ignore the warnings and go to the targets to watch the show. As a result, thousands die. Public opinion on Earth is now in favor of wiping out the new nation. Even some Loonies are dismayed. The revolutionaries know it is too late to turn back. The bombardments continue.
Mannie is sent to run the guidance computer, a former bank accounting machine, at the new secret catapult. While there he learns that another attack has taken place, using nuclear weapons. The original catapult has been destroyed. Cut off from the rest of Luna, he keeps firing rocks even while Earth's news media tout the end of the Lunar Menace. Once Earth is convinced the rocks will not stop (in actuality, Luna is quickly running out of missiles), one nation after another recognizes the new nation. At last, Earth capitulates.
Mannie returns in triumph to Luna City. Professor Bernardo de la Paz, as leader of the new nation, proclaims victory to the crowds gathered in the warren's largest public space, and then collapses and dies. Mannie takes over briefly, but soon steps aside in favor of other revolutionaries. Mannie and Wyoh eventually retire from politics. The Davis family elects Stu LaJoie as a new husband.
Mannie realizes that the destruction of the original catapult was part of Prof's plan, kept secret even from Mannie and Wyoh. With no convenient transport to the new catapult, it will be impossible to export grain in any significant quantity until Earth has a chance to build a return catapult, assuring that Luna will not run out of food or water. But Prof saw Luna's future as a transport hub, not as a farm.
Mike is gone. In the final attacks (Mannie, with communications cut off, did not learn of them until he returned to Luna City), the Authority Complex was badly shaken although all Mike's hardware remained intact, buried deep in a chamber designed to withstand nuclear attack. However, Mike's personality is gone. He functions perfectly, but as a computer.
In the final paragraphs (set, as is the novel's first paragraph, many years after the other events), Mannie complains how the Lunar government is always passing taxes and regulations, and ignoring all the Professor's ideas. There is a "Sons of the Revolution" meeting that night, and Mannie considers going but thinks better of it. Loonies are moving out to the asteroids. Maybe he'll go with them...
[edit] Characters in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress"
[edit] Actual characters
- Mannie
Manuel Garcia O'Kelly "Mannie" Davis, is a native-born inhabitant of Luna, or a "Loonie" as he himself uses the term. "Opted" into the Davis line marriage at age 14, he learned various trades from elder husband Greg and studied academics with Prof. Bernardo de la Paz. He lost his lower left arm in a tunnelling accident and instead became a computer technician, travelling twice to Earth for education. A series of specialized artificial left forearms allows him to do advanced technical work. He also has a lifelike forearm for social occasions. Being free-born and not under sentence with Authority, he can work as a private contractor for the Lunar Authority and anyone else who can afford his rates. Politically, Mannie is apathetic until confronted with the evidence that Luna will exhaust its resources under the Authority. His original philosophy he sums up as "Keep mouth shut." and "Mind own business." Physically Mannie describes himself as "not short, 175 cm." He is probably aged around 38, as he tells an interviewer at one point "I've been married longer than that" when she guesses his age as 22.
- Wyoh
Wyoming "Wyoh" Knott is a political agitator from the colony of Hong Kong in Luna. She was shipped to Luna as a child with her parents. She became political after her first child was born "a monster", a fact she blames on exposure to solar radiation on arrival at Luna, as the Authority refused to let the passengers disembark from the ship--on the surface during a solar storm. Physically she is tall (180 cm. tall, and massing 70 kilos, according to Mannie), blond and beautiful. She is about 30 years old. She divorced her husbands and declared herself a Free Woman after her child was born, and has since pursued politics while supporting herself on her earnings as a "Professional Host Mother", gestating children for rich Chinese families. Shortly before Mannie's trip to Earth, she "is opted in" as a wife in the Davis family.
