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The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

4.6 out of 5 stars 8,475 ratings
In what is considered one of Heinlein's most hair-raising, thought-provoking, and outrageous adventures, the master of modern science fiction tells the strange story of an even stranger world. It is 21st-century Luna, a harsh penal colony where a revolt is plotted between a bashful computer and a ragtag collection of maverick humans, a revolt that goes beautifully until the inevitable happens. But that's the problem with the inevitable: it always happens.

Winner of the 1967 Hugo award, this novel marked Heinlein's partial return to his best form. He draws many historical parallels with the War of Independence, and clearly shows his own libertarian political views.

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  1. Listening Length
    14 hours and 12 minutes
  2. Author
    Robert A. Heinlein
  3. Narrator
    Lloyd James
  4. Audible release date
    October 11, 2006
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Blackstone Audio, Inc.
  7. ASIN
    B000JJRW80
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length 14 hours and 12 minutes
Author Robert A. Heinlein
Narrator Lloyd James
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date October 11, 2006
Publisher Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B000JJRW80
Best Sellers Rank

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
8,475 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers consider this science fiction novel one of Heinlein's best works, praising its compelling story that runs the gamut of hope and its thought-provoking exploration of politics and revolution. The book features rich characters, with one review noting how the narrative shifts between multiple voices, and customers find it entertaining with plenty of action to keep them engaged. While the writing style receives mixed reactions, with some finding it eloquent while others describe it as rough, the pacing also divides opinions between those who find it well-paced and those who consider it too slow.

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ReadabilityStory qualityThought provokingCharacter developmentEntertainment valueClassic contentLanguagePacing
272 customers mention "Readability"272 positive0 negative

Customers find the book highly readable, with many considering it one of Heinlein's best works and among their favorite books of all time.

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a fantastic book, one that I read with regularity because there's always something new to check out, to understand..." Read more

"...This reversal of roles is a literary device that keeps the reader questioning their assumptions about labels versus the genuine truths those labels..." Read more

"Classic book, amazing read, full of great fun and ideas which are important food for thought...." Read more

"Great book! I wonder how many revolutions it’s inspired? Only problem was many of the pages were stuck together at the bottom...." Read more

247 customers mention "Story quality"238 positive9 negative

Customers praise the compelling narrative of this science fiction novel, describing it as a great work of revolutionary fiction with a fantastic story of revolution.

"...One of the most brilliant strokes of genius is how through this providential meeting the reader learns that Luna is a libertarian society with no..." Read more

"...The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has a very definite world-view and political philosophy, some of which I agreed with, and some of which I really,..." Read more

"...masterfully weaves his engaging storytelling into a well crafted science fiction world that prophetically envisions the future in a believable way...." Read more

"...But the writing is preserved. One of the finest expositions on how to win a revolution, even if you don't have a self-aware computer...." Read more

144 customers mention "Thought provoking"132 positive12 negative

Customers find the book thought-provoking, particularly appreciating its political and revolutionary themes, with one customer noting its matured Libertarian philosophy.

"...a great, character-driven story that, as is so often the case, loaded with sociology - in this case, with men outnumbering women by around three-to-..." Read more

"...It's a deep, intelligent examination of the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence...written in 1966!..." Read more

"...is a Harsh Mistress has a very definite world-view and political philosophy, some of which I agreed with, and some of which I really, really didn't...." Read more

"...And full of Heinlein's comments on libertarianism. Fun, entertaining, thought provoking, and still educational in the real 21st century...." Read more

61 customers mention "Character development"49 positive12 negative

Customers appreciate the character development in the book, with one review noting how the story is told through voice changes for multiple characters, and another highlighting the believable AI hero.

"...Enough of this story. This is a great, character-driven story that, as is so often the case, loaded with sociology - in this case, with men..." Read more

"...He starts with a kaleidoscope of colorful characters, posits a world no one living has ever experienced, then uses science to bring them together..." Read more

"...I Love every book he wrote, I Love his characters, his plots, his sense of optimism for humanity, all of it...." Read more

"The story line was imaginative and I became personally involved with the main characters. However, the graphic violence was a bit much." Read more

48 customers mention "Entertainment value"48 positive0 negative

Customers find the book entertaining and exciting, with action that keeps them engaged throughout, making it a nice go-to adventure.

