The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

First published in 1966

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a great title. Is it a great book? I don’t think it is Heinlein’s best, but I enjoyed it when I read it in my teens, and probably enjoyed it more in a recent rereading. Fans of Heinlein’s libertarian philosophy will find much to admire here, while readers searching for a good story will have to tolerate the philosophy while waiting for the story to develop.

The novel is set on the moon, which houses a penal colony as well as people who are more-or-less free. The Authority is the moon’s governing body, created as sort of a United Nations agency to administer the moon on behalf of the Earth. Farmers on the moon grow wheat in caves. The farmers (and most other inhabitants) consider themselves to be exploited by Earth, which doesn’t return fair value for the wheat that is catapulted into Earth orbit. Led by a fellow named Manuel and a computer named Mike, a group of revolutionaries plot to win their independence.

Manuel spends much of the novel expounding on his political philosophy, which he calls rational anarchy. Libertarianism was one of Heinlein’s favorite themes … and it might actually be viable if everyone had the same sense of personal responsibility as Heinlein’s characters. A book review isn’t the place to debate the merits of Heinlein’s political thought, so I will only say that Heinlein’s philosophy plays a larger role in this novel than in many of his others. That will attract some readers and turn off others.

The novel also gives us a “how-to” manual in the art of revolution. Most of the steps would apply to any revolution, although this one is unique in that throwing containers of rocks at the Earth is the primary weapon. A character known as Prof has primary responsibility for planning the moon’s quest for freedom which, if not exactly bloodless, minimizes the consequences to Earth because killing people is not the way to win hearts and minds. Prof understands the art of propaganda and the strategies that must be followed to build support among the revolutionaries, to overthrow the local governance of the Authority, and to convince Earth’s nations that recognizing the Moon as an independent entity will be easier than trying to pacify a group of feisty rock-throwers.

The setup occupies about two-thirds of the novel. Those chapters also include discussions of alternative family arrangements (line families that feature multiple wives and husbands) that would have been considered revolutionary in the 1960s. Fortunately, Heinlein was first-and-foremost a storyteller, so lessons in libertarianism and revolution and family structure are interspersed with character development and action scenes, leading to a final third that ratchets up the excitement. Readers who don’t care much for the story’s intellectual merits will enjoy the scenes that actually implement the revolution. Manuel and Prof are memorable characters who are easy to like. I would recommend Stranger in a Strange Land or I Will Fear No Evil or Starship Troopers to readers who are new to Heinlein, but there’s no doubt that The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress was an important addition to the Heinlein canon.

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Double Star by Robert Heinlein

First published in 1956

Robert Heinlein is one of the legends of science fiction for a simple reason:  he was a masterful storyteller.  There have been finer prose stylists, and a few sf writers have crafted novels of greater power than Heinlein's, but rare are the authors who have so consistently grabbed a reader and commanded rapt attention from the first scene to the last, in novel after novel.  Double Star isn't one of Heinlein's best novels, but it was good enough to win a Hugo, Heinlein's first.

Spaceman Dak Broadbent hires Lornzo Smythe to impersonate a man.  Although Lorenzo is a talented actor (just ask him!), he is more of a con artist than an accomplished thespian.  Before Dak can explain the role, Dak and Lorenzo are fleeing, having killed a Martian and a human during a shootout.  The individual Lorenzo is to impersonate turns out to an important politician -- important to Earth's relationship with Mars and to the Expansionist Party's future.  As you would expect in politics, betrayal motivated by unrealized ambition threatens exposure of Dak's scheme.  Can Lorenzo get away with it?  That's the question that drives the plot and captivates the reader.

If we're confident today that there are no Martians on Mars, it's still fun to imagine the future as Heinlein saw it:  a colonized moon and outer planets, space yachts, the strange customs of Martians and Venusians, and all the other trappings of 1950s science fiction that Heinlein helped create.  It is a future that his characters, who are living in it, naturally take for granted -- unlike some current, ego-driven sf authors who can't resist bogging down their narratives with detailed descriptions of the technological advances they envision.

Heinlein, of course, loved to pontificate, and Lorenzo's crash course in politics gave Heinlein a chance to opine on a variety of topics, from philosophy to moral instruction, from economics to political equality.  Not surprisingly, the freedom-heavy political model that Lorenzo adopts mirrors Heinlein's own:  free trade, free travel, a minimalist approach to lawmaking, the primacy of the individual (balanced by the individual's understanding that functioning communities require self-sacrifice).  Yet Heinlein's gift was his ability to put story first.  His characters pontificate because, in the context of the story, it's the natural thing for them to do.  Their opinions never get in the way of the story; in fact, they often advance it.  Heinlein always managed to convey heavy opinions with a light touch, a technique that few authors have managed with such skill.