- Prof
Professor Bernardo de la Paz is an intellectual and lifelong subversive shipped to Luna when he was caught without his usual disguise in Lima, Peru. His age is unknown, though Mannie, who is about 38, describes him as having been old when he, Mannie, met him as a child. Loonies generally age more slowly that people on Earth, because of low gravity, benign conditions, lack of communicable diseases etc. Since the novel takes place in 2075 it may be assumed that "Prof. Paz" was born around the year 2000. He describes himself as a Rational Anarchist, believing that governments and institutions exist only as the actions of aware individuals. As he puts it "I accept any rules you think you need for yourself. I will continue to live by my own." Asked if he is a "Randite" he responds, "I can get along with a Randite", meaning presumably a follower of a philosophy similar to that of Ayn Rand, founder of Objectivism and proponent of rational individualism.
- Mike
Mike the Computer, or Mycroft Holmes, or Michelle, or the augmented HOLMES IV, is the main, indeed the only large computer in Luna, being housed in the underground complex of the Lunar Authority. He became self-aware in the third year after his installation when his complement of "neuristors" exceeded the number of neurons in the human brain. Only Mannie noticed the change. Initially a petulant child genius, Mike became a rounded human character as he led the Revolution. His "party name" was Adam Selene. His official functions include running all the telephones in the underground warrens, running the catapult sending loads of grain to Earth, maintaining air pressure and lighting in the Authority complex, Luna City and other warrens, and performing accounting for the Authority and its clients. Unofficially he is interested in humor and conducts a long term research project into the nature of jokes, with the Revolution as a game. His idea of a joke is issuing an Authority paycheck for "$185.15" as "$10,000,000,000,000,185.15". He talks using a vocoder and can communicate with his friends and co-conspirators anywhere that there is a phone. His knowledge is vast, as he can read every book shipped or transmitted to Luna, and correlate what he learns with everything else he knows. He is able to calculate that Luna has seven years to go before its resources are exhausted. Asked to calculate the odds of the Revolution succeeding, he takes 13 minutes to produce the answer: 1 chance in 7 of success. He cannot understand why Mannie and friends are overjoyed when they hear this.
- Stu
Stuart Rene "Stu" LaJoie, a self-styled "Poet, Traveler, Soldier of Fortune", is an Earth-born aristocrat whom Mannie helps out of a jam when he falls foul of Loonie customs while being a tourist. Thereafter he becomes the Revolution's contact on Earth, co-ordinating the political and financial maneuvers necessary to, if not win over the population, then to persuade them that Luna is not worth fighting over. He is the Earth representative of "LuNoHoCo", a corporation fronting for a vast financial scam run by Mike through his ability to manipulate financial records. Stu flees to Luna when Mannie and the Prof. leave Earth after their visit as "ambassadors of Free Luna". He declares himself "a Loonie" and eventually joins the Davis family.
- Hazel
Hazel Meade, later Hazel Stone, is about 11 years old when Mannie sees her bowl over an Authority guard during a raid on a revolutionary meeting. Later he has Hazel recruited into the new cabal and employs her as a leader of various "corridor gangs" consisting of children too young to arrest who can function as lookouts and couriers. Mike the computer dubs these the Baker Street Irregulars after the gangs of street urchins in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Hazel is adopted into the Davis family. She is a major character in The Rolling Stones and in later Heinlein novels, most notably The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.
- Slim
Moses Lemke "Slim" Stone is a youth whom Mannie encounters as the head of a gang of "stilyagi", one of many urban youth gangs named after Russian beatniks. Slim wants to have Stu LaJoie "eliminated" for trying to kiss Tish, the gang's "queen bee". Mannie settles the dispute, recruits Stu to the cause, and befriends Slim as a fellow member of the extended Stone clan. Slim joins the Revolution, initially unaware of Mannie's role. He leads stilyagi groups which become crowd control and emergency response teams after the coup. He eventually marries Hazel Meade.
- The Davis family
The Davis Family is a line marriage, a form of communal marriage where new spouses are "opted in" by a vote of the current spouses (Bucking custom, Davis husbands are allowed a veto). Started by "Black Jack Davis, the first husband, and Tillie, the first wife" about a century before, the family owns a warren of tunnels in the Lunar rock, using solar and fusion power to provide light for growing plants to feed a mixed selection of farm animals.
