The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Robert A Heinlein)

[ray gower]

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

This is a typical Heinlein story.

Take a good range of well thought out characters, giving them all tweaks and foibles, a bored computer and an inspired political ideal. Shake gently with mild action and serve without frills

 

[Tabitha]

This is on my 'to read' list. Am I right in thinking that it is generally regarded as one of Heinlein's best?

 

[ray gower]

Don't think it would be described as his best.
Certainly the prose style is a little lumpy in places. Story wise it is very sound, the plot inventive and nothing is left out.

 

[gr8scott]

Currently reading it. Great book.

RG, is that what the style is called... "prose". I just thought he was writing it like he was an imigrant or something - broken english - strange congegations.

He's very talented at making up vocabulary like it would be in real life. He's also great at describing problems and solutions. Very good author.

 

[ray gower]

Def- Prose: Ordinary nonmetrical language, i.e. the descriptive stuff between the speech.

Heinlein rarely describes things in floral or poetic terms, or at all if he can avoid it. A brick is a brick, he leaves it to the reader to decide if it is red or hard. In this book there is quite a mixture of descriptions and they often fall over each other.

I do agree about the way he contrives very realistic sounding dialogue, mashing Russian, English and Chinese phrasing into something quite coherent.

 

[gr8scott]

Just finished it. Very good.

Question: Does Heimlein have any other books that deal with "Mike" the sentient computer?

 

[ray gower]

Sorry you had to wait so long for the answer gr8. It has been difficult to get on for anylength of time for the last few weeks

The simple answer is: No.
Or at least not in my recollection, but it is a long time since I read all of his books

 

[gr8scott]

I miss Mike. I was just talking to a friend here at work and she said that one other Heimlein book she read alluded to Mike: "The Cat Who Walked Through Walls" (I think that's the title). I wish Heimlein had focused on Mike more. He's great. Oh well. Other authors have written good stories about sentient computers. It's just that Heimlein does such a good job at character development compared to other authors.

 

[Tabitha]

Yeah, Mike shows up - sort of - in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls - some other characters from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress also make an appearance.

Mike also has a cameo in To Sail Beyond the Sunset, but I wouldn't read it just for him, as not much of his personality comes through.


After finally reading MIAHM - about a year after I planned to - I have to say that I found it to be a right little page-turner. I was engrossed from beginning to end. I read this back in November, but I plan to revisit it when I can pick up a new copy (the one I read was borrowed), and will be back with more thoughts then.

In the meantime, on the subject of his writing style in this, and the dialogue in particular, I found Manny to be really interesting - as his speech patterns reflected not only a multi-cultural Luna, but also his profession. Working with computers that are programmed by voice led him to adopt an odd syntax in his everyday speech. It is little touches like this that make Heinlein really work for me. Can't wait to read it again.