The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

p Introduction

Human beings are drastically affected by the rapid strides achieved in technology in the last few decades . Man has crossed the moon and is researching to beat the stars . He is on relentless efforts to probe the mysteries of nature . He wishes to control and utilize the natural resources to his selfish advantages . If one turns the pages of history one finds that it is the story of the strong trying to control the weak Human beings of one continent try to conquer the human beings of the other continent

. The intruders , the neo-settlers try to subdue the natives . The technological revolution and the stunning scientific discoveries have not changed the inner domain of an individual and made him broad-minded and humane . He is willing to do anything , destroy everything for the sake of self-aggrandizement and to establish his control . Whether the credits of science would lead to qualitative changes in the thought process and consequently the action process of human beings

Definitely not , according to Robert A . Heinlein , the author of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress . Most of the revolutions on Earth , despite the initial success , have failed in the ultimate analysis . Heinlein 's science fiction is the gripping tale of revolution on the moon in 2076 In this story he has described how with the help of the ladder of science , man reached the moon and continued with his earthly tales of exploitation and subjugation . The Loonies ' are kept poor and their exploitation continues unabated . But a small band of dissidents decide to fight back . They include a one-armed computer jock , a radical young woman , a past-his-prime academic and a nearly omnipotent computer named Mike , who light the fire of revolution . They are aware of the doomed failure and eventual death (Like the human bombs of the modern era ) and yet they decide to resist injustice meted out to them

Science needs to be spiritualized , but unfortunately science has been controlled by political leaders . Didn 't someone say , Politics is the last resort of the scoundrels ' What will happen when the deadly products and awe-some scientific discoveries are controlled by such politicians ? History provides us with some examples when the achievements of the science were at the kindergarten level . But the science of the day has unimaginable destructive power . When a brilliant among the brilliant like Heinlein uses his imagination and extraordinary talents of writing , the resultant science-fiction turns out to be stranger than fiction ! He creates desperate situations , weaves a cobweb of tools of science , and arrests the reader 's attention leaving deep imprints on the curtain of his mind The writing and the facts mentioned in the novel have a strange revolutionary spirit and as one reads the novel , one begins to accept many strange ideas , which are read with repulsion at the beginning . The story gives an account of the evolution on the lunar colonies against the Earth authority . Initially the lunar colonies were established as penal colonies-comparable to the prisons on...