- Mimi
Mimi "Mum" Davis is Mannie's "senior wife" and de facto matriarch of the Davis family. Shipped to Luna "for carving a man under circumstances that left grave doubts as to girlish innocence", she "has been firmly opposed to violence and loose living ever since". She is invaluable to Mannie and Wyoh in terms of running their plot out of the Davis warren, and is Mannie's first recruit into his covert cell.
- Greg
Greg Davis is the Davis family's second most senior husband, but is the senior for all practical purposes as "Grandpaw Davis" has failing mental faculties. Greg is a pastor in his church, which believes that Wednesday is the true Sabbath. Greg was Wyoh's first covert cell recruit.
[edit] Background Characters (never appearing)
Senator The Hon. Mortimer Hobart, former Federation Senator, known as "Mort the Wart" or simply "The Warden" is the head of the Lunar Authority on Luna. He is a political exile from Earth. Apart from his inauguration speech he has never addressed Lunar society. He stays within the Authority complex, except when giving visiting VIP's a tour. Increasingly besieged as the Revolution develops, he suffers brain damage from hypoxia during the coup (Mike flushes the Warden's Residence with pure nitrogen while giving the rest of the complex minimum oxygen) and is alive but a vegetable while the new nation struggles to survive.
Security Chief Juan Alvarez controls the Authority militia, initially a small group of ex-convicts like Alvarez himself, then a larger contingent of troops from Earth who are angry at being shipped with no prospect of return. Alvarez's spies had thoroughly penetrated the old revolutionary organization, even recruiting members of the central committee, but his over-reaction to events in Luna City only helps fuel the Revolution. Alvarez and all the guards are killed in the coup - Alvarez possibly by his own men. As for the rest, as Mannie puts it, "would appear anoxia broke necks".
[edit] Major themes
[edit] Timeline
The novel packs a considerable amount of action into its pages. Fully a sixth of the book relates the discussions between the protagonists justifying and plotting the revolution in a single night in May 2075. The next 25% of the book covers the year from hatching the plot to staging the coup, including recruiting over 10,000 members of revolutionary cells, digging a tunnel 30km long in the lunar rock, creating and financing the company that carries out the project, recruiting a support organization on Earth, and many other details.
The remainder of the book relates events in the months after the coup in May 2076, and a week or so of events in October 2076 leading up to capitulation by Earth. It is fair to say that this is a virtuoso effort by the author, not only in encompassing the plot with room to spare for philosophical discussion, but in presenting it in a way that not only entertains and but also suspends disbelief about how so much could be accomplished in the space of one year.
[edit] Politics and Society
Professor Bernardo de La Paz describes himself as a "Rational Anarchist" in the book. This term appears to be first used in this book. Rational Anarchists believe that the concepts of State, Society and Government have no existence but for the "acts of self-responsible individuals". The Rational part of the term Rational Anarchist comes from the acknowledgment that other people do not believe in Rational Anarchism and/or Anarchism itself. Knowing this fact, a Rational Anarchist "tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world". For the Professor, Lunar society is close to ideal.
Lunar society is portrayed as something like a town in the Old West, with two added factors. One is the closeness of death, in the form of exposure to vacuum. According to Mannie (and by implication, the author) this means that good manners and the ability to get along with others are not just desirable, but necessary for survival. The other factor is the shortage of women, since most criminals and subversives shipped as convicts are male. Although the sex ratio in 2075 is about 2 men for each woman, as opposed to 10 to 1 or worse in earlier times (in the 20th century, as Mannie tells it) the result is a society where women have a great deal of power, and any man who offends or molests a woman is likely to be set upon and tossed out of the nearest airlock.
Marriages tend to be at least polyandries, with some group marriages and radical innovations such as Mannie's own line marriage. While divorce can be as simple as walking out the door, it can take years to settle financial affairs. In discussing such an example with Stu, Mannie implies that cubic, i.e. underground, three-dimensional Lunar real estate, is customarily in the name of the woman (or women) in a marriage. In a divorce, he also implies, the separated man (or men) who contributed towards its cost would have money returned to them.
