The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Plot

At the time of the story, 2075, the Moon (Luna) is used as a penal colony by Earth's government, with the inhabitants living in underground cities. Most inhabitants (called "Loonies") are criminals, political exiles, or descendants thereof. The total population is about three million, with men outnumbering women two to one, so that polyandry is the norm. Although Earth's Protector of the Lunar Colonies (called the "Warden") holds power, in practice there is little intervention in the loose Lunar society.

HOLMES IV ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark IV") is the Lunar Authority's master computer, having almost total control of Luna's machinery on the grounds that a single computer is cheaper than (though not as safe as) multiple independent systems.

The story is narrated by Manuel Garcia "Mannie" O'Kelly-Davis, a computer technician who discovers that HOLMES IV has achieved self-awareness and has developed a sense of humor. Mannie names it "Mike" after Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock Holmes, and they become friends.

Book 1: That Dinkum Thinkum

At the beginning of the story, Mannie, at Mike's request, places a recorder in an anti-Authority meeting. When the authorities raid the gathering, Mannie flees with Wyoming ("Wyoh") Knott, a political agitator, whom he introduces to Mike and with whom he meets his former teacher, the elderly Professor Bernardo de la Paz, who claims that Luna must stop exporting hydroponic wheat to Earth or its limited water resources will be exhausted. In connection with this, Mike calculates that if no prevention occurs, there will be food riots in seven years and cannibalism in nine. Wyoh and the Professor decide to start a revolution, which Mannie is persuaded to join after Mike calculates that it has a 1 in 7 chance of success.

Mannie, Wyoh, and de la Paz thereafter form covert cells, protected by Mike, who adopts the persona of "Adam Selene", leader of the movement, and communicates via the telephone system. Mannie saves the life of Stuart Rene LaJoie, a rich, well-connected, sympathetic tourist, who begins turning public opinion on Earth in favor of Lunar independence. When soldiers brought to quell the mounting unrest rape and kill a local young woman, then kill another who finds her body, rioting erupts. The Loonies overcome military opposition and overthrow the Lunar Authority's Protector, called "the Warden." When Earth tries to reclaim the colony, the revolutionaries plan to use in defense a smaller duplicate of the electromagnetic catapult used to export wheat.

Book 2: A Rabble in Arms

Mike impersonates the Warden in messages to Earth, to give the revolutionaries time to organize their work. Meanwhile, the Professor sets up an "Ad-Hoc Congress" to distract dissenters. When Earth finally learns the truth, Luna declares its independence on July 4, 2076, the 300th anniversary of the United States' Declaration of Independence.

Mannie and the Professor go to Earth to plead Luna's case, where they are received in Agra by the Federated Nations, and embark on a world tour advertising the benefits of a free Luna, while urging various governments to build a catapult to transfer supplies, especially water, to Luna in exchange for grain. Their proposals are rejected and they are imprisoned; but they are freed by Stuart LaJoie and returned, with him, to Luna.

Public opinion on Earth has become fragmented, while on Luna the news of Mannie's arrest and the attempt to bribe him with the appointment of himself as Warden have unified the normally fractious Loonies. An election is held in which Mannie, Wyoh, and the Professor are elected (possibly by the intervention of Mike).

Book 3: TANSTAAFL!

(The title is an acronym for There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!)

The Federated Nations on Earth send armies to destroy the Lunar revolution, but these are vanquished, with great loss of life, by the revolutionaries. The rumor is circulated that Mike's alter-ego Adam Selene was among those killed, thus removing the need for him to appear in the flesh.

When Mike launches rocks at sparsely populated locations on Earth, warnings are released to the press detailing the times and locations of the bombings—but disbelieving people, as well as people on religious pilgrimages, travel to the sites and die. As a result, public opinion turns against the fledgling nation.

