The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

When a book appears to encourage pedophilia, and suggests that statutory rape shouldn't be a law, it's hard for me to shrug that off and focus on the good. But ignoring painfully ignorant claptrap appears to be the only way to enjoy this book.It's considered a classic, and Heinlein is considered part of the “sci-fi canon” but if there was ever a solid argument for why sci-fi fans do NOT need to read “the canon”, this shallow sexist pseudo-libertarian diatribe is a prime example.Now, one concession: This is clearly a foundational work by an influential author. Unlike many authors of his time, he tries to focus on the Everyman rather than some brilliant scientist or intrepid explorer (though the most important characters are two stereotypical “competent man” figures), and many of the military aspects of the book have been referenced and repurposed over the ages. In fact, there was quite a bit of overlap between the revolutionaries of this story and the revolutionaries of the Expanse series ([b:James S.A. Corey Expanse Series 8 Books Collection Set 53152963 James S.A. Corey Expanse Series 8 Books Collection Set (Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon's Ashes, Persepolis Rising, Tiamats Wrath) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1586740617l/53152963.SX50.jpg 79948004]).That said, if military sci-fi or stories of revolutions in space sounds interesting, you don't need to read through the pages upon pages of poorly written nonsense arguments about taxation or atrocious sexism within this book. You can just read [a:James S.A. Corey 4192148 James S.A. Corey https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1573162332p2/4192148.jpg] or [a:John Scalzi 4763 John Scalzi https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1562613145p2/4763.jpg]. Scalzi cites Heinlein as one of his biggest inspirations, but unlike Heinlein, Scalzi's stories are simple to follow, more entertaining, better written, and not at all problematic.This book has tons of positive reviews though, so rather than just deride this book as crap, let me highlight why I consider this an irredeemably bad book: 1. It's poorly written and poorly constructed: Beyond the invented “creole” this book is written in - which sounds more like what a perverted toddler would talk like than any real form of slang or creole - it's structured very poorly. The dialogues run forever, in what tries to be an ode to Platonic argument, but just reads as rambling. The conversations are unrealistic, make senseless leaps of logic, go on weird and pointless tangents, and lead to unchallenged conclusions that no rational person would stand for. There's also the plot structure: the author invents a sense of tension by having an all-intelligent computer occasionally state what the odds of a successful revolution are, which basically works to tell the reader explicitly how the story is progressing, rather than actually writing about conflicts and resolutions. Without these updates, most of the book is basically a list of things the revolutionaries are doing, with no sense of opposition or tension. The updates therefore serve the purpose of telling the reader “The revolution hasn't happened yet, and for reasons I can't or won't explain, more needs to be done or else they'll fail.” That is weak, lazy writing. Even without the dumb politics or problematic stuff, this is just a bad story, poorly told. 2. The politics: If one is patient enough to sift through the garbage dialogue, you will discover Heinlein's theory of the “Rational Anarchist”, epitomized through Prof, an exiled professor. In taking about ten painstaking pages to describe it, one might be fooled into thinking it's a complex social theory, but it's not, it's just poorly written. The idea is simple: Do only what you personally think is right for you, and spend no time considering the success or wellbeing of others. If something happens due to your choices, you are solely responsible for that and its consequences. In practice, Prof is very clear this means: do not pay taxes, or for anything you don't want or need, steal from the public if you think you can get away with it, and help no one unless doing so helps or pleases you. Only a privileged white man could come up with something so naive and selfish, because only a privileged white man could get away with living this way. But wait, what about hospitals and schools? Heinlein: they're just scams. What about insurance or social security? Heinlein: Families intertwined by incest and polyamory solve that problem (Why? How? Not explained.) If everyone steals shared resources, won't that be an issue? Heinlein: just extort, blackmail or blow up a neighbouring culture. How is rational anarchy different from libertarianism? Me: it's somehow even more self-serving, more shallow and less sustainable. 3. The problematic stuff: I don't mind political incorrectness but describing a 14-year-old girl as a “sweet little tart” who's “probably a prostitute” and who “should be married, if she isn't already” is just perverted. It's not challenging cultural norms or whatever he thinks it is, he's just encouraging a culture of systemic statutory rape. This is actually one of the only parts of a book where someone disagrees with a main character: an outsider asks if paying a child for sex should be considered statutory rape, and the main character, Mannie, laughs and says, “There's no such thing as rape here.” Everyone then agrees that child trafficking is a great step forward for women's rights, as long as the child has the right to say no. Mannie goes on to explain the economic value of women on the moon, because women are basically a form of currency, and people wouldn't just take what they want because that would be stealing... Except stealing is actively encouraged (see point 2), but that glaring error in logic is not addressed. It's also worth noting that rape is the subject of multiple jokes in this book. Ironically, in this culture where women are forced into marriages with multiple men from childhood, and expected to have sex with their husbands' fathers as a marriage ritual, we are told that women are much happier on the moon than on Earth. There are multiple women characters in the book who are positioned as smart or respected, but only one character appears to have any capacity for political thought, and her ideas are laughed at as pitifully idealistic, too emotional or just a little stupid. Being a good woman though, she gracefully accepts her inferiority, becomes a puppet for the smarter men around her, and spends the second half of the book being a worried but supportive and sexually eager wife to Mannie, who's family assigned her to him. Somehow, the author honestly seems to believe that in his made-up society, women's liberation has reached its peak potential. I suspect he had never actually listened to a woman in his life. The book also positions itself as post-racist in much the same way: Sure, there's still racial slurs and only white people seem capable of having valuable thoughts, but the minorities are all happy on the moon because they know racism doesn't exist. Logic that only makes sense to ignorant white men.As a major lover of science fiction, and its history, I don't regret reading this. I think it's important to understand the flawed history this genre was born from. But there's far better writers and far better books, so now I can definitively say: Heinlein is not worth reading.Want to read classic sci-fi? [a:Ray Bradbury 1630 Ray Bradbury https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1445955959p2/1630.jpg] has aged well, [a:Arthur C Clarke 46055572 Arthur C Clarke https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] isn't the best character-writer, but it's great concept work, and I still really like [a:Isaac Asimov 16667 Isaac Asimov https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1341965730p2/16667.jpg]'s stories, even though he had a history of sexism. Unlike Heinlein, he kept that out of his books.