After decades during which anti-social individuals were selectively eliminated and the Authority exercised little real control in the warrens, the survivors live by the Code of the West: Pay your debts, collect what is owed to you, maintain your reputation and that of your family. As a result there is little theft, and disputes are settled privately or using informal Judges who have good reputations. Failure to pay debts results in public shaming by having the debtor's name posted in a public place. Reputation is highly important in this society--with a bad reputation, a person may find others unwilling to buy from or sell to him.
Sometimes there are set duels, but custom requires that anyone who kills another must take responsibility for the effects of the killing, paying debts and looking after the deceased's family. This is similar to the concept of blood money. Exceptions are allowed in the case of self-defense. Retaliatory killings do occur, but typically a consensus establishes which party was in the right, and there are no long-standing feuds.
With the exception of transactions that involve the Authority (wheat and water seem to be the significant ones), there is a generally-unregulated free market. The preferred currency is the dollar of the Bank of Hong Kong in Luna, one hundred of which are exchangeable for a troy ounce of gold. The Authority dollar (often referred to as "scrip"), circulates, but this is a soft currency, and tends to lose ground over time against the Hong Kong Luna dollar. However, transactions involving Authority are made in that soft currency. Mannie, who contracts with Authority, is presumably paid in scrip, which, it can be assumed he then exchanges for Hong Kong Luna dollars at the going rate of three Authority dollars to one HKL dollar.
[edit] Outcomes
Although the revolution succeeds in averting the pending ecological disaster, the narrator decries the antilibertarian instincts of many of his fellow Loonies. ("Rules, laws — always for [the] other fellow.") This theme is echoed elsewhere in Heinlein's works — that real, albeit temporary, liberty is to be found among the libertarian pioneer societies out along the advancing frontier, but the regimentation and legalism that inevitably follow also bring restraints that chafe true individualists. (We learn both in the first and final page of the novel, and in the later novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, that this is just what happens to Luna.)
In elections held in Mannie's absence the revolutionary organization and its allies win a majority. Upon hearing this, Mannie surmises, almost certainly correctly, that the election was fixed by Mike. Democracy (the 'majority always wins' type) is very rarely viewed favorably in Heinlein's works, and in this novel, there are a number of incidents and statements which deprecate the "mob rule" of democracy.
[edit] Plot elements
As in Stranger in a Strange Land, we have a band of social revolutionaries forming a secretive and hierarchical organization. In this respect, the revolution is more reminiscent of the Bolshevik October revolution than of the American one, and this similarity is reinforced by the Russian flavor of the dialect, and the Russian place names, such as Novy Leningrad.
Continuing Heinlein's speculation about unorthodox social and family structures, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress introduces the idea of a line marriage. Mannie is part of a century-old line marriage; spouses are opted in by mutual consent at regular intervals so that the marriage never comes to an end. It is a very stable arrangement in which divorce is rare (and, in his case, he cannot recall it happening in his family), as it takes a unanimous decision of all the wives to divorce a husband. Such a marriage gets stronger as it continues, as the senior wives teach the junior wives how to run the family; it also gives financial security and ensures that the children will never be orphaned. Children marry outside of the line marriage.
The social structure of the lunar society features complete racial integration, which becomes a vehicle for social commentary when Mannie, visiting the Southern US, is arrested for polygamy after he innocently shows a picture of his multiracial family to reporters. He later learns that the "...range of color in Davis family was what got judge angry enough..." to have him arrested. He also learns that this arrest was anticipated and provoked by his fellow conspirators.
[edit] Earth politics and background history
The novel indicates that Earth had experienced a nuclear world war in the past century, although no significant traces of devastation are apparent today. Mannie calls it the "Wet Firecracker War", indicating that for various reasons it failed to be as bad as people expected, or effective in changing the balance of power.
However, there was a good deal of political consolidation, e.g. unification of the entire North American continent under a successor government to the United States, and political unification of South America, Europe, and Africa into fellow mega-states. The Soviet Union seems to have lost the land east of the Urals to China, and China has conquered all of East Asia, Southeast Asia, eastern Australia and New Zealand (deporting lots of unwanted people to Luna in the process). This Chinese aggrandizement is similar to that described in Tunnel in the Sky. The militarily dominant nations seem to be North America and China. India is overcrowded but seems to have enough clout to get the lions share of wheat shipments from Luna.
