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Chapter 1

I see in Lunaya Pravada that Luna City Council has passed on first reading a bill to examine, license, inspect - and tax - public food vendors operating inside municipal pressure. I see also is to be mass meeting tonight to organize "Sons of Revolution" talk-talk.

My old man taught me two things: "Mind own business" and "Always cut cards." Politics never tempted me. But on Monday 13 May 2075 I was in computer room of Lunar Authority Complex, visiting with computer boss Mike while other machines whispered among themselves. Mike was not official name...

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(Grammar mistakes are not mine.)

Bah again. Humbug, even. I tried to get into it, but I realized halfway through the first page that I hadn't understood anything that had happened so far. I was struggling with the weird proported-to-be-2075 grammar so much that comprehension was left with 10% or less of my total computing power.

Humbug. More travesty: "But matters whether you get answer in microsecond rather than millisecond as long as correct?"

The entire book is like that. Bah, humbug. Shouldn't he have called his book Moon is Harsh Mistress? Or might that have turned too many people off on the first look?

That's bad and I am sure was hard to write. But still I think it goes for any jargon--a little goes along way. Weird--wonder why he did it?

I submitted a story to my crit group--first person present tense--one person said "why would you write like this? Just to prove you can do something weird and hard to read?"

Perhaps I will take another look at my first person present tense.

Here's my big question: What has Heinlein done, up front, to convince me that it's worth it to put the necessary energy into reading his book?

None. None at all. That's what annoyed me the most: his presumption that I would naturally assume it was worth it. What an arrogant position. Either that, or he assumes all of his readers enjoy that sort of challenge. Personally I'd rather read something that's easier to get into.

Pro: Perhaps you give the reader the idea that this is an authentic future history.

Cons: Readers find it hard to concentrate on the first few chapters, and it keeps them from being involved in the story until they get used to it.

Heimlein is one of my favorite authors, so I would have probably given the book a chance even if I was reading it in print, though I would have struggled with it. Heimlein has an interesting sense of humor and philosophy. Starship Troopers, unlike the movie form, was particularly good. It described a unique way of setting up a democratic system, requiring two years of service to vote.

Point is, I hope you give Heimlein another chance, even if you can't get into The Moon is a Harh Mistress. Seasoned writers often do get sloppy, and Heimlein is far from the only one. They can get away with things we beginners cannot, and we overlook them because we know their first book was good and we trust them. OSC has done this a few times; I find many of his books require some trust to get into in the first place but I keep reading because in the end it's worth it.

"It's not fair!"

"Who ever said life was fair?"

Anyway, back to Heimlein. Interesting premises, philosphies, sexual ideas, etc. Bad endings. I'm afraid Heimlein's books don't end so much as stop. But I've still read nearly every one of them.

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Here's my big question: What has Heinlein done, up front, to convince me that it's worth it to put the necessary energy into reading his book?

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Have you read "A Clockwork Orange"? As that entire book is also written in its own vernacular, and I find it much harder than this sample from "Moon". I would go as far as to compare it to Bradbury's "451", as that had a descriptive style that I was just completely not used to, yet by the end I found myself understanding the author and what he was trying to say without thinking.

I like books that are written in essentially, their own language, personally. Some writing that I do comes across as pretty alien to other people, so I can relate to this, and I find if people just read something and finish it, by the end they get it. You just aren't having someone hold your hand the entire time, you have to try a bit harder.

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Write other stuff that you found worth reading?

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Well...I tried to grok Stranger in a Strange Land a year ago or so, and found myself so uninterested that I just put it down. I'm one of those people who continually asks himself "Is this worth it?" and "Do I have something better to read?" as I read a novel. The answers ended up "No" and "Yes" respectively too many times, so I closed the book.

I devour books by the dozen. When some author continually has me saying to myself "Do I really care?" there's got to be something wrong.

Maybe Heinlein just doesn't "speak" to me.

Maybe I'll try out Starship Troopers next. Everyone deserves three chances, eh?

EDIT: Goober: I don't call it "hand holding," I call it "being curteous." Isn't the point of writing fiction to communicate? Why add a barrier if the gains are small?

I have enjoyed many Heinlein books, and certainly in some I have wanted to yell at him because he was being, so, well, HIM! I call it "being Heinlein" and I know how it can get to you. I find him being much less "Heinlein" in "Friday" - not that it is not his style, but the style doesn't overwhelm the plot and characters. The protagonist is female, if that matters.

When I discovered my husband had not read Heinlein, I actually got him a copy of "Farnham's Freehold" (spelling may be wrong). I think it was my first, and was impressed enough to read more. He said I should recommend "The Door Into Summer" too. There are several others I liked, but I won't overwhelm my recommendations!

If I were going to recommend one Heinlein novel, it would be Double Star. I would also suggest a book of his short stories: The Man Who Sold the Moon.

I also second Eric, as it isn't the worst mistake Heinlein ever made and you do get used to it quickly enough that it doesn't matter...much.

I have to point out for Goober's sake that if the weird slang in Clockwork Orange served no other purpose than to let the reader know that this story was set in some future where colloquial English had changed in some ways (which is basically an immutable law of nature, duh) then it would have been a severe mistake. But the particular ways in which this slang had evolved told us a lot about the society and where it was going, as well as where it had been.

http://www.heinleinsociety.org/newsFUTL.html

Still, a usage in which a possessive pronoun or adjective is used and the noun deleted has been common to many languages since the rule of Julius Caesar.

Not sure why it's "Mind own business" and not "Mind your business" or simply "Mind business." I wonder if the language is also devoid of colorful metaphors, and Kirk described them to Spock.

I also liked Starship Troopers, but I must warn you it has very very little to do with the movie. There's more connection between the Jurassic Park book and movie.

It's not the fastest book in the world, and it's told mostly in flashback, but it was an interesting commentary on politics and citizenship.

I read Revolt in 2100, which was kinda fun, in that it was really three separate novellas. He created an interesting future world, again chock full of political commentary, and I could dig it.

The problem with "Mistresspeak" is that it isn't "Russian-English" specifically, it is immigrant English. Russians that speak English fluently use articles (even if they have a thick accent), Russians that don't speak fluently don't think in English (Chinese people, on the other hand...).

Glogpro might have a point, though, in that there was a clear convention in those days of showing that someone had a Russian accent by having them speak in mangled English. Today we find that convention merely laughable when it occurs in AV, and completely miss it in writing. Partly this is because it doesn't make sense for writing, particularly when you display someone's internal thoughts.

If I want to write a character that struggles with a lack of English fluency, then I write the dialogue in broken English (because the character actually says things in broken English), but I write his thoughts in translation English, because he doesn't think in broken English (not sure whether these rule apply to female characters ).

But like I said, it isn't the worst mistake ever. I just (well, a while ago) read a book in stinking present tense, which was much more distracting. There wasn't even a shred of a reason for it either, it was just to show that the writer was so dedicated that he could tell the entire story in a completely unnatural voice.

Heinlein is one of the greats, and we forgive their little mistakes, because they weren't make out of carelessness, but out of love (you know, like we forgive what's'is name for killing that mouse and that girl...we do forgive him, don't we?).

I refer back to Clockwork Orange as being a better example. Or Card, or whoever you like. Heinlein did better himself. As I said, just the fact someone is great doesn't mean they don't make mistakes--in fact, the greats consistently make worse mistakes...because people stop checking them. If a well known and "proven" author decides to do something insanely "experimental" and incomprehensible, then 'tis more likely to get published...even when it doesn't work.