[psikeyhackr]

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has a number of facets.

There is the prediction of resource depletion. They mined ice on the Moon to grow food to ship to Earth. There was economics dealing with the price of the ice. There was politics because of control of a criminal colony from Earth.

Life on the Moon involved rockets, gravity, mass and acceleration. Space travel involves Newtonian physics. So to me if people don't understand the Newtonian physics then they don't understand the story. That resource depletion is like this Peak Oil business we hear about now. We have to deal with physics in the real world. People who say they like SCIENCE fiction but then can't apply the relevant ideas in the real world I find quite dismaying. It makes me think they don't really understand what they read.

psik

[Shonsu]

I liked The Puppet Masters, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Friday all about the same. I'll probably read some of his short stories next.

Those were all quite good. You should try Starship Troopers.

[psikeyhackr]

I just finished rereading Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress yesterday.

I am sure it has been more than 20 years since I last read that book. But I am also sure the last time I read it I had not heard of PEAK OIL.

Lots of people say plenty of good and bad things about that book. But the central motivator of the whole story is the Moon running out of water to grow wheat to be shipped back to Earth combined with the Earth's overpopulation problem. India figures very prominently in the tale. But that book was published in 1966 so we had not even been to the Moon much less found water there.

So this entire peak oil business has raised my opinion of the book. I am not trying to say that Heinlein was prescient I am just saying that this raises the importance of the book as a worthwhile read, especially for teenagers. I have been looking over the Internet for reviews of the book. In the light of dimming oil a lot of the reviews look pretty stupid and shallow.

psik