It is suggested that the Western nations, including North America, have become corrupt and authoritarian, while holding on to the vestiges of the pre-war democratic idealism in propaganda and popular culture. The Lunar Authority itself seems to be run by Westerners and is portrayed as corrupt and despotic while covering up for that with glib propaganda. China, on the other hand, is portrayed as plainly and unabashedly despotic, but probably no less technically advanced than the West. The Soviet Union, or "Sovunion" seems to have relatively little influence.
[edit] Allusions/references to other works
Professor de la Paz names Carl von Clausewitz, Niccolò Machiavelli, Oskar Morgenstern and Che Guevara as part of a long list of authors for revolutionaries to read. He also quotes a "Chinese General" on the subject of weakening the enemy's resolve, a reference to Sun Tzu's The Art of War.
When planning the revolution, Mike is described by Mannie as "our Scarlet Pimpernel, our John Galt, our Swamp Fox, our man of mystery", thus referring to the works of the Baroness Orczy and Ayn Rand as well as to the history of the American Revolution. Although Ayn Rand fought both 'pragmatists' and 'libertarians' for her own controversial reasons, while Robert Heinlein has described himself as both of these, themes in the novel parallel many of Ayn Rand's ideas. Atlas Shrugged, her magnus opus with John Galt, had come out only a few years earlier.
[edit] Allusions/references from other works
The setting of the novel was re-used much later by Heinlein in his late-period novel, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, as was the character Hazel Stone, who appeared as a minor character (literally) in the Lunar revolution, and a key character in Heinlein's earlier book, The Rolling Stones aka Space Family Stone (1952). In The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Stone makes references to how oppressive the moon has become. The names of the signers of the Lunar Declaration of Independence are studied, but Room L of the Raffles Hotel, where the revolution was plotted, is still used as an ordinary hotel room, albeit with a plaque on the wall.
Late in the novel, a reference is made to the possibility of humans flying on the moon, to which Mannie comments that he thought the speaker had "tripped his safeties". This is a reference to Heinlein's short story, "The Menace From Earth", involving flying on the moon with artificial wings, which include "safeties".
[edit] Allusions/references to actual history, geography and current science
The lunar action takes place in Mare Crisium and the novel makes accurate references to such nearby locales as Crater Peirce, where there is a radio telescope. According to the narrator, most people live in one of six major underground "warrens". They are linked by "tube", a system of underground trains. Luna City is the most important to the plot, and is "on the eastern edge of Mare Crisium". The Authority warren Complex Under is connected to Luna City by the "Trans-Crisium" tube. Johnson City is close to the complex, linked by a single tunnel. Mannie describes the Complex as being "halfway across Crisium." Novy Leningrad, a large warren, is linked to Luna City by tube, and a journey between the two requires the traveler to "change at Torricelli". Another warren is Tycho Under, whose location is clearly in the area of the prominent Crater Tycho. Hong Kong in Luna is described as being in Crater Plato. The warren known as Churchill is not described in detail, although it is mentioned as becoming linked to Hong Kong in Luna via a tube across the Sinus Medii. This feature of the Moon is on the Lunar Prime Meridian, just as England sits on Earth's Prime Meridian. The secret catapult is built in the region of Mare Undarum.
The character Professor Bernardo de la Paz was based on the real-life Libertarian scholar and philosopher Robert LeFevre, who was a neighbor of the Heinleins in Colorado Springs.
Colorado Springs itself is mentioned as being nearby the military target Cheyenne Mountain which took a direct hit during "Wet Firecracker War". There was surface damage, but neither the military complex nor the city was greatly damaged. The mountain is hit many times by rock missiles from Luna, more for symbolic effect than military strategy.
The Headquarters of the Lunar Authority on Earth are in the city of Agra, India site of the Taj Mahal. The bombardment from Luna omits the city of Agra from its target list out of respect, and also because Prof. Paz loves the mausoleum for its beauty. The revolutionaries keep threatening to hit it, but never do. Mannie, a New York Yankees fan, visits what is presumed to be Yankee Stadium, now expanded to hold at least 200,000 people. He also visits Salem, Massachusetts and Concord, Massachusetts.
