Its decades since I read it(and enjoyed it) but I remember at the time thinking that having the sentient computer that ran the moonbase on your side didn’t make it a very difficult or heroic thing to overturn the status quo and that it was a little too convenient that said computer lost its sentience when it was no longer useful.
I don’t know about convenient, I would call it tragic. In my view, the “death” of Mike is probably the saddest moment in Heinlein’s books.* I think it is in TMiaHM that Heinlein points out that a computer person ought to be immortal so his departure is a greater loss than that of a flesh and blood person.
*Actually, now I think of it, there a good number of deaths of major characters in the climax of Heinlein books: Time for the Stars, Starman Jones, etc.
The real ending of Podkayne of Mars.
For a bit, I wondered if we had merely “lost” Mike. If maybe the Professor had, for strategic reasons, had Mike go into hibernation. I thought maybe he’d pop up again in another book down the line. That theory is shot, though. I guess he comes back in some form in The Cat Who Walks through Walls, but, looking at Wiki, I see that Mike’s pretty much gone. Bummer.
It does lead to the examination of what, exactly, is life. Mannie tried to recreate all the basic components of who Mike was to no avail. He died. There’s no good real reason given as to how he died, nor really how he came to be or why he can’t be resurrected. But then, that’s life I guess…
In TMIAHM one of the reasons that Mannie postulates for Mike’s “demise” is a sort of catatonia induced by fear of the bombing. In Cat the plan to revive Mike includes putting him in bed with the sentient computers Athena and What-was-the-other-one? to free him from his mental block.
Do you mean Minerva?
Yes, I think that’s it! Thanks!
Although we don’t actually meet him, it’s stipulated in To Sail Beyond the Sunset that Mike has reawakened. There are a couple of references to a superdupercomputer called “Shiva,” which is described as Mike and Athena working in parallel.
Huh, I didn’t realize there was an alternate one, and thanks to Wiki, I just read a summary. Thanks for pointing that out! That ending did feel weirdly cobbled together.
My sincere thanks to Lurkmeister for the link. Just finished reading the script straight through and was absolutely delighted with it.
Yes, even with the changes. Sure it would be fun to see some of my favorite lines in a movie, but extended discussion on cell theory of revolution, while fun for us Heinlein geeks, would not advance the plot well.
Must admit I read the last couple of the script’s pages through tears, but was always sentimental type.
Whoops! Talking like Mannie.
This is from someone who has read TMIAHM probably 20 times since I bought it brand new as a paperback, who owns every bit of Heinlein I’ve ever been able to find, and agree totally with Spider Robinson’s take on the Grand Master.
I would see a movie made from that script gladly, and suspect that Mr. Heinlein would have been intrigued by the choices made by the author.
Your Heinlein take may vary, of course, but this old fan was very pleased with the script.
I finished reading the script last night. It would make a good movie; the only thing I was a bit unsure about was the idea of Mike being able to project visual images into individual’s brains. It seemed to be a bit contrived, and made Mike a bit too “powerful”, especially near the end.
On second thoughts, I think i agree with you. Though an impressive plot device, and I like the idea of the Loonies being invisibly choreographed in their battle, a bit too deus ex machina-ey, perhaps?
Quite literally, in fact during the scene with Mannie and Alvarez.
Exactly. And it’s typical of Heinlein’s quirky way of doing things that he converts his deus ex machina from an annoying plot device to a memorable character that readers fall in love with.
Jim, what the detractors of Number of the Beast fail to realize is that the entire nove is a joke. A marvelously, possibly insanely detailed joke. It’s a not a bad novel; it’s a mocking of adventure story/pulp/ sf conventions. The Master makes this clear from the very first sentence.
And it would have been a very funny joke, if it only lasted about 10 pages or so. But there is no joke in the world that can be sustained for a full novel and still be funny.
As a slight hijack, this was exactly how I felt about Norman Spinrad’s The Iron Dream.
:: shrugging ::
I still think it’s a good book. I wish I’d read Time Enough For Love first, though.
OK, I’ll bite. Can you give me the first sentence? I remember that in the first chapter Zeb meets Deety at a party and the Captain John Carter of Virginia (?) thing comes out and they escape in a flying car.
I did not get the joke. I liked the journey, but the ending disappointed me. The Burroughs-Libby drive was fun, and its pre-programmable instructions, and Mars,and so on. However the final chapter left a lot of loose ends dangling. This was my first introduction to World-as-Myth,so I was/am not sure what was going on.
Glad for any help.
“He’s a mad scientist and I’m his beautiful daughter.”