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Summary: Want a better understanding into revolutions?
Review: Or how about learning how terrorist cells work? This book is a hand book for a revolution...only without all the chaos. This is a tale about a group of people trying to break free of the chains of their oppressors. If you could script a revolution before hand this is how you would do it. The language of the main character is a bit hard to get into at first but by the middle of the book you will be longing to talk like someone from Russian. You read book. You will like.
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Summary: You'll definately need to read it twice (at least)
Review: Personally, I'd put this down as my favourite of Heinlein's works. His insight into mankind and the manmade is eerie. MIKE (the human supercomputer) will give you an idea of how powerful a government unbounded by "privacy of information" is.
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Summary: Great premise and interesting conculsions
Review: A very intertaining read and thought provoking too. This book, like most of Heinlein's works, interweaves social commentary with adventure and intrigue. The characters often take on a little life of there own and some find themselves revisited in later works by Heinlein. What is wonderful about this and other similar works is that even though they are sci fi, they really aren't. Don't for a minute assume that reading this book is similar to reading a space adventure that dwells on technical and scientific details for plot and story development. Heinlein goes into man's mind and motives and here lies the story. The space stations and rockets are mere props.
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Summary: Great
Review: Probably not so much of a little kid novel, but really great for teens. I thought it was excelent and I would read it again.
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Summary: Just like the pitiful nonsense created by James Joyce
Review: I gave this book about 100 pages before I gave up. Although this book is purportedly about a libertarian revolution, I was so bored by the story and so annoyed by the dialog that I kept wanting to put it down. Basically, in the language of the "Loonies" (one who lives on the moon), there are quite a few words missing. They speak like someone might write a telegram. Like the pitiful nonsense created by James Joyce, I think this book is given more credit than it's due because it is weird.
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Summary: Absolutely unreadable
Review: I'm not a knee-jerk science fiction hater. I love Tolkien and I've read several other very good ones. But I've found the majority of science fiction to be excruciating writing combined with constipated narratives that could only appeal to the lowest strata of humanity. "The Moon is a harsh mistress" is probably one of the better ones, but it's still god-awful. I couldn't even get through the first half of the book, it was such a terrible chore. And talk about boring. I suspect that this book mostly appeals to libertarians who have been indoctrinated to support it because of its pro-freedom message, and to sci-fi poseurs who want to seem superior to their Terry Adams reading bretheren. Stay away from this book, and be afraid, be very afraid.
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Summary: One of Heinleins top 10
Review: You are either a Heinlein fan, or you aren't, there is no middle ground for one of the Grand Masters of SciFi, and as every fan knows, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of Robert Heinleins greatest books. I've read this book more times than I can remember, and I always find something I didn't catch before. If this book isn't in your library, you are not a true SciFi fan, it just isn't possible. If you have not read this book, go now and buy it,, begin the adventure created by a man sorely missed by his fans, find out what could have been, what should have been, meet Wyoming, Manny, and a computer with a sense of humor.
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Summary: American Revolution Revisted
Review: I have read all of Heinlein's books and this is one of the ones I finish with a lump in my throat. The story of the colonists who come to see, with the help of a sentient computer with a sense of humour, that revolution is the only alternative to death a few years down the road is complex and exciting.The parallels with the American Revolution are obvious and intentional. They add another dimension to the story which is full of such underlying themes, enriching the basic plot. When you are done, turn back and read the first few paragraphs again...it might surprise you.
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Summary: Blueprint for Revolution
Review: This is my favorite Heinlein novel, and I've read all of Heinlein's works. It is a great mixture of adventure, humor, politics, technology, some thought provoking looks at alternate types of marriages, and the most lovable sentient computer ever to grace the pages of a novel. Mike (the computer) is really the star of this book, from loving to tell jokes, to deciding to help a group of revolutionary-minded Luna 'citizens' actually accomplish their dreams of freedom because the human interaction would keep him from being lonely. Along the path to revolution, Heinlein, (as usual), inserts thoughts and ideas that challenge your basic assumptions about what is right, normal, necessary, or appropriate. Is a representative democracy the only 'good' form of government? What's so sacred about a 'majority'? How should a government finance itself? (Maybe make the representatives pay for their pet projects out of their own pocket - taxes not allowed!). Are polygamy, polyandry, or other forms of multiple marriage wrong or can they be used to help preserve the stability of a child-rearing environment? How do you most efficiently organize a revolutionary group that must be kept secret from the authorities (given the assumption that there will always be 'stool pigeons')? Some have quite correctly noted that this book should not be read by ultra-grammarians, as it is told in first person Luna-speak, an odd pidgin mixture of English and Russian, with occasional items thrown in from Chinese, Finnish, and several other languages. Far from being a detriment, I consider this to be a great accomplishment. Most writers have trouble accurately portraying the dialect, say, of the Deep South in a convincing manner. Here, Heinlein has created his own dialect of the future - and makes you believe it. This book is not quite as deep as Stranger in a Strange Land, one of Heinlein's other great books, but it has a faster, more action oriented pace, and characters that you will get emotionally involved with. I cried at the end of this book the first time I read it (and the second, and the third...) and I think you will too. TANSTAAFL indeed - and in this case, you get more than you paid for.
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Summary: Heinlein's Best -- Hence, Maybe the Best SF Novel Ever
Review: Around 1980 I had lunch with Robert Heinlein and his wife, sitting on a mountainside in Tahiti with the Pacific far below, and around the 3rd or 4th bottle of rosé wine he allowed that he thought "Mistress" was his best book. Authors are notorious for their lack of judgment about their own works, but I think that in this case he was absolutely correct. If you like science-fiction at all, or want to read something by a writer who has helped shape the world we live in (who do you think all those rocket scientists and computer nerds were reading when *they* were kids?) read this one. And then again and again....
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