I met today’s guest post author at Worldcon in Chicago, where we sat together on a panel called Mil SF vs. Dystopian. It was probably my favorite panel ever as we discussed both subgenres. We talked about where they came from, where they are today, and where they’re going, along with how they overlap. We had great panelists and a great audience, and it was just a lot of fun. One of those things that reminds you why you go to cons.

Today Nathan is here to talk about a SF Classic. Without further ado, here he is, to talk about The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

I’m a sucker for books about two things: war and politics. Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress has both. In spades. This book also remains unique to this day—it’s a military science fiction story about insurgents. Even to this day, a big chunk of the subgenre focuses on state-affiliated military forces with spiffy tech, abundant resources, and nefarious villains at the heart of the state (or corporation).

Don’t get me wrong, I love this stuff, too—my own writing has all these things—but Heinlein’s Moon embraces the other side of the typical military science fiction story. The moon (Luna) has become a penal colony, and the Loonies launch a shoestring rebellion with little more than a self-aware supercomputer, an electromagnetic catapult, and a DIY ideology summed up by the now-famous acronym TANSTAAFL (there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch).

Regardless of the reader’s stance on the utopian libertarianism of TANSTAAFL, Heinlein created a book whose politics and warfare are fully formed and inextricably intertwined. The politics are messy and the TANSTAAFL ideology is not as clear-cut in practice as it is in rhetoric. Ironically, the supercomputer is one of the most complex and human characters in the book. At the risk of spoiling the ending for those who haven’t read it, I’ll say that The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress doesn’t end like anyone expects, including the reader.

The subgenre of military science fiction is rich and vast, but it is a lot easier to find stories about soldiers than it is about rebels. In other words, Moon is the science fiction equivalent of a story about Mordor’s orcs throwing off the oppression of Gondor. James S. A. Corey’s The Expanse infuses rebellious elements into the plot, and stories like Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade and Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch depict the slow turn of soldiers from loyal combatants to traitorous revolutionaries, but over fifty years ago Heinlein set a standard of political richness and insurgent operational realism that few have touched since.

I should know. I taught operations and strategy to military officers for over a decade. Like I said, I love books about politics and war.

If you read military science fiction, or if you’re into fully realized world-building, you owe it to yourself to pick up a battered old copy of this classic tale. Even though the book was published in the 1960s, it still holds something new. Who knows, maybe it’ll inspire you to write the next great insurgent epic.

Here’s a little bit about Nathan:

After teaching military operations and strategy to military officers for ten years, Nathan W. Toronto became a management consultant in Washington, DC, where he devotes as much time as he can to writing fiction. He has lived in ten countries and visited some two dozen others, developing a firm belief that Mexican food is the best, at least for lunch and dinner. His breakfast belief is just as unequivocal: no Sunday is complete without waffles in the morning. In a previous move, Nathan had two fish and a turtle, but he’s now petless. Four children are enough.

And here’s a bit about one of his books. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m super intrigued by the pitch and I’ll be diving in soon.

Rise of Ahrik, Book 1, Saga of the Emerald Moon (published 2021)

There is a great deal of ruin in a planet.

The War taught this to Man. The War wasted all that grew green. It scoured the world, and civilization settled into the dust of memory. Man fled to the safety of the mountains, and life—pitiful, cruel, thankless life—stumbled on.

Thousands of years passed. Where Man failed, Woman rose. Woman disdained the ancient weapons. She brought life back to the world, and she unified the planet. She terraformed the moon. But now men clamor for rights. One powerful woman, Zharla, believes their cause, and will fight for it. Shahl, the man she loves, would fight by her side. But she is betrothed to Ahrik, a soldier, a warrior, a general sworn to defend women’s rule.

And he will go to war to preserve it.

You can find the book at the following links:
Indiebound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780997655032
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Ahrik-Book-Saga-Emerald/dp/0997655011
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rise-of-ahrik-nathan-w-toronto/1123936421

You can (and should!) find Nathan here:

Twitter: @NathanToronto (https://twitter.com/NathanToronto)

Instagram: nathan.toronto (https://www.instagram.com/nathan.toronto/)

Facebook: nathanwtoronto (https://www.facebook.com/nathanwtoronto)

Tags: Mil SF, Military SF, Nathan Toronto, Nathan W. Toronto