This book is a classic science fiction story by Mr Heinlein. As with some of his other work the technology, particularly computer technology, in parts of this story is a little dated, but at the time it was written was a good guess as to how it would go. That being said the concepts, and main story of the book are still relevant today.
On the surface the story is about a lunar colonies quest for independence. The moon was settled as a penal colony and is still ruled by the "Warden" at the time the book starts. This is true despite the fact that a good chunk of the population on the moon happens to be either prisoners who have served their time, or their children. You see living long term in the lower lunar gravity makes it difficult for prisoners to go back even if they can save up enough for passage. For their children the situation is even worse since their bones never did develop enough to hold up to earths gravity for very long.
As you can imagine there is considerable unrest among the lunar population and everyone is essentially living in a police state. The narrator of the story named Mannie, was born on the moon and is the moons computer technician. To get this job he endured the torture of going to technical school on earth. His job is to maintain the computer that runs the moon. Instead of buying multiple computers for different systems the warden has decided to just keep upgrading and adding on to the one they have. When a certain level of complexity is reached the system wakes up and luckily Mannie is the one to notice. Over time Mannie and the computer become friends, and the master computer becomes aware of the tyranny his friend lives under.
The master computer takes the name Mike and decides that the only way for him to survive, and for his friends lot to get better, is lunar independence. The pair meet up with some friends and quickly take over the budding resistance. Mike becomes the leader of the group, but most people don't even know that he is a machine.
In the end this book is about what it means to be a person, what it means to be a friend, and what it means to be free. Mike goes from being a cold system to understanding all of these so well that he doesn't blink at their cost, and his friends come to realize that one of the best men they ever knew wasn't a man at all.
I would recommend this book to anyone, but you might not enjoy it if you are not a science fiction adventure fan. Ironically for a book with an accidental AI for a character this does not appear to be available in e-book format, but you can pick it up at www.amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com in print.
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