Conference noted::sf

There is no question that "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" will go down as a
great classic. Oddly enough, it's also good political science. In college,
the book was assigned as required reading for a Political Theory class I
took. We read it right along with Mill, Locke, and Burke. I'd read it before
as science fiction. Reading it as political theory made it an entirely 
different experience. A TEN in more then one way.

		bob wyman

I'd give it an 11.  This is my all-time favorite story.  I've even been
known to shed a tear at the end.
			Steve

   At least an eleven.  When people started bitching about Heinlien, this is 
my reply.

tlh

	Well worth the praise heaped upon it but it does have a couple of 
drawbacks.  Heinlein gets a little preachy at spots, both on his political 
sceince and his discusions of technology.  The first reveiwer attributes the 
technical insight to Manual.  In fact, the relevant technical information is
conveyed in one of Heinlein's digressions and can be considered to be either a
lecture by Heinlein or mere conjecture after the fact by Manny.  Manny is not
a some geinus technician, but a rather hard nosed, comon sense, down to earth,
even funky character.  Much more approchable as a result.  The story is rife 
with human interactions, even or especialy when it comes to Mike.
	I usually do not hold with plot synopsies.  Unfortunatly, the review I 
would be inclined to write about TMiaHM, would make it sound like a weak 
alagory of the American revolution on the moon.  (It is an alogory but it is
handled so very well that does not turn out to be your usual cleiche.)

	Blast it, it is getting so late, I can't spell streight any more.  I 
better go home and get some sleep.  I am getting to hate note files!

re .3 - I will take back my comment about Heinlein's chauvanism, at least
for this particular book.

It's been a while since I've read it - I think I'll dig it out...

Jim Stratton

P.S.  Weren't we talking about Heinlein in some other Notesfile?  The one
on BOOKS, maybe?

Prompted by the praise in this file I started reading Moon is a Harsh 
Mistress and am currently about 1/3 through. (I am a slow reader)
Although it will keep me going to the end I am rather disappointed.
Writing style tough going, missing prepositions unecessary, annoying. 

I do find Heinlein chavaunistic, two examples sprang to light. I don't 
have the book in front of me so I will paraphrase and type Heinlein's 
actual words in when you all start beating me up. The first was to the 
effect that "Wyoh had the exterior of a hard revolutionist but was 
really just a soft female". The second was something like "Loonies 
think about ???, women, ??? all the time". - Women do not count as 
Loonies ? - non-people ?

Finally, even given that Manuel is the only compentent computer person 
on Luna the ease with which they penetrated Mike's (the computer) 
security should give them some qualms about the warden doing the same 
to them.

Mike "I have some files containg secret information from the Warden 
but I am unable to access them for you"

Manuel "What command would I have to give you to see those files"

Mike "You would have to say - Unlock secret file zebra"

Manuel "Unlock secret file zebra"

Mike "OK - here are the contents of the file "

OK - I'm ready for you all to beat me up now.

Tim

Has anybody noticed a similarity between the 'army' that Manny organizes and 
The Guardian Angels?  The Guardian Angels is the quasi-vigilante group 
originally organized in NYC to patrol the subway and neighborhoods.

Both have militaristic organizations, and the uniforms are very similar:  red 
berets and white T-shirts.  Both organizations consist of young adults.

Curtis Silwa (Sliwa?), the founder of the Guardian Angels is around 30 years 
old.  The book was originally published in 1966.  It's possible that he read 
it, and it influenced him.  I wonder...

	The lack of prepositions takes some getting used to - he's trying to
	indicate that Manny was raised in a society which mixed Russian and
	English into one polyglot language. For the benefit of the reader,
	he watered this down to English, using Russian word order and sentence
	construction. Bang on the table and ask a Russian "What is this?",
	he'll answer - "Eta deskah" - "Is Desk". So does Manny.

	Chauvanism - I won't argue, I agree with you!

	Computer security - I think the hole in Mike's system occurred when
	he developed sentience. But since no one except for the consipirators
	recognize him as intellegent, the hole is available to them only.
	For example - DCL has no command to dump passwords, but assume an
	intellegent VAX, and ask it to solve a problem for you - and it might
	actually break it's own passwords to solve it. Sentience is, by
	definition, unprogrammed (volitional).

