The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a 1966 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about a lunar penal colony's revolt against rule from Earth. It received the Hugo Award for best novel.
Heinlein considered The Moon is a Harsh Mistress his best book,1 although
the earlier Stranger in a Strange Land was more influential and widely read. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is similar to Stranger in a Strange Land 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 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 itself.
The reason for the rebellion is economic necessity: Luna is exporting so many goods to Earth (and receiving so little by return shipment) that its resources will soon be exhausted, resulting in disaster. (Since Earth sits at the bottom of a deep gravity well, the only feasible solution is one of engineering; a key plot point is the development of a method of shipping goods to Luna that is not prohibitively expensive.)
Although the revolution succeeds in averting this disaster, the narrator decries the antilibertarian instincts of many of his fellow Loonies. ("Rules, laws -- always for other fellow.") This theme is echoed elsewhere in Heinlein's works -- that real, albeit temporary, liberty is to be found among the anarchic pioneer societies out along the advancing frontier, but the regimentation and legalism that inevitably follow also bring restraints that chafe true individualists. (We learn in the later novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls that this is just what happens to Luna.)
The novel is notable stylisticaly for its use of an invented Lunar dialect consisting predominantly of English words but strongly influenced by Russian grammar. The
narrator is Manuel Garcia O'Kelly Davis (Mannie), a one-armed computer technician who accidentally discovers that the hated Lunar Authority's own computer has become self-aware.
The computer, dubbed Mike (after Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock Holmes), becomes leader of the revolution. Mannie, along with the wise Professor Bernardo de la Paz, and the beautiful rabble-rousing Wyoming Knott, form the top-level cell reporting to Mike.
Continuing Stranger in a Strange Land'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, as it takes a unanimous decision of all the wives to divorce a husband. Such a marriage only 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 also features complete racial integration, which becomes a vehicle for social commentary when Mannie, on a mission to the United States, is arrested for miscegenation after he innocently shows a picture of his family to his Southern hosts. The novel was published during the period of the American Civil Rights Movement.
The book is the origin of 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 setting of the novel was re-used much later by Heinlein for his late-period novel, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.
Tim Minear of Angel, Firefly and Wonderfalls is currently working on a screenplay based on the novel.
Notes
- Conversation with Hayford Peirce in Papeete, Tahiti, 1980, about his works.
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