Hi readers. Thanks for coming by.
Just when you think the early work of RAH is bogging itself down in frozen-in-time anachronisms he drops a mickey into your martini. Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one such.
Suddenly he’s taking a close look at political revolutions, at the institutions of marriage, at the relationships between men and women [and why they become what they become], why revolutions don’t work usually, and how to prevent them from becoming what revolutions invariably become. He throws in a quickie about how you can always, always come out ahead betting the horses. And an imaginary penal colony on the moon, several generations later when the prisoners are only a tiny percentage of a population composed mainly of the descendants of prisoners.
A society where males outnumber females 10 to 1, where the earth is on the brink of starvation and depends heavily on the labors of the Luna population for wheat production, crops catapulted to the earth surface to land in the Indian Ocean. Depleting inevitably the water-ice reservoirs on the moon with no attempt to replace, even pay for the labors of folks who physically will never be able to ‘return’ to earth.
This was a great read in 1966, the first time I read it. 2013 I read it again, and aside from pickypickypicky details, it’s still a great read.
Sheeze, catapults on the moon hurling rocks down the gravity well turning out the equivalents of H-bomb explosions after the earth governments dig in their heels and bomb moon colonies as an alternative to replacing the water required to grow the wheat. A computer gone intelligent. Marriages lasting 150 years through dozens of multiple-husbands and wives, always being replaced when one dies.
I’d rank it one hell of a lot better than Stranger in a Strange Land.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 