"Classic book, amazing read, full of great fun and ideas which are important food for thought...." Read more

"...And full of Heinlein's comments on libertarianism. Fun, entertaining, thought provoking, and still educational in the real 21st century...." Read more

"...vibe of the 60s and a few weird relationship things but definitely a fun, fast read." Read more

"...also with this book, I didn’t know what to expect and it was a very positive surprise. I sometimes wonder why the wrong books are famous." Read more

31 customers mention "Classic content"31 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's timeless story and view of the past, with one customer noting how it captures an event from world history.

"Classic book, amazing read, full of great fun and ideas which are important food for thought...." Read more

"I was very excited to find this classic work from Robert A. Heinlein in a clean hardback edition...." Read more

"Great view of future life on the moon if it starts as a penal colony the way Australia did for England...." Read more

"Somewhat dated." Read more

109 customers mention "Language"48 positive61 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the language of the book, with some praising its eloquent and quirky style, while others find it unreadable and note that the narrator's broken English becomes annoying.

"...at first -- I couldn't figure out what was going on or why the language was so rough and unpolished and choppy...." Read more

"...Robert A. Heinlein, on the other hand, is one of the most brilliant writers the United States of America has ever produced...." Read more

"...of sentences were simply left out..everywhere ..and made it hard to read at times. It was like reading broken english...." Read more

"...well bound (I suspect it will last), and the print is clear and easy to read...." Read more

27 customers mention "Pacing"14 positive13 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book, with some finding it well-paced and timely, while others consider it too slow.

"...Way ahead of it's time and a "primer" for the background of "The Cat Who Walked Through Walls". Luna Revolution, Adam Selene, the works...." Read more

"...The writing was just ok. The action felt slow until the last 1/3, and just the overall sequence of events felt too "easy"...." Read more

"...of the 60s and a few weird relationship things but definitely a fun, fast read." Read more

"...much time spent on Mannie’s family instead of the Revolution, too slow in parts and way too fast in others...." Read more

Great read
5 out of 5 stars
Great read
Great book! I wonder how many revolutions it’s inspired? Only problem was many of the pages were stuck together at the bottom. Easily resolved but would tear the bottom of the page when separating.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Ned Barnett
    5.0 out of 5 stars What are you waiting for - Read This Book!
    Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2025
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a fantastic book, one that I read with regularity because there's always something new to check out, to understand or to appreciate. Heinlein has written several novels around the SF theme of a future society where a few brave patriots fight massive oppression - always something akin to the American Revolution in 1776-83. This book is the best of the lot. It's also Heinlein's fourth and final Hugo Award for the best SF novel of the year.

    Told in first person by a computer technician in (not on) the Moon, "Manny" discovers that the master computer in the Moon is also now sentient, having so many lesser computers attached that it had enough circuits to parallel the human brain. Mycroft "Mike" Holmes (the Computer) is a big fun-loving kid, whose biggest issue is boredom, and his heart's passion, telling jokes that are funny, and differentiating between "funny once" and "funny always." Manny becomes his first and best friend.

    Then, a small riot breaks out in Luna City, one of the largest human habitats in the Moon, and a member of Manny's extended family gets involved, and suddenly, Manny and two compatriots - Bernardo de la Paz and Wyoming Knott (who hates the nickname "Wy Knott" - "funny once" joke, as Mike comes to understand it - become involved in a revolution against the oppressive "Lunar Authority" which sees all of the Moon's denizens as indentured servants 9i.e., slaves). But there's a problem. Because most of the water ice found and mined on the Moon is used to grow wheat for the chronically food-short humans on Earth - mostly in India, though this is all but irrelevant. The Lunar Authority doesn't believe this, and keeps demanding higher quotas of grain. In six years, the water resources in the Moon will be gone, and within eight years, the surviving humans will resort to cannibalism.

    Enough of this story. This is a great, character-driven story that, as is so often the case, loaded with sociology - in this case, with men outnumbering women by around three-to-one, how does society evolve? In Manny's case, he's in a "line marriage" that dates back generations and includes an eclectic assortment of hard-rock miners, beauticians, farmers and a minister for an outlandish offshoot of Christianity.

    If you love hard SF with a soul, and haven't read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, what are you waiting for?
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Brian K. Miller
    5.0 out of 5 stars There is more here than meets the eye
    Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    I don't claim to be a genius. Robert A. Heinlein, on the other hand, is one of the most brilliant writers the United States of America has ever produced. He starts with a kaleidoscope of colorful characters, posits a world no one living has ever experienced, then uses science to bring them together in a multilayered study of human existence. And he achieved this in every single book he wrote.

