While I’m still training my new computer (since the old one crashed), I have not finished transitioning to my new site. Here’s an interesting perspective on libertarian sf, by the media sf blogging web site, io9.com.
Category: fiction (Page 10 of 11)
With a headline like “Anti-Corporate Libertarian Futurism in ‘The Unincorporated Man’” from io9.com, the LFS definitely needs to check out this novel.
Nice article at reason magazine about The Prisoner from a French perspective.
A very evocative and timely poem from Bruce Boston, over at Strange Horizons.
From Gauntlet Press, this announcement:
Coming in 2009: New John Shirley Novel
We are pleased to announce we’ll be publishing a new John Shirley
novel in the fall of 2009, Welcome to Freedom. Here is the author’s
description:
“After a disaster wrecks a long section of the California northern coast, the town of FREEDOM, which has attempted to live without federal interference as much as possible, finds it has a little too much chance to go it alone. Vicious human predators take advantage of the situation, waves of brutality roll through the area, and a young man new to town has a coming of age confrontation with what it takes to survive at any cost… The town wants to maximize its freedom from outside help, influence and control. See what happens when you have real freedom day after day, and no rules? Is it heaven–or hell?”
The book is scheduled for a January 2009 release.
Will Terry Pratchett’s new novel give Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother some competition for the 2009 Prometheus Award? The synopsis certainly sounds intriguing, and I am reserving judgment on Little Brother until I have read all the other nominees. I enjoyed 95% of Doctorow’s novel, but felt rather let down at the end.
I scoffed with some light-hearted disdain the other day at at certain web site, some of whose writers are associated the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Despite my disagreements with certain aspects of what appears on the lrc site, the LVMI continues to publish some outstanding books in terms of intellectual interest, as well as books historical interest. Several of the early libertarians of the 20th century, while most well-known for essays and non-fiction, also wrote and published fiction prior to Ayn Rand. These include Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Garet Garrett. Bruce Ramsey recently wrote a review of Garrett’s novels for Liberty Magazine, books which the LVMI reprinted in 2007. This review also appears online, and shows the perils of non-fiction writers trying out fiction. Although it’s been nominated a few times for the LFS Hall of Fame, I have rarely read as poor an excuse for fiction as Henry Hazlitt’s Time Will Run Back. Hazlitt’s non-fiction is remarkable for its clarity and economic sense, but fiction is a different genre altogether.
I think this paragraph by Ramsey about Garrett’s reporting relates well to current economic issues in this country.
The nut of wisdom was not to over-borrow. Many farmers had feasted on credit during World War I, when food prices, and therefore the value of farmland, were high. They borrowed to buy more land and equipment. When prices came down, borrowers were in trouble. Garrett had the bad manners to point out that they had done it to themselves.
I discovered the fiction of James P. Blaylock back in 1989 around the time of my first science fiction convention, ArmadilloCon, which is held in Austin, Texas every year. Along with Blaylock, that year I started reading books by Tim Powers, K.W. Jeter, Charles de Lint, Lewis Shiner, Joe Lansdale, Bruce Sterling, and Dan Simmons. Twenty years later some of these writers are fairly established and famous, others not so much, but Blaylock and Powers stand above the rest in my eyes.
I liked the early Blaylock more so than his later fiction. While he started off quirky and light-hearted, his later books seemed darker and far more introspective. I am eagerly awaiting his latest novel, which will appear in Demember 2008. Meanwhile, the sf review site Fantasy BookSpot has posted a brief interview with Blaylock, which fans of his fiction, or people unaware of his books, may find interesting.
Recently I ordered a new Michael Shea collection, The Autopsy and Other Tales, from Centipede Press. This has to be the biggest book I have ever owned. It measures 11 and 1/4 inches high, and barely fits in my tallest shelf. Sadly, it is not the complete collection of all his tales, but sometime after the next issue of Prometheus I plan to write a review of this book and will see if I can send it off to some sf review site or publication. It’s a fairly expensive book and I wish Night Shade or Subterranean had done a smaller collection at a more reasonable rate, as this would have reached a wider audience.
A not easily identifiable person writes a LiveJournal essay on what he/she calls two libertarian pseudo-novels – Henry Hazlitt’s Time Will Run Back and J. Neil Schulman’s The Rainbow Cadenza. I think the writer is spot on in terms of the Hazlitt book, which is one of the dullest works of ‘fiction’ that I’ve ever read, but I can’t remmber Schulman’s book being as much a ‘p o r n’ novel as alluded to in the review. Sure, there’s sex in the book (some of it not very pleasant), and it’s been almost two decades since I read the book, but I thought it was a decent work of fiction then. I’ll have to re-read the novel to refresh my memory, but I came away thinking more about the musical sections than the erotica or sex scenes.
