With 1967 ’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress , we bid a fond adieu to Robert A. Heinlein ’s Hugo winners . And there ’s just no getting out of it : We ’re not that deplorable to see him go .
Much as I love Heinlein — I call back I ’ve made that copiously ( possibly overabundantly ) clear in myprevious postal service — I ’m not awfully sorry to be done with him . Heinlein gets painted as a honey - him - or - hate - him writer , but for me at least , it ’s more like love - him - and - hate - him , especially after four rule book in five calendar month . What I mean to say is , there ’s a particular challenge involved in discussing The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress , and I require to be up - front about it :
Heinlein ’s primary genius — the caliber that more than anything else , I think , earned him fame in his lifetime and thereafter — lay in his power to examine an idea outside of its tangible - sprightliness social constraints . I mean , yeah , a lot of scientific discipline fiction does that ( and so do other genres ) , but his blaze was that he could explain how there ought to be no moral objection to , say , polyamory , or sexuality with a teenager , or sex with a teenaged clone of yourself , and still manage to sound like someone ’s grumpy older granddad , rather than a basal drugged - out beatnik , while doing it .
This was a very important tone , and I ’ll say more about why shortly . But it ’s also a problematical quality , because it paint rather a false picture of how thing are . The trueness is , in real spirit , it ’s often unsufferable to separate your analysis of something from the social constraint and other particularities surrounding it ; it ’s often unsufferable to even clearly delimitate where the “ something ” stops and the particularity circumvent it begin . For object lesson , the challenge I ’m facing with Harsh Mistress : I ca n’t cogitate about the book right now without considering the other three Heinlein books I ’ve recently take for this serial . And even if I held off for a twelvemonth or a decade before writing about it , I ’d still commend something about how I feel now , and I ’d sure enough have plenty of other thoughts about the author in general .
So , if a big chunk of my experience read this book boiled down to me thinking , For cry out loud , I am so , so hackneyed of the one and only one voice Robert A. Heinlein is capable of writing in * — well , is that really fair ? I ca n’t really indict the whole novel just because I ’m past my saturation point with the source . And yet , is n’t it also fair to say that gosh , this Christian Bible would have print me more if the tone and characters and secret plan point had been a small more evolved than the author ’s previous whole kit and boodle ?
OK , that ’s not entirely fair ; permit me give credit where it ’s due : From the opening move paragraph , it ’s apparent Heinlein is trying something unlike . Harsh Mistress , which is the level of the lunar prison house colony ’s revolt against Earth ’s government , assist by a super - powerful sentient computer , is narrated in the first person by Manuel Garcia O’Kelly , a computer repairman who speaksEnsign Chekov – esque English with an accent so boneheaded it get along through in print . ( “ I see in Lunaya Pravda that Luna City Council has lapse on first reading a bill to examine , license , inspect — and revenue enhancement — public nutrient vendors operate inside municipal air pressure . I see also is to be aggregated meeting tonight to organize ‘ Sons of Revolution ’ talk - lecture ” goes that first Steffi Graf . ) Ironically , Mannie ’s voice does just about nothing to mask Heinlein ’s typical one , and actually call attention to the author ’s want of tonic chain by trying to be unlike and failing . * *
Which also name attending to the author ’s other handicap , the self-aggrandizing of which is an amplify version ofthe problem I had with Starship Troopers : Heinlein is an cussed deck - stacker . First , the circumstances are such that Luna City and the rest of the moon have to gross out , or else they ’re doomed . And surely , the character may be planning this grievous rotation while scarcely protect from a lethally grave lunar surroundings — but not to worry , none of them will decease ( at least , not until destiny are such that the death is poignant rather than tragical ) . In fact , the lineament will never have to overcome a single serious obstruction — just a handful of minor route bumps that enable them to demonstrate how capable they are . Enemies and opponents will always be thoroughly incompetent and oft good reprehensible ( so that when they expire , no one has to feel bad ) . And whenever a question uprise , every individual good guy will arrive at precisely the same response as the other good guys , because they all utilise logical system to get there — and logically , there is of course always only one ripe answer to any dubiousness .
