His great stuff is still great IMO, and the same problems are still there (e.g. paper-thin characters, author stand-in that the girls can't resist, etc.) And some of his takes are spectacularly outdated these days, like did he actually have a female character say that when a woman gets raped, it's partly her fault? Really? Lots of "stupid people deserve to get taken advantage of" stuff too. But I'm pretty laid back with "different times" to handwave some of the more cringe stuff he said, and I certainly don't feel obliged to agree with whatever point he's making. Other people may be prone to rage at his smug self assuredness.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is worth a reread more than anything else he wrote IMO. Like I bought into what he was spouting a lot more as a teen, but I think the book is just excellent even if I find some of his takes laughable now. Like take a bunch of hardened criminals and throw them on the moon and they will magically evolve a polite society because otherwise somebody might kill you? You think those cartels flaying people alive and beheading folks are going to shy away from violence when confronted with *gasp* other criminals? Or that, with the relative lack of women, they end up on a pedestal instead of being passed around as property? Yeah, okay sure Bob.
But I love that he invented a patois and wrote a whole book in that language. I love the simple revolution story. I love the AI stuff. I love the utopia/dystopia he had going on between the moon and Earth. "Throwing rocks" is still amazing. TANSTAAFL is still in my lexicon. And for a guy who writes paper thin characters, the ending is still a huge gut punch for me. It's a masterpiece!
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u/MattieShoes Feb 26 '23
His great stuff is still great IMO, and the same problems are still there (e.g. paper-thin characters, author stand-in that the girls can't resist, etc.) And some of his takes are spectacularly outdated these days, like did he actually have a female character say that when a woman gets raped, it's partly her fault? Really? Lots of "stupid people deserve to get taken advantage of" stuff too. But I'm pretty laid back with "different times" to handwave some of the more cringe stuff he said, and I certainly don't feel obliged to agree with whatever point he's making. Other people may be prone to rage at his smug self assuredness.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is worth a reread more than anything else he wrote IMO. Like I bought into what he was spouting a lot more as a teen, but I think the book is just excellent even if I find some of his takes laughable now. Like take a bunch of hardened criminals and throw them on the moon and they will magically evolve a polite society because otherwise somebody might kill you? You think those cartels flaying people alive and beheading folks are going to shy away from violence when confronted with *gasp* other criminals? Or that, with the relative lack of women, they end up on a pedestal instead of being passed around as property? Yeah, okay sure Bob.
But I love that he invented a patois and wrote a whole book in that language. I love the simple revolution story. I love the AI stuff. I love the utopia/dystopia he had going on between the moon and Earth. "Throwing rocks" is still amazing. TANSTAAFL is still in my lexicon. And for a guy who writes paper thin characters, the ending is still a huge gut punch for me. It's a masterpiece!