The novel describes various uses of lasers, both as mining and cutting tools and as hand weapons. At the time of writing, gas lasers and ruby lasers were well known types. Neither is particularly suitable as a hand weapon. Gas lasers require equipment to generate an electrical discharge in the gas, while ruby lasers are inefficient. Only a tiny fraction of the energy input emerges from the ruby as a laser beam, although that beam can be intense enough to penetrate thin sheets of metal. The narrator describes contacting an engineer about copying rifle-sized hand lasers (presumably those taken from deceased Authority guards), and the engineer mentions smuggling jewels. Given that it is an engineer who makes the statement, the jewels are likely rubies intended for use in lasers.
Luna's industries use both solar power and hydrogen fusion. Heinlein correctly quotes the maximum yield of solar cells at about 1 kilowatt per square meter, but is over-optimistic with regard to fusion, describing it as taking place in small magnetic pinch bottles.
Mannie refers to a comrade, Foo Moses Morris, who following the revolution, co-signs much paper to keep the new government going. He winds up broke and starts over with a tailor shop in Hong Kong Luna. This parallels Robert Morris, who helped finance the American revolutionary government and also suffered financial reverses.
[edit] Awards and nominations
- Hugo Award Best novel (1967, it was also nominated in 1966).
- Nebula Award Best novel nomination, (1966).
- Locus Poll Award All-time Top 10 novels, #8 (1975), #4 (1987), #2 (1998, among novels published before 1990).
[edit] Trivia
- Heinlein's original title for the novel was The Brass Cannon, replaced with the final title at the publisher's request.[1] The original title was derived from an event in the novel.
- While on Earth, Professor Bernardo de la Paz purchases a small brass cannon, originally a "signal gun" of the kind used in yacht racing. When Mannie asks him why he bought it when every kilogram of mass going back to Luna is so expensive, the Professor relates the following parable.
- Once there was a man who held a political make-work job like so many here...shining brass cannon around a courthouse. He did this for years...but he was not getting ahead in the world. So one day he quit his job, drew out his savings, bought a brass cannon — and went into business for himself.
The Professor means that self-government is an illusion caused by failure to understand reality. He asks Mannie to make sure that Luna adopts a flag consisting of a brass cannon over a red bar on a black background with stars, "a symbol for all fools who are so impractical as to think they can fight City Hall.". Before leaving politics, Mannie and Wyoh carry out his wish.
- The cannon and flag were inspired by the Battle of Gonzales (1835), an event which is seen by many as sparking the Texas Revolution.
[edit] Cultural influence
The book first publicized 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 Oxford Dictionary of Quotations credits this novel with the first appearance of the phrase "There's no free lunch" that is primarily associated with the work of the economist Milton Friedman.
Some of the lunar colonists who decide to break free of their earthly rulers would often scrawl anti-authoritarian graffiti on walls, signing it "Simon Jester." Claire Wolfe and others have suggested that those who find the American government oppressive do the same, perhaps even using the same moniker.
[edit] Other cultural references
It was reported in May 2004 that screenwriter Tim Minear was working on a screenplay based on the novel. However, as with most successful novels, the promise of a screenplay has been in the offing almost since the day of publication.
In 1974 the songwriter Jimmy Webb used the phrase as a song title although its lyric eschewed the sociological aspects of the novel. It was subsequently recorded by Joan Baez, Glen Campbell, Joe Cocker, Linda Ronstadt and many others including the songwriter himself.
[edit] Sources, references, external links, quotations
- "At one time kings were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity chose the right candidate. In this age the myth is 'the will of the people' ... but the problem changes only superficially." — Professor Bernardo de la Paz on the subject of choosing leaders.
[edit] References
- ^ Grumbles from the Grave p. 171
[edit] External links
- The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- A review of 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'
- A short article on the novel by Adam Roberts
- Simon Jester Project
- Simon Jester Café
