RAH Reading Group - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

[Connavar]

Now that i have just got my copy of the book let me know when you guys can start reading it.



I dont know how much time you spend on reading books right now cause you might be busy with vacations or chilling in the beaches so let me know when its time for this book.


I can anytime specially these rainy days

 

[TTBRAHWTMG]

Sorry Conn...I volunteered and then left you hanging. Circumstances have served me up an unusually large portion of CHoR (did I use that right? my first time...lol). I haven't had a chance to read or even monitor the news in weeks, let alone check in on Chrons. I haven't even been able to hike in ages...and for me, that is saying something! Anyway, I am finally getting my first chances to breathe...and expect that it will normalize, and I will find some new equilibrium over the coming weeks.

Bottom line...I always love to talk Heinlein even though I may have difficulty finding much time for the next little bit. While it has been a while since I've re-read Moon, I've probably read it over a dozen times and could manage a decent discussion without the re-read. Your choice...start in anytime, or wait a while if you want me to be fresh and polished.

How far have you gotten, and just in general, how have you enjoyed it so far?

I guess I should go change my avatar to something more appropriate.

 

[Connavar]

I havent even started reading it.

I have been waiting for you guys. It has been hard controlling my urge to read it

 

[GOLLUM]

I've got the book but yet to make a start on it...

 

[Connavar]

Cool join us when you have finished it.


Im gonna start reading it later today. Im just about to finish my Gemmell book.

 

[mightymem]

I read it and must say it was a very thought provoking book, Heinlein used the american revolution as his concept for the book, and the charcters are quite amusing and interesting.

 

[Timewalker]

This is my favorite Robert Heinlein book, and I've read it so many times that my copy of it is literally falling apart (must look for a replacement).

I should email a friend who absolutely loves this book but isn't a member here. He and I have both wished that of all the Heinlein novels, this one could be made into a movie.

 

[HoopyFrood]

I recently read this and really enjoyed it. The style was a little disconcerting when I first started it, but it was an interesting idea to have a narrator that had a slightly unusual way of speaking/writing. And like anything, you don't really notice the words like 'the' until it's suddenly taken away!

I'm reading The Cat Who Walks Through Walls at the moment and it's nice to return to some of the characters that we met in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Although I am enjoying The Cat Who... (and haven't quite reached the end yet) I think I prefer The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Man is a thorough narrator, explaining all the details of their Revolution, and it was a really interesting read.

 

[chrispenycate]

I read it and must say it was a very thought provoking book, Heinlein used the american revolution as his concept for the book, and the charcters are quite amusing and interesting.

I read it and must say it was a very thought provoking book, Heinlein used the american revolution as his concept for the book, and the charcters are quite amusing and interesting.

Not much of the concept. Certainly, the colonies breaking loose from the parent country; but that happened all over the place, not merely the untied states. And the States reserved its terrorist actions for officials in the occupied country; they disn't drop rocks on their homes (Oh, Manny's troops were terrorists, all right; one of the questions the book poses is the moral position of terrorism in defending one's own future. The book also comtains (rather unusually for Heinlein) a fairly serious technical error, or misunderstanding; the linear accelerator did not require steel, it would have worked fine with any conducror (Laithwaite used to send aluminium bits driving into the plaster to demonstrate this, and yes, he had read the book, and agreed with me)
Still, the book is one of his greatest, I just wish I could remember who I lent my copy to most recently.

 

[mightymem]

I read the book last year,but if i remember rightly heinlein was refering to the American revolution and the right of people to decide its own future. The book was a scifiction story so much of the actions in the book were make beleive and Heinlein ideas. it was not a historical book just a made up book with a vague reference to revolution, so you could refer it to any different colony war if the subject fits.

 

[chrispenycate]

There were a lot more parallels than that; use of the forth of july as a symbol, re-using the - declaration of independence, was it, or the constitution - as their base document (while the majority of characters didn't even originate in North America, and I suspect it will be quite some time now before the USA will again be considered as a model of freedom and enlightenment) (it's about eight years since I last reread it, so some of the details were a bit fuzzy) but it was more a transfer of generalised independence movements into a science fiction environment (sons of rock and boredom)
And it's a story about artificial intelligence, the economics of running a colony in non-lifesupporting places, the Heinlein social model of manners or else, of TANSTAAFL;
not just revolution and terrorism.

 

[mightymem]

I agree with you 100% I just cannot write my thoughts as well as you, so please stop making me look like I do not have a clue about what I am saying. My memory of the book is quite vague I was just trying to write a brief point of how I saw the book, I not always capable of going indepth unless I am reading the book currently.

 

[Urlik]

I would have said that it draws more parallels with Australia's history;
the descendents of convicts in a penal colony fighting for their right to be free, but win or lose, destined to remain in the colony.
the 4th of July and the constitution and/or declaration of independance are symbolic, but the social issues are only remotely linked to America's revolution.

 

[Timewalker]

There is part of the story that resonates to Canadian history, too -- in that the colony exports raw materials and purchases back (at an insanely inflated price) manufactured goods made from the raw materials.

 

[ghost8772]

I'm thinking Heinlein used turning points in any number of colonies deciding on a trial separation around the world. the use of The United States Declaration of Independence, though was conscious, something HE respected. the dropping of rocks on the earth was basically his way of pointing out that a breakaway group is going to have little or no advanced weaponry, and must make do. rocks and a gravity well work wonders in that situation. Heinlein makes/made many technical errors, but since he wrote for mainline readers, not technical journals, he, and a number of casual readers were convinced that to hurl items magnetically, they had to have ferrous compositions involved. (another waittasecond is if you you press on a gyroscope along all three axes at once, it will wither dislodge from its gimbals, and fall, or it will have a higher friction coefficient and try to stop. it will not disappear.)

 

[Connavar]

Im reading this book again after having had problem with my first copy. Some of pages had words bleached out. Wierd for a new edition of the book.

A very good and interesting story. I adore Manny's wit and t

he way RAH writes all the characters.

One thing irks me on this cover i attached. Those things in the cover are Authority complexes like the one Mike is in or ships or something? I know Lunar City is underground if i understand early parts of the book correctly. It nags me like i missed something.

P.S have read only about 80 pages.

 

[Timewalker]

This particular cover makes it obvious that the artist did not read the story. I can't think of anything in this novel that would lead to such a visual depiction of what happened.

 

[Connavar]

Usually i dont care to look more than once at the cover. But i have trouble picturing the locations in the early parts of the book.

I understand they live underground and have to use P-suit to be in surface for travel or work right? . Why use p-suit at all if they live in underground city ? The bus ride Wye was talking about i geuss was on the surface cause of the suit and uncomfortableness.

The story ideas and everything is so well done that, i have only had trouble picturing the locations. RAH dont spend much time to describe the locations.

 

[ghost8772]

they are on the moon. most people wander around and work etc... in street clothes, but a number of people have p-suits, for work outside the domes, or for transit where their mode of transport has a danger of encountering vacuum. also in the event of bombardment style attack it is a prudent course to be somewhat immune to the effects of explosive decompression.

 

[j d worthington]

Not to mention that, in some newer parts of the city (or those under construction), there's the danger of 'quakes disrupting the seals, leaving an unsuited worker or inspector (or refugee?) slightly dead.....