Conceptual Fiction: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

Conceptual Fiction is a regular feature, contributed by Ted Gioia, focusing on major works of fantasy, science fiction, magical realism and alternate history. These books are celebrated in recognition that literary experimentation with ways of conceptualizing reality has been as important as experimentation with language in creating fiction of lasting value. Dismissing these books as genre or escapist works has created a blind-spot in literary studies that this feature aims, in some small part, to rectify.

No matter how hard you try — and some folks have tried awfully hard — you can’t attach a simple label to Robert Heinlein’s sociopolitical views. After checking out Stranger in a Strange Land, you might think he was a permanent resident in a summer of love hippie commune. When you’ve finished reading Starship Troopers, you will be certain that he is a member of some reactionary militia in the backwoods. If you knew about his involvement with the End Poverty in California (EPIC) movement, you would surmise that he is a closet socialist. Yet when you’re done with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, you will confidently label him a laissez-faire libertarian.

Of course, many readers get hot and bothered by one or another of these stances, and they try to turn Robert Heinlein into a debating partner. But the joke is on them. This author won’t stand still long enough to let you score debating points. It is worth remembering that Heinlein won medals in fencing as a young man, and you don’t get those by staying in the same place too long.

Take my advice: Don’t debate Heinlein, just enjoy him. And this book may be his most enjoyable. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress represents Robert Heinlein at his finest, giving him scope for the armchair philosophizing that increasingly dominated his mature work, but marrying his polemics to a smartly conceived plot packed with considerable drama.

The story takes place on the moon starting in the year 2075, where a colony is having its resources drained in order to support consumption back on Mother Earth. Unless the economic balance is tilted, the moon will experience famine and inevitable collapse in a few years time. The Earth, like all over-zealous colonizers, has turned into a parasite, but is blinded by its own sense of entitlement.

This scenario is red meat for Mr. Heinlein, who never needs much of excuse to put on the mantle of sociologist or political scientist. In fact, this book is the source of that famous Heinlein quote (not invented by him, but well known through his intervention): “There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch” - sometimes abbreviated to the vaguely Russian-sounding TANSTAAFL. (Heinlein must have had the Soviet Union on his mind while writing this book, since the prose is colored with frequent Russian or pseudo-Russian phraseology.) There are many fancy rhetorical flourishes in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, even though Heinlein shares the observation, at one point, that “oratory is a null program."

Article Author: Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia is a writer and musician. He is the author of Delta Blues, The History of Jazz and, most recently, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool. You can follow Ted Gioia on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tedgioia.

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