    Consider Mike, the supercomputer who becomes sentient and helps free the former prison colony of Luna from the tyrannical and oppressive "Authority" based on Earth. The name and character allude to "Michael", an archangel, the only archangel in the Bible clearly identified as a warrior angel. Thus it is not the least bit surprising that Mike the supercomputer comes up with and executes the strategy that helps Luna's revolution succeed. Nevertheless, the two personality traits that give his character such charm are a childlike naivete and a love of practical jokes. His naivete is so overwhelming that when he realizes the destruction brought by his strategy it renders him catatonic.

    Consider also Hazel Stone. She first appears in a book published almost ten years before this book (The Rolling Stones) as the grandmother of that book's two charming halfwit brothers. Ten years after the publication of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress she reappears as a tertiary, yet critical character in The Number of the Beast, then a few years later as the central character in The Cat Who Walks through Walls, and finally in 1988 as a pivotal character in To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Hazel Stone starts out as a minor character in a book published in 1955, and becomes one of the most important members of the Long family in the four "Boondock" books where Heinlein finally brings together and reveals how his works are all bound together in a literary examination of the philosophical concept of the world as myth. Most importantly, despite evolving over four books and three decades Hazel Stone never once violates the key elements of her wildly independent, doggedly determined personality. That kind of career-long internal consistency is extremely challenging for a writer to pull off successfully.

    Some critics disparage Heinlein's female characters because they do not think and act like men. Somehow they never notice that when push comes to shove, it is always the women in a Heinlein book that have the most initiative, the most common sense, and the greatest ability to change the course of human history. No matter how the male characters stumble through the plot, the women always provide the missing piece of the puzzle or the critical decision that eventually wins the day. Heinlein's female characters, like Hazel Stone and Wyoming Knott, are always the focal point of the events that move a Heinlein novel forward and bring it to its conclusion.

    The main character of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Manuel Garcia "Mannie" O'Kelly-Davis, meets Wyoming Knott at a subversive meeting he has no interest in attending. The only reason he goes is because his "thinkum dinkum" friend Mike the Supercomputer cannot observe the meeting directly and asks Manuel to attend for him and tell him about it. The meeting is interrupted by a police raid and in the course of the raid Manuel is charged with protecting Wyoming Knott, a keynote speaker invited from the Hong Kong colony. On the strength of Wyoming's kiss, ready sense of humor, and ability to win the trust of Mike, the next twenty-four hours finds Manuel drafted into leading a revolution against the Warden and the Authority that oppress Luna.

    One of the most brilliant strokes of genius is how through this providential meeting the reader learns that Luna is a libertarian society with no written laws while the Authority is a Soviet-style collectivist big government attempting to dictate every aspect of life in Luna. The subversives use Soviet style revolutionary titles and hierarchy, but are fighting for an American style free market economy. This reversal of roles is a literary device that keeps the reader questioning their assumptions about labels versus the genuine truths those labels are applied to. What becomes apparent only after reading the Boondock books is how The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a key lesson in understanding the difference between a label and the thing itself. The continuity of Hazel Stone's character is one of the powerful literary tools Heinlein uses to teach this lesson not once, but repeatedly over a period of three decades!

    As I said at the beginning, I am not a genius and I do not claim to be. Nonetheless, when I read some of the negative and disparaging reviews of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress here at Amazon, it strikes me that none of the people who rated this book with one or two stars actually understood the book and several of them probably did not even bother reading it beyond the first chapter or two. Just as in every book Heinlein wrote, there is far more going on here than meets the eye. On the surface, it is a rollicking space opera of revolution and freedom. Peel back the layers and you find a critical assessment of everything that is wrong with American culture in the post war years as well as a dire warning about the civil unrest that tore through our society in the decade after this book was published.