Politics, Lorenzo learns, is a game often suited to dirty players, but what if an election is based on a hoax?  Yes, I know, conspiracy theorists and party hacks are always claiming that elections are based on hoaxes, making Double Star a novel that will always be timely.  But is it a great novel?  Double Star is an entertaining send-up of politics, making the point in stark terms that great politicians are great actors, that the difference between performance and reality is often blurred to obscurity, but the novel lacks the depth of Heinlein's best work.  The ending is a little too obvious, a little too easy.  Even second-tier Heinlein, though, is a better read than most authors can manage.  Double Star is an unpadded novel written in a breezy, fast-moving style.  More than a half century after it was written, it is a novel that both sf fans and readers of political fiction can continue to enjoy.

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Space Cadet by Robert Heinlein

First published in 1948

First published in 1948, Space Cadet is one of Heinlein's earliest sf juveniles. I remember loving it when I was a teenager. Those years are long past, but when I recently reread the novel, I recaptured at least some of the sense of wonder I felt when I read it as a kid. Science fiction has become more sophisticated in the intervening years (at least some of it has), but the art of storytelling never grows old, and Heinlein was a master storyteller.

Space Cadet has a tight, engaging plot that begins with Matt Dodson joining the Space Cadets and ends with an adventure on Venus. Dodson is a strong character who would be especially appealing to teens--he's able to overcome self-doubt, gains maturity, and learns (while making use of a leave to visit his parents) that "you can't go home again." The only other character in the novel with any personality is Matt's fellow cadet Tex, who likes to repeat his Uncle Bodie's tall tales, adding some humor to the story. The aliens Heinlein envisions living on Venus are credible (at least by 1948 standards, and in any event more credible than most of the lizard-like aliens that dominate sf movies), and the novel has something useful to say about prejudice against those who are outwardly different.

Space Cadet hasn't lost much of its charm in the six-plus decades since its first publication.

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The Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein

First published in 1951

"Aliens take over human minds" was the plot of more than one Star Trek episode -- and of nearly every episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea -- but the concept was still fresh when Heinlein wrote The Puppet Masters. Rarely has it been employed more successfully. Heinlein was a steadfast believer in the rugged individualist's desire and ability to fight for freedom, a feeling he captured brilliantly in The Puppet Masters.

Published in 1951, during the time Heinlein was busy turning out juvenile novels, The Puppet Masters is very much an adult novel. The hero (using the cover name "Sam") openly lusts after a fellow agent, comments upon her physical attributes, considers calling an escort agency, and takes pills to wake up or to sharpen his wits or to extend his sense of time (and enjoys the high). Heinlein had some fun with the obvious way to make sure your neighbor isn't hosting an alien on his back: by presidential order, nudity becomes the required fashion. Daring stuff for 1951!

The story moves quickly, Sam's reluctantly heroic actions are plausible, and Heinlein invests Sam with a full personality -- and an opinionated one, as one expects from a Heinlein hero. The Puppet Masters has more of a thriller feel than some of Heinlein's more cerebral novels. Ignoring the fact that Russia seems less a threat now than it did six decades ago, the novel has aged well, and should retain its appeal to the modern reader.

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Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein

First published in 1950

Farmer in the Sky revolves around the colonization of Ganymede, which is being terraformed to accommodate human life. Most of the first colonists are homestead farmers who are offered land in exchange for their efforts to make the land productive. Young Bill Lerner is the key player in Heinlein's story; through his eyes the reader learns about his father's decision to take a new wife and to become a colonist. The colony struggles with hardship and Bill often wonders whether he'll be able to continue his farming life or whether he'll have to return to Earth.

I enjoyed Heinlein's juveniles when I was a teenager, and again upon rereading them in adulthood. Heinlein's juveniles offer an education in science that is too basic to be horribly outdated, always written in language us non-scientists can comprehend: in Farmer in the Sky, the reader learns lessons of physics, agronomy, ecology, even "population bionomics" (although Heinlein's take on the inevitability of population growth outpacing food supplies might not be well grounded in modern experience, at least as applied to human populations). At least equally interesting, I think, are the Heinlein values that shine through in his novels, and this one is no exception: his distrust of government and bureaucratic institutions; his fierce belief in individualism, coupled with a corresponding belief in the need for individuals to work cooperatively as friends and neighbors and families.

The plot of Farmer in the Sky unfolds a bit more slowly than the stories in some of Heinlein's other juveniles. Frequently mentioned is Bill Lerner's joy in being an Eagle Scout and his love of scouting in general. A shorter version of the book was originally serialized in Boy's Life magazine--perhaps Heinlein included the scouting references to enhance his chance of selling the story, but since they continue to appear (often) in the novel, I suspect Heinlein simply placed great value in scouting. The scouting references don't contribute much to the story (unless you're a real scouting fanatic), but they don't detract from it either.

In short, Farmer in the Sky is fun, educational, but a bit less exciting than some of the other Heinlein juveniles. For the Heinlein completist it's an essential read, but readers seeking the furious action of Starship Troopers might be disappointed.

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