Tom Clancy has said of Robert A. Heinlein, "We proceed down the path marked by his ideas. He shows us where the future is." Nowhere is this more true than in Heinlein's gripping tale of revolution on the moon in 2076, where "Loonies" are kept poor and oppressed by an Earth-based Authority that turns huge profits at their expense. A small band of dissidents, including a one-armed computer jock, a radical young woman, a past-his-prime academic and a nearly omnipotent computer named Mike, ignite the fires of revolution despite the near certainty of failure and death.


Review
"We proceed down a path marked by his ideas." --Tom Clancy



Review
"We proceed down a path marked by his ideas." --Tom Clancy



Review
"We proceed down a path marked by his ideas." --Tom Clancy



Book Description
Robert A. Heinlein was the most influential science fiction writer of his era, an influence so large that, as Samuel R. Delany notes, "modern critics attempting to wrestle with that influence find themselves dealing with an object rather like the sky or an ocean." He won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, a record that still stands. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was the last of these Hugo-winning novels, and it is widely considered his finest work.

It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of the former Lunar penal colony against the Lunar Authority that controls it from Earth. It is the tale of the disparate people--a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic--who become the rebel movement's leaders. And it is the story of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to this inner circle, and who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of the high points of modern science fiction, a novel bursting with politics, humanity, passion, innovative technical speculation, and a firm belief in the pursuit of human freedom.



About the Author
Robert Anson Heinlein was educated at the University of Missouri and the U.S. Naval Academy. After serving as a naval officer for five years, he retired for health reasons and began publishing SF in 1939. Considered the dean of American SF writers, Heinlein was loved and emulated during the half century that he wrote SF. He wrote dozens of novels and short stories, including Double Star, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, all of which won Hugo Awards. Heinlein was the recipient of the First Grand Master Nebula in 1975, and he was the guest of honor at three World SF Conventions: in 1941, 1961, and 1976. He has repeatedly been voted "best all-time author" in readers' polls. Robert A. Heinlein passed away in 1988.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of a former penal colony on the Moon against its masters on the Earth. It is a tale of a culture whose family structures are based on the presence of two men for every woman, leading to novel forms of marriage and family. It is the story of the disparate people—a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic—who become the movement's leaders, and of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to the revolt's inner circle, who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

He was the most significant science fiction writer since H. G. Wells. — Robert Silberberg

Robert Heinlein, as much as any writer while I was growing up, taught me to argue with the excepted version. — Samuel R. Delaney