	On the Ruslish (Russian English) - if you think "Moon..." is tough to
	read, try "Clockwork Orange"! I read it the first time without
	realizing that there was a Russian glossary in the back... What a
	headache!

	Was a great book, though. (Now you've got ME doing it)

Computer Security:

This stuff didn't seem very believable to me when I read THE MOON IS A HARSH
MISTRESS, but response 8 prompted me to think about it some more.

In order for Mike not to be able to divulge the password for Special File
Zebra without a direct order, there would have to be data in memory that the
normal operating system modes (returning to the intelligent VAX analogy)
can't read.  Imagine a processor mode more privileged than KERNEL, which only
the code which asks for and verifies the password runs in.  The memory pages
containing the special passwords would only be readable in this mode.

Perhaps this discussion should be moved to the VAX NOTESfile. :-)

					-- Roger

     Tim, I don't agree with your assesment of a chavanistic attitude (at
least in this book).  Remember, during the time line that encompasses the
story, the population ratio between men and woman was two or three to one!
And this was after six generations.  Previous to that, the population ratio
was even worse.  I think Heinlein does a very good job of attempting to
show how the outlook of a society would be after six generations where the
men outnumber the woman at better than three to one.

     Also, remember that the attitudes shown by the characters in the book
are *NOT* necessarily the attitudes of the author (a point that more people
forget when dealing w/Heinlein than any other author).  While I would call
Manual and the Prof chauvanists, I can't see how that makes the man who
wrote about them a chauvanist.

     <- Kevin McCarthy ->

The reason some of us say that Heinlein is a chauvanist is because many
of his books portray women in the same light.  When an author consistently
beats the same drum, the odds are that they reflect the author's own
beliefs.

The imbalance between the numbers of men and women is not believable.
Manuel states that no mass shipments of people have happened in a *long*
time.  I forget the amount of time but it was long enough that the
population balance should have corrected itself through normal population
growth.
					John

Well, I finished the book yesterday. I would assess it as a good plot 
spoilt by a poor and annoying writing style. (Much the same as my 
assessment of Stranger in a strange land and Time enough for love).

re .10  Heinlein could have shown how males behave in a society with a 
high imbalance of the sexes. To some extent he did so - for example in 
describing the marriage customs, and even in the reaction of the males 
to Stuart's advances to a woman in a bar. It was not developed very 
far, but it was showing characters behaving in context. However I 
don't place the throwaway remarks that I referenced earlier in the 
same category. They are much more narrative in style (i.e. from the 
author) rather than being shown as a weakness of the character. There 
is no counter to that attitude, either from the Professor or from
Stuart, both of whom came from Earth. (Nor from any of the women).

Since the only view that we have of Heinlein is through his books any 
allegation of chauvinism (or any other trait) is of course viewed 
through the same window. I could not care less what Heinlein's
attitudes are, only how they appear in his writing. In the Heinlein 
books that I have read chauvinist behavior is not explored as a 
topic, it is simply accepted as a norm by all the characters. This is 
a weakness in the books.

Tim

Two things I didn't see mentioned:

The name, "Mike," literally means, "gift from/of God." I've heard
Heinlein uses character names in a similar way in other books. 
Anyone have other examples?

The character Helen Stone reappears in --you guessed it-- "The Rolling
Stones" as Grandma Stone. That puts "RS" after "MIAHM" in the future
history,, and you can see the society that evolved from the revolution.
Manny was right to be thinking about emigrating to the asteroids!

Rico

Something extra to add (wanted to do it yesterday and forgot the dude's
name!). The character -- Professor LaPaz -- is based on an actual
person named Robert (Bob) LeFevre -- a Libertarian writer/speaker who
obviously impressed Heinlein a lot. Some of LeFevre books mauy be
available at your local library.. Worth checking out -- especially
after (re)reading MIAHM.

Rico

    I to like all the people answering this note (most)have read the
    moon is a harsh mistress and enjoyed it very much. I think the book
    has a good storyline and is almost beleivable. You can picture the
    Luna surface where the city is and especially the inside of Manuals
    home. 
    The Russian style of speech just goes further as well to add to
    the reality of the whole thing who knows perhaps in the futre we'll
    all be speaking like that.
    
    Kane Martin
    

    I think it was the best book Heinlein wrote, bar none.
    
    steve p