A second attack destroys Mike's original catapult, but the Loonies have built a secondary smaller one in a secret location, and with Mannie acting as its on-site commander, the Loonies continue to attack Earth until it concedes Luna's independence. Professor Bernardo de la Paz, as leader of the nation, proclaims victory to the gathered crowds, but collapses and dies. Mannie takes control, but he and Wyoh eventually withdraw from politics altogether, and find that the new government falls short of their expectations.

When Mannie tries to speak to Mike afterwards, he finds out that the computer has lost its self-awareness and its human-like qualities.

Characters

Timeline

The first sixth of the book relates the discussions between the protagonists justifying and plotting the revolution; the next quarter describes the year-long revolution itself. The remainder of the book recounts events occurring in the months after the revolution in May 2076, and a week or so of events in October 2076 leading up to capitulation by Earth.

Politics and society

Professor Bernardo de La Paz describes himself as a "Rational Anarchist", a name probably invented in the text itself. "Rational Anarchists" believe that the concepts of State, Society and Government have no existence but for the "acts of self-responsible individuals", but concede that this is not a universal belief. The desire for anarchy is balanced by the logic that some form of government is needed, despite its flaws. Knowing this fact, a Rational Anarchist "tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world". When challenged by Wyoh, Professor de la Paz replies, "In terms of morals there is no such thing as a ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free, because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything that I do."

Lunar society is portrayed as akin to that of the Old West, tempered by the closeness of death by exposure to vacuum and by the shortage of women. Because the sex ratio is about 2 men to each woman, the result is a society where women have a great deal of power, and any man who offends or touches a woman uninvited is likely to be attacked and eliminated through the nearest airlock. Marriages tend to be polyandrous, including group marriages and Mannie's own line marriage. In discussion with a woman from Kentucky, Mannie implies that underground, three-dimensional Lunar estate is recorded in the name of the woman (or women) in a marriage. In a divorce, he implies, the separated man (or men) who contributed towards its cost would have money returned to him.

After decades during which anti-social individuals were selectively eliminated and the Authority exercised little real control, the Loonies live by the following Code: 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 by informal Judges of good reputation. Failure to pay debts results in public shaming. Reputation is highly important in this society; with a bad reputation, a person may find others unwilling to buy from or sell to him. People are expected to pay back debts using all available funds.

Duels are permitted, but custom requires that anyone who kills another must pay debts and look after the deceased's family. 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. There is influence of the Vikings' mores on the Loonies, save that it is the society as a whole rather than the Althing which judges the actions of individuals.

Except where exchange involves the Authority, there is a generally unregulated free market. The preferred currency is the dollar of the Bank of Hong Kong Luna, one hundred of which are exchangeable for a troy ounce of gold, a supply of which was shipped to Luna for this purpose, or more usefully for potable water or other commodities in published quantities. The Authority dollar circulates in dealings with the Authority, but this tends to lose ground over time against the Hong Kong Luna dollar.

Outcomes

Although the revolution succeeds in averting ecological disaster, the narrator decries the 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 liberty is to be found among the pioneer societies out along the advancing frontier, but the regimentation and legalism that follow bring restraints that chafe true individualists (an idea emphasized in the first and final page of the novel, and in the later book The Cat Who Walks Through Walls).

Plot elements

As in Stranger in a Strange Land, a band of social revolutionaries forms a secretive and hierarchical organization. In this respect, the revolution is more reminiscent of the Bolshevik October revolution than of the American, 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, wherein new spouses are introduced by mutual consent at regular intervals so that the marriage never comes to an end. Divorce is rare, since divorcing a husband requires a unanimous decision on the part of all of his wives. Senior wives teach junior wives how to operate the family, granting financial security and ensuring that the children will never be orphaned. Children usually marry outside the line marriage, though this is not an ironclad rule. Mannie's youngest wife sports the last name 'Davis-Davis', showing she was both born and married into the line.

The social structure of the Lunar society features complete racial integration, which becomes a vehicle for social commentary when Mannie, visiting the southeastern United States, is arrested for polygamy after he innocently shows a picture of his multiracial family to reporters, and learns that the "range of color in Davis family was what got [the] judge angry enough" to have him arrested. It is later revealed that this arrest was anticipated and provoked by his fellow conspirators to gain emotional support from Loonies when the arrest is announced.