https://gizmodo.com/starship-troopers-is-perfect-and-therein-lies-the-pro-5439145
None of these complaints are to say that Harsh Mistress is a straight - up bad book . As with any Heinlein book , it offers a lot of food for idea and fodder for argumentation . Mannie utilise a computer - electrical circuit diagram to build a model for a unfailing rotation , which is pretty cool . His agate line union — a family in which a chronological serial of spouses coexist , raising kids together and occasionally bring new one into the fold — is a peachy musical theme , a group that mixes the benefit of a distinctive family tree ( older member who can pass wiseness on to unseasoned members ) with those of by design forged relationships ( not have to put up with Grandpa ’s drinking just because he ’s your mom ’s dad ) . And the story rescue its share of “ Mmmm , yeah ” moments , where Heinlein takes what ’s inside your heading , without your even realise it , and shows you why it ’s wrong . For example , a holidaymaker from Earth gets in trouble for coming on too secure to a young char , at which point he ’s taken by a group of street yobbo to Mannie , who playact as judge in an unrehearsed trial , to adjudicate whether the human beings deserves to drop dead for his offense . Afterward , the bemused tourist says :
“ Believe me , sir , I do not call back [ the test ] was a joke . I just have trouble grasping that your local laws permit a man to be put to death … so nonchalantly … and for so trivial an offense . ”
…
“ Stu , ” I said , “ … was n’t done casually , or boys would have dragged you to nearest lock in to zero insistence , shove you in , and cycled . Instead were most conventional . ”
And naturally , the Token Robert Heinlein Stand - In Character ( see also : Mr. Dubois , Jubal Harshaw , Lazarus Long ) , revolution mastermind Professor Bernardo de la Paz , has mint of voguish theories to espouse , and provocative but often accurate statements to make about human nature . And all of the counterintuitive reasonableness and tyre - boot of our reflexive cultural biases really is , as I said earlier , important . I firmly think there are M of people whom Heinlein inspired to suppose more strictly , who learned how and why to interview social norm from his Good Book .
My self-aggrandizing yield — and hey , perhaps this is a straw gentleman’s gentleman , I do n’t love — is that I ’m afraid some of those 1000 run to take his work as some kind of gospel itself . And the true statement is , if you apply a little Heinleinian disbelief to those works , they very obviously are imperfect , as express by the reasons above . Heinlein was great at outlining political possibility , but he more or less ignored the job of applying those theory in the real world . His fierceness is always justifiable and nearly bloodless ; his character ’ logic is always presented as infallible ; andas in Stranger in a Strange Land , in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress , he has a nearly almighty fibre named Mike to deal with the Panthera leo ’s share of otherwise insurmountable challenge . * * *
https://gizmodo.com/stranger-in-a-strange-land-is-the-catcher-in-the-rye-of-5460352
I guess in a time when groups railing against supposed government injustice are all over the intelligence , and public lecture of violent gyration is too , it seems extra important to recollect that most political issues are not as cut - and - dried as many book make them out to be — they ’re not well remove from the picky actual - globe social constraints they ’re bound up in . I suspect Heinlein know that and just had trouble communicate it , because ideas were so much more his strong suit than characterization ( and Harsh Mistress is indisputably rich with ideas ) . Nevertheless , given his inability to communicate it , and in spite of my admiration for him , I ’m quick to move on from his playscript to what I ’m hoping will be some more complex fare .
“ Blogging the Hugos ” ordinarily appear every other weekend , but will appear next weekend to make up for not appearing last weekend . In the next installment : Lord of Light , by Roger Zelazny , from 1968 .
https://gizmodo.com/lord-of-light-big-wheels-keep-on-turnin-5534746
Josh Wimmer is a freelance author in Madison , WI . He can usually be foundhere .
- Yes , the same voice I wasgushing about reencounteringback in November .
https://gizmodo.com/with-double-star-the-hugos-start-to-shine-5404110
- Not to refer the curious fact that no one else in the entire book speaks the same way as Mannie .
- Sorry to not say more about Mike , the computer . What can you say , though ? He ’s essential to the floor , but he ’s so essential that he almost makes the story unneeded . What do we con about the challenges of revolution ? Pretty much just that there are n’t very many , as long as you have the only AI in beingness on your side ! There ’s a more mature playscript in here , which gets hinted at when the professor says his braggy concern about post - revolution Luna is Mike — what are the dangers of making a supremely powerful , insensate entity your ally ? — but then Heinlein ends up ducking the issue entirely .
Blogging the hugosBooksHugo AwardsHugosPoliticsRobert A. HeinleinRobert Heinlein
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