[lazide]

You might want to re-read the Moon is a harsh mistress, then look at what’s going on in large portions of society that aren’t the west coast bubble.

Matriarchal, multi generational polyamory is going to be a bit weird for half+ of society, and it’s not easy to remove that without completely rewriting almost the entire book and it’s characters.

[rsynnott]

I mean, a bit weird, sure, but, again, they made Handmaid's Tale. And Game of Thrones. And two completely separate drama series about the Borgias! (I gather the HBO one _was_ bowdlerised a bit, but still.) If people can manage those, they can manage a bit of polyamory.

Like, it might not be for everyone, but there have been many commercially successful TV dramas with more disturbing sexual content than Moon is a Harsh Mistress. (Now, some of his other stuff...)

[lazide]

Uh, I think you’re not getting my point.

GoT style sexuality (including incest in royal families, widespread prostitution, etc.) used to be pretty normal. As in, literally up until a century ago.

A handmaid’s tale (minus the massive infertility issues) is basically harem/sex slaves, which is still going on right now, and has been for most of human history near as I can tell.

The writers know how to push buttons to make that titillating and ‘tehee oh my’ type controversial, which gets eyeballs, without bringing a banhammer down on themselves.

Most heinlein (with moon as a harsh mistress being one of the mellowest!) is more in the alienates-too-many-mainstream-groups category. The large polygamy groups led today are all patriarchal, and would start lashing out at anything matriarchal. Matriarchal groups right now are pretty solidly anti-polygamy, etc.

Star ship troopers might be in the wings for a remake though, with the authoritarian bent society seems to be taking lately, but I doubt the ‘free sex’ angle would play well with the ‘rah rah fascism’ angle. Those two groups currently aren’t as well aligned. And near as I can tell, it would be even harder for people to understand satire than last time, so good luck with that angle.

And no one knows how to turn it into clicks/butts in seats reliably.

So it doesn’t get the kind of attention from writers/producers/money folks. That’s all it is.

PKD has a niche that does reliably put butts in seats, and doesn’t have the same baggage, so it does.