The novel is notable stylistically for its use of an invented Lunar dialect consisting predominantly of standard English and Australian colloquial words but strongly influenced by Russian grammar, especially omission of the article "the", which does not exist in most Slavic languages (cf. Nadsat slang from A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess). This aspect of the Lunar dialect is explained by the fact that many of the deportees on Luna are Russian.

Earth politics and background history

The novel indicates that Earth had experienced a nuclear world war (the "Wet Firecracker War") in the past century, although no significant traces of devastation are apparent at the time of the novel's setting.

Other changes include 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 mega-states. The Soviet Union seems to have lost the land east of the Urals to China into a rump state, and China has conquered all of East Asia, Southeast Asia, eastern Australia, and New Zealand (deporting unwanted people to Luna in the process). This Chinese aggrandizement is similar to that described in Tunnel in the Sky and, to a lesser extent, Sixth Column. The militarily dominant nations seem to be North America and China. India is overcrowded but seems able to obtain much of the 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. China is portrayed as plainly and unabashedly despotic, but no less technically advanced than the West. The Soviet Union seems to have relatively little influence, whereas the Lunar Authority itself is portrayed as corrupt. Most of Earth seems to have been split into several large nations, most joined together by the Federated Nations. They include the North American Directorate, Great China, Soviet Union, Pan Africa, Brazil (hinted to include all of South America), and a European coalition (named "Mitteleuropa" in Chapter 25, Paragraph #8). Individual nations such as Chad (the first to recognize Luna), India, and Egypt are also named.

Critical reception

Leigh Kimmel of The Billion Light-Year Bookshelf says that the novel is "the work of the man at the height of his powers, confident in his abilities and in the editorial respect he enjoys, and thus free to take significant risks in writing a novel that would stretch the boundaries of the genre as they stood at the time." She characterizes the novel as a departure from what had previously been associated with science fiction. Kimmel cites Heinlein's “colloquial language . . . an extrapolated lunar creole that has arisen from the forced intersection of multiple cultures and languages in the lunar penal colonies”; the protagonist's disability; “the frank treatment of alternative family structures”; and “the computer which suddenly wakes up to full artificial intelligence, but rather than becoming a Monster that threatens human society and must be destroyed as the primary Quest of the story, instead befriends the protagonist and seeks to become ever more human, a sort of digital Pinocchio.”

Critic Adam Roberts said of the novel: “It is really quite hard to respond to this masterful book, except by engaging with its political content; and yet we need to make the effort to see past the ideological to the formal and thematic if we are fully to appreciate the splendour of Heinlein's achievement here.”

Andrew Kaufman praised it, saying that it was Heinlein's crowning achievement. He describes it as "Carefully plotted, stylistically unique, politically sophisticated and thrilling from page one." He goes on to say that "it’s hard to imagine anyone else writing a novel that packs so many ideas (both big and small) into such a perfectly contained narrative." Kaufman says that, regardless of political philosophies, one can still admire Heinlein's writing ability, and the ability to influence the reader to root for "a rag-tag bunch of criminals, exiles, and agitators."

Ted Gioia said that this might be Heinlein's most enjoyable piece of work. He says that it "represents Robert Heinlein at his finest, giving him scope for the armchair philosophizing that increasingly dominated his mature work, but marrying his polemics to a smartly conceived plot packed with considerable drama." He went on to praise Heinlein's characters, especially Mannie.

Awards and nominations

Influence

The book popularized the acronym TANSTAAFL ("There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"), and helped popularize the constructed language Loglan, which is used in the story for precise human-computer interaction. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations credits this novel with the first printed appearance of the phrase "There's no free lunch", although the phrase and its abbreviation considerably predate the novel.

Audiobook releases

Two unabridged audiobook versions of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress have been produced.