The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

1. Heinlein writes great characters—they feel like well rounded people instead of archetypes to progress the story. Mannie, Mike, Prof, the Frenchman, Mami—these are interesting characters that I want to follow. He draws a line between consistency and predictability, between realistic and commonplace, and by hitting this balance he avoids inevitability and mundanity. Even the more minor characters—Wyoming, Greg, Dr. Chan, Slim and the like—are interesting characters in their own right and I want to know more about them too. I feel like his characters are so successful here because Heineman uses the same people in different situations: he adds more stress, changes the prominence of different influencing characters, puts the character in new situations, and changes the character's goals. This variety allows Mannie to show the different sides of his personality to the reader. And this tactic keeps the plot moving.

2. I like Mike. Compared to other AI's in fiction, this is just as likely a result of self-awareness as the tragedy of HAL9000, the excess of GLaDOS, or the brutal but subtle judgment of Shodan. Mike's childlike wonder, philosophical search for questions, and taking for granted of his own self-awareness and talents creates an interesting base to draw a good character from, and a good starting point for both his character arc and his subservience to the humans—he wants to help them because they are his mystery and their goals are his game, his raison d'être. His sleep at the end is the real cost of the revolution to Mannie, and hence, to the novel.

3. Heinlein lets Mannie run away with the story. The dialect is a real risk to the novel, but it ends up working for me because Heinlein is consistent and Mannie is cynically funny. One of the reasons it is so hard to nail Heinlein down to any overarching philosophy or writing goal is because his characters so dominate his novels that they become his writers. It's more like Mannie wrote this book than Heinlein, and that shows a staggering aspect of Heinlein's skill. In this way, I believe that Heinlein writes like a method actor. [Heinlein's stories seem to mostly be about characters, and they take over his novels. He gives them free range over the whole shebang, and sometimes they're great storytellers, sometimes they're not, but it's about them.]

4. It is difficult to not be excited by this book. First, Heinlein is clearly so excited about his subjects and characters that it comes across in his writing and affects the reader. Second, the plot is interesting and reinterprets historical and fictional events in a fascinating, believable way. Third, the plot moves along at a good pace, ignoring or merely recapping gaps in the narrative that may have been drudgery—much as Mannie would have himself. Fourth, the world he builds is both familiar and fantastic in an intriguing way that is both consistent and important to the plot—like a Pixar movie, it requires only a couple of suspensions of disbelief, then logically examines the results of those suspensions deeply. Lastly, the writing itself, not groundbreaking or uniformly poetic, has some real high points in Mannie's wit and wryly humorous observations. These five points make the novel an exciting read.

5. I do not feel done praising the pacing. Not only does it move from each new important situation to the next with just enough pause for reflection, which allows the characters to change in believable ways, but it also covers an interesting time period. That post-revolution politicking is not often covered in novels, and it is the main part of the book here. Heinlein makes it interesting. The revolution almost goes without saying, but securing it proves much more subtle and difficult.

6. There's a good mix of characters. Mannie is only satisfied by action. Wyoming is a professional agitator who knows little about the fulfillment of that agitation. Prof is the lifelong revolutionary politician who understands the subtleties of timing. Mike finds the revolution fun and knows how to crunch numbers to intuitively look at tough situations as free from bias as possible. The ways these four work together, compensating each others' weaknesses and supporting each others' strengths, may be the true soul of the novel. I believe that these interpersonal relationships are the theme and driving force of this book.