In a comment thread below on Glasshouse, Sunni Maravillosa (whose blog and Salon I regularly read), talks about the criteria that “Prometheus finalists’ content [be] firmly in the pro-freedom camp,” and whether or not Glasshouse fits this recipe. I’d like to think that it does fall into this camp, as the protagonist holds very individualist view about life and self-defense. Also, the villains in the books are mind-controllers who spread their views via worms and viruses that re-write how people think, and they eradicate those who they believe are not susceptible to such a virus (which is basically identity theft on a large scale). In the experiment that is the glasshouse itself, you can also see how the protagonist, Robin, reacts to the conformism of the people in the village as well the those running the experiment. There’s a mini-revolution within the glasshouse experiment, and in Robin’s flashback as well as the events prior to him entering the experiment we see a post-human society where freedom to remold your self exists almost totally. That this society at one time almost was wiped out points to conflicts being eternal. Government is hardly present in the post-human society, and no one forces you to back your self up should you chose this.
As far as The Prisoner, I have only seen it on VHS tapes from a few years ago, and remember the fake village where Patrick McGoohan’s character wakes up. It