    Some science fiction writers claim to be prophetic. Robert A. Heinlein actually was.
    71 people found this helpful
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  • Andy McKinney
    4.0 out of 5 stars Classic Heinlein
    Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2020
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Later in the current century, the moon will be used by Earth as a penal colony. Luna will serve Earth as Australia once served Great Britain. The Loonies, as they proudly call themselves, discover an existential threat to themselves and the unique society that has grown up on the Moon. Earth forces the loonies, some now into their third generation as colonists, to sell grain to Earth at below-market prices. Loonies don't much like this but it gets serious when they discover that the fossil water traces impeded in the rocks of the Moon will run out in a few years. No more water, no more trade, no more Loonies.
    So they revolt.
    Heinlein makes use of the tech that we now use for super fast trains to catapult grain barges to Earth, a first in popular literature as far as I know. He also supposes a kind of truck called a 'rolligon'. Rolligons were and are used in the Arctic as transports. The huge beer can shaped wheels present a very low footprint. This is important in preserving the fragile tundra of the far north. A similar problem exists on the Moon with moondust. The rolligon just glides over tundra or moondust. Again, so far as I know this is the first fictional use of a rolligon on the moon. He also supposes a self-aware computer years before either HAL or EARTH NET.
    The social suppositions in Heinlein's work always interest us. Here he gives us a 'line marriage' in which new husbands or wives are added from time to time.
    "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" holds up pretty well.
    4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Ramon
    5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read classic masterpiece
    Reviewed in Spain on April 15, 2022
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Robert Heinlein is one of the classic "must read" authors, one who has shaped science-fiction as we know it today. "The moon is a harsh mistress" deviates a bit from the rest of his work, but it is by its own merits a classic masterwork in SciFI.
    I read this book for the first time in the '70s, so it had been around for some time (if I recall well, in was published in 1966). I still read it from tie to time, and have actually three copies at home, in three different languages.
    The story talks about the rebellion in the colony established on the moon, which is mainly used to harvest grain for the hungry masses on Earth. The populationdoes not consist of people that have voluntarily migrated to this place - instead, it is inhabited by convicts, ex-convicts and their descendants. The situation is similar to what the UK did in Australia, dumping there their "unwanted" citizens, though many of the people seem to have a strong Russian and Chinese background. The brutality of the regime, even against non-convicts, will lead to a revolution even though most Loonies could not care less about politics.
    The main characters are memorable: An ice miner with a prosthetic arm turned computer repair man, a professor exiled from Earth for his political views, a for-hire mother that is politically active and a computer that likes jokes.
    Heinlein shows a colony that is weird to the extreme, but yet perfectly logical in the context where it exists: An extreme environment, convicts sent massively to the Moon, which is overcrowded, too few woman for so many men... a society must adapt to such situations, and the loonies have created a society that is stable and has a proper balance where people can live.
    The author raises also troubling questions: Is the "traditional" matrimony sacrosanct or are there other options, specially in such a disbalanced society? What is liberty, what is freedum? Is it ethically correct to do things that are morally wrong for a greater good? What are the limits? What is actually conscience and self-awareness? Keeping in mind that this book was written in the sixties, it was far more iconclastic in its days than it looks today.
    This is hard science fiction book, and the author takes this serious. The physics of the war are unquestionable, and the scienfic knowledge of the author shows even in such small things as the movement of the soldiers that eventually invade Luna.
    "The moon is a harsh mistress" is a classic that any SciFi lover should read at least once. And believe me, it's very likely that he will read it again... more than once.
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  • FABIO VAZQUEZ
    5.0 out of 5 stars masterpiece
    Reviewed in Brazil on January 25, 2023
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    from the sepia lightweight paper to the beautiful cover
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  • marble
    5.0 out of 5 stars 良い商品が届きました。有難うございます
    Reviewed in Japan on March 22, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    良い商品が届きました。有難うございます
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  • Surajit
    5.0 out of 5 stars Awe Inspiring...The future is here
    Reviewed in India on October 23, 2017
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    In depth articulation of a colony going independent. Inspiring and at the same time breath taking especially in the details of a Wild West society governed by an Artifical Intelligence engine.
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  • J. E. Ferris
    5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Heinlein! 'nuff said...
    Reviewed in Canada on July 15, 2023
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    This wasn't the first S.F. I read, but it is the one I have come back to the most times. Heinlein is not always well-thought of for his political position, but he always gets me thinking about the Hard Thoughts.
    And his characters are People! Real people I want to get to know!
    It was years after I first read this book that I finally got to "Number of the Beast" , and there Heinlein tied up at least one loose strand of this story - one that I am sure many readers will take pleasure from.
    I will get to that story soon also.
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