Published : 1966Pages : 382
Overall Mark : 8/10
On Luna - an open penal colony of the twenty-frist century - a revolution is being plotted. The conspirators are a strange assortment: an engaging jack-of-all-trades, his luscious blonde girlfriend, and a lonely talking computer. Their aim: the overthrow of the hated Authority. But things don't go according to plan, and their independence may ultimately prove harder to maintain than it was to seize...
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN (1907-1988)
Educated at the University of Missouri and the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, he served as a naval officer for five years but retired in 1934 due to ill health. He then studied physics at UCLA before beginning to publish SF with 'Lifeline' for Astounding Science Fiction in 1939.
VERDICT
This story explores the idea of a colony being placed on the moon and filled with all of the Earth's most undesirable people. Yet when their economy flourishes and Earth takes their much needs resources at the Loonies expense, the inhabitants of the moon revolt in a spectacular way. The characters are realistic and make the reader approve of their ideas and their methods, while the concepts explored manage to remain meaningful even after fifty years.
