Another excellent sci-fi book from Heinlein.

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.

International Bookray, forum post announcing bookray.

Participants:

1. indigorage (Arkansas, USA - US only)
   
2. SheWhoReads (Georgia, USA - Prefers US only)
   
3. Withoutwings (Florida, USA = Ship Int.)
   
4. dospescados (Chittenango, New York - Prefers to ship withing USA but will ship Int.)
   
5. cloggy(London, UK Prefer Ship within UK)<-- In the Mail To
   
6. TexasAngel (Nottinghamshire, UK)
   
7. pickledlegs (London, UK - Ship Int.)
   
8. latent(Sindh, Pakistan - Ship Int)
   
9. Xeyra (Setúbal, Portugal)
   
10. Justicar (Lisboa, Portugal-Wants to be last)

Bookray instructions (Copied from catsalive):
1. SIGN UP for this bookray by sending me a Private Message. Order of participants will be juggled between geography, date of request and shipping limitations. Late additions may be added to the end of the list.
2. When the person before you on the list finishes reading the book, they will send you a Private Message for your postal address. If you no longer wish to read the book or need to be moved on the list please let them (and me!) know and I will move you down/off the list.
3. WHEN YOU RECEIVE THE BOOK please make a journal entry so everyone knows it has safely arrived. Bookrays should NOT be stressful, take your time and enjoy the book. Just make sure it gets mailed on to the next person.
4. WHEN YOU FINISH THE BOOK, make another journal entry telling us what you thought - did you like it? Did you think it was well-written?
5. CONTINUE THE BOOKRAY by sending a Private Message to the person after you on the bookring list and request their postal address. Please check back here for the latest distribution list. If the person doesn't respond within 7-10 days (use your judgement), please PM the next person, and then me, so I can update the bookring list.
6. END OF THE RAY, The last person on the ray could try and continue the ray or just give/mail the book to someone else who might like to read it, an RABCK perhaps, look at cliff1976.com wish list web site or release it into the wild.

A note about shipping:

As this is a bookray and the book will not return to me it does not matter how long it takes this book to make its way from person to person. So I would insist that when shipping this book please use the most inexpensive shipping method available to you, ESPECIALLY when shipping this book internationally.

Shipped out at lunch today to indigorage via USPS Media Mail, total package weighted 10.3 ounces (292 g), cost US$1.42

Arrived in the mail yesterday - thanks! I've already started reading it and am at chapter four.

Great book. Mailed to SheWhoReads this morning.

This came in the mail yesterday. I'll get started reading it right away!

I finished this today, and I really enjoyed it. It was an excellent novel, action-packed, exciting, and deftly-plotted, with fascinating, complex characters and some interesting science-fictional ideas. I also enjoyed reading about Luna's culture; I thought the marriage customs were particularly interesting.

One thing I noticed right off was the way the Loonies use language differently than people from earth do. In fact, it threw me at first -- I couldn't figure out what was going on or why the language was so rough and unpolished and choppy. After a while, though, I found the rhythm of it and settled in just fine -- I didn't even notice it after a while. It makes sense; Luna started off as a penal colony and has since developed completely seperate from Earth and relatively unmolested. Of course they would have their own dialect and speech patterns! To my mind, their language seems to be as efficent as possible. They trimmed away any unnecessary deadwood -- they don't use articles, for example, and very few personal pronouns, and they seem to prefer to use fragments to complete sentences. Only the essentials remain, much the same as the original colonists/prisoners had to start their lives over with only the bare essentials and sometimes not even that.

This book was written about forty years ago, and it has stood the test of time quite well, but there are some aspects of it that do seem rather dated. For example, the idea behind the character of Mike -- the computer that is connected to everything and has "woken up" or become alive -- is one that is very familiar to modern readers, one that we accept easily. Apparently, we accept it much more easily than Heinlen expected his readers in 1965 to accept it, because he spends more time explaining it than he really needs to. When Manuel, the narrator, tells Wyoh about Mike and introduces them via a telephone conversation, she is shocked that Mike already knows what she looks like. He looked up her medical records and found a picture of her immediately after being introduced to her. To modern readers familiar with the internet, this is an obvious step and hardly shocking; we expect it, and Wyoh's shock and apparent need to have every detail and implication of Mike's "life" spelled out for her makes her seem a little bit stupid to us. If we don't remember that Heinlen is using Wyoh to explain things to his 1965 audience that his 2005 audience intuitively understands, then we'll get a little frustrated with Wyoh's denseness.

All in all, though, this is a novel about politics -- a very complex, deep, intellectual and sophisticated look at politics, government, revolution and war. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has a very definite world-view and political philosophy, some of which I agreed with, and some of which I really, really didn't. My agreement (or lack thereof) with the politics espoused in this book didn't seem to have much bearing on my enjoyment of it. This is a book that requires the reader to think. And that, I think, is why I loved it so much.

RELEASE NOTES:

I actually mailed this a few days ago, but I forgot to journal it! Sorry!

I got this book the begining of the week. I am trying to get into it, but I'm a little bit annoyed they took all the "The"s out of the book

Thanks, I'm looking forward to this!

I just finished reading this. It was the first Heinlein book I've read. I did enjoy it though I thought the plot heavily flawed. The revolution seemed much too perfect (no real setbacks and all obstacles were much too easily jumped) and Mike's character seemed like one giant deus ex machina (no pun intended) construct and apolitical Manuel seemed about the least likely to lead a revolution, especially on such short notice really. Nonetheless, I thought the details were well-done and it was amusing, as it always is, to read what an author decades ago dreams up for technology. Some of it we've already passed (Manuel's baseball videos -- implying that Heinlein didn't dream up DVDs or live video transmissions to the moon possible; Mike is somehow reached on a video & speaker phone but Mike does not have a cordless phone!; etc.) and some obviously not and I dare say won't within the next 75 years when the book takes place. I'll keep an eye out for more Heinlein books (lord knows there are plenty!) for more amusement. =)

I PMed BrookeH about a week ago when I started reading but haven't heard back. I'll try once more before moving down the list and get this book moving on again.

I haven't heard from BrookeH after sending my second PM to her last week but I've gotten cloggy's address so it's heading across the pond...