Lost worlds and ports of call
Currently reading my second Nevil Shute book in as many weeks. This one has a decidedly sf/fantastic element, since the events of part of the novel take place 30 years in the future. Contains some interesting ideas about the “multiple vote” and rips into British socialism as it survives in the 1980s. While Canada and Australia and other parts of the world have food aplenty, socialist England must buckle down and has lost 25% of the population to emigration.
Another interesting article on the possible childhood sources for George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four from Jeff Riggenbach, over at the Market Oracle.
This is the sort of essay I wish appeared in Prometheus first, but these days print no longer competes with the internet. Jeff Riggenbach has a long essay at Mises.org asking if Robert A. Heinlein really was a libertarian.
Other than a post on mises.org I have zero info on a novel called Withur We, by Matthew Alexander, but there is a free PDF download…
Someone over at the Charlottesville Sci-Fi and Fantasy book group recently posted several 2010 sf award lists, including the Prometheus Award. Two statements caught my attention, First:
I never knew there was a group out there called the Libertarian Futerist Society. They exist though, and they yearly give out the Prometheus Award which honors that year’s novel which best ‘examines the meaning of freedom’.
And then this one:
So the award is really more for the presentation of the idea than it is the actual quality of the work, though I’m sure that factors into the mix, but the idea’s most important. Interesting.
Ah, well. The LFS has only been around since 1982, and I think the quality of the winners speak for themselves.
Los Angelenes can attend a release party for Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin’s Prometheus Award nominated novel, The Unincorporated Man, to be held May 26th at Barnes & Noble’s flagship store at the Grove.
The current novel I’m reading is British writer George Mann’s Ghosts of Manhattan, a steampunk alternate history novel by Pyr Books set in early 20th century New York. So far two very interesting aspects in the first couple of chapters. The first is a snarky comment about politicians by a cop, the second that the protagonist is a superhero/vigilante who fights crime outside the law, much like Batman, Spider-Man and the like. I don’t know where the book will end up, but despite a few rough stylistic edges and odd cliches, it is holding my attention. I’m sure I’ll end up writing a review for the next Prometheus, if there is a next Prometheus. 
This weekend I received a massive review copy of a book, Sic Semper Tyranis. A novel by Seamus Branaugh subtitled “A novel of liberty and the future of America” this appears to be the first fiction publication from Silver Lake Publishing. Their web site currently does not have any information that I can find about the book, but as I have yet to crack the shrinkwrap, I know fairly little about the novel at the moment. I intend to review the novel for Prometheus, but its fairly long so I am not sure when the review will appear, though it should be sometime this year.
Camille Paglia interviewed about current state of higher education.
Long and interesting post by J. Neil Schulman on his movie project and a possible rip-off. Happens so often in the movie buz.
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