The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

© 1966 Robert Heinlein

382 pages

So you say you want a revolution? Bozhemoi! The Moon is a Harsh Mistress combines politics and science fiction to follow a colonial rebellion…in space. In the year 2076,   the residents of a Lunar penal colony tire of Earth’s   mercantilist policies, which keep the “Loonies” impoverished. After a political rally is brutally crushed by the Lunar Authority, a few souls decide to homebrew a little regime change.  The resulting story follows a conspiracy of three as it ripens into a popular revolt, defending itself against the indignant government of Earth.

The lunar settlements began as collections of Earth’s combined political and criminal refuse, but have since become full-fledged communities, with homesteading families and unique customs.  Save for the authority invested in a man called the Warden, there is little overtly penal about the various settlements scattered about the lunar landscape. There are no walls, no chains – only the fact that long-term lunar residency makes a return trip to Earth virtually unthinkable, given the weakening of the body.   The adjustments needed to operate on the moon are an important plot point later on,  when earth-lubbing troops attempt an invasion.  More interesting is a figure central to the plot and the revolution: the supercomputer used by the Lunar Authority to manage various systems. Unbeknowst to virtually everyone save the computer engineer (Manny) who serves as the main character, the central computer has been expanded so much that he has become both self-aware and mischievous; assisting in a revolt against the Lunar Authority is a joke right up his alley.   Another area of interest are the social arrangements on Luna; because women are greatly outnumbered by men, polyandry is common.

Although I assumed from the start that the revolution would be a success, these various elements ensured that the novel remained thoroughly interesting. Kudos to Heinlein for borrowing from both American and Russian revolutionary mythology to inspire his conspiracy. Frankly, given that this book was written during the Cold War, I was surprised at the abundance of Russian names and slang; Heinlein wasn’t exactly a fellow traveler, referring to the Soviets as the ‘butchers of Budapest’.  Welcome were the  forays into political philosophy, as the conspirators argued over what the root problems facing them were, and how they should avoid them if a new government was created. (“If” because overt laws were unknown on the moon, replaced by rigorously-enforced customs.)   One character describes himself as a rational anarchist, maintaining that – regardless of abstractions like “the state” – every man alone is responsible for the choices he makes.  Nothing can be sloughed off onto the state, nothing excused.    Moon is an overt expression of libertarianism, in both insisting that every man bears his own moral responsibility, and in denouncing those who attempt to claim control over another's life.  Still, Mannie observes with a sigh, there seems to be some instinct within us to want to meddle.

Fifty years after publication, the political philosophy isn't the only relevant portion. Although modern readers will find the notion of one computer controlling the entire planet as rendered here (and in much of Asimov’s early fiction), fanciful, Heinlein is closer to the mark than is obvious. The sorts of mischief that Mike employs to aid the rebellion – providing information entrusted to him by the warden,  spying via telephone hookups, providing secure channels of communication, disrupting services – are the same kinds of havoc cyberwarfare can wreck today. We do entrust the planet’s care to a machine: a network comprised of millions of computers, with more connection every day.

In Moon we have a novel with all manner of notable subjects which is at the same time an fun  story in its own right. Oh, the ending is more or less foretold, but  the author intrigues from the start by delivering the story in a pidgin English heavily flavored with Russian expressions.  It seems odd on the first page, but seems natural within a few sentences.  Heinlein provides a fair amount of humor, as when Manny receives a massive smooch from a lady rebel upon his induction into the nascent conspiracy and says "I'm glad I joined! What have I joined?" Most of it comes from Manny's own narration however, as when he is commenting on the mess that is being human.  This will remain a favorite, I think, and one so brimming with argument that it merits frequent re-reading.

Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers
© 1959 Robert Heinlein
263 pages

The worlds of the Terran Federation are under constant assault by the malicious Bugs, whose hideousness drives dogs insane and who don’t even have the decency to build their civilization out of buildings that can be blown apart:  the swarming arachnoids have to be dug out of the ground.   Juan Rico didn’t join the military to save truth, justice, and the Terran way of life, however; humankind was largely at peace when he took his oath. Instead, he joined because his best friend did, and because the school  hottie was signing up to become a pilot. Juan, or Johnny, didn’t get to be a pilot, though; that program prefers women’s faster reflexes.Johnny wound up in the Mobile Infantry,  part of a literal killing machine. During his  basic training, however,  a Bug attack completely destroyed Buenos Aires, and it’s up to Johnny and his follow boots to take the war to the enemy.  Starship Troopers is half political philosophy, a third speculation on future warfare, and a fifth wartime action plot.  The best known of Robert Heinlein’s works, alongside Stranger in a Strange Land,  Starship Troopers’s fame stems from its easy-to-loathe insectoid menace and its controversial politics; it well deserves its classic status.

Starship Troopers opens with images of future spaceborne wars, though space is something traveled through, not the battlefield itself; there are no capital ship duels here, only the paratrooper-like deployment and operations of Johnny and the rest of Terra’s finest.  If mobile infantry brings to mind foot soldiers jumping from trucks and riding through the countryside, cast that out of your mind; an M.I is one man in an armored suit, weighing tons  but powered and as responsive to the slightest movement that it might as well be skinned. The suit allows every trained soldier to be a one-man army, making the tanks of ancient days look like pushovers. Every M.I. is worth more than a thousand of the enemy, and that’s no hyperbole.

            But Starship Troopers isn’t chiefly about the Bug War or how sophisticated electronics  and space will alter combat. Throughout the book, largely through reminiscences of his training days, Rico’s understanding of why he’s fighting develops, laying before readers a political philosophy which is the basis for the book's 'controversial' status. In the Federation, the voting franchise is limited to those who have paid their dues in the form of Federal Service, people who have proven that they have characters capable of engaging in self-sacrifice for the good of the nation; people whose sense of duty will keep them sober when they exercise the vote, and mitigate corruption as far as possible. Starship Troopers is paean to the highest ideals of republican soldiery, drawing on classical history, from Greece through Rome; if you've ever read Once an Eagle, it's rather like that. The main argument of Troopers is that politics requires virtue, and for Heinlein, the sacrifice required in military service is the best way of sussing out the virtuous.  The military isn't the meter by which society is run; in fact, those who apply to do their service are actively discouraged and given plenty of opportunities for second thoughts once they've begun.  Other elements of Heinlein's society which have been criticized, like the use of violence as discipline, aren't an example of the military governing civilian life; that's simply the way Heinlein thinks children ought to be raised and how criminals ought to be deal with, and are separate arguments.  The most objectionable element of the worldview developed here is the author's contention that man doesn't have a moral instinct. He views humanity as a wild animal that has to be civilized through culture every step of the way, but if we had no moral instincts such inculcation could not possibly take.

Although I started this book prepared to see in it a glorification of war and authority, it is far more thoughtful than that. The tech speculation is fascinating for a work written in 1959, though the closest we've come to realizing  any of his ideas is helmets with HUD displays, or perhaps remotely-controlled robots.  (In Heinlein's world, the powered suits are controlled with radio signals.)  This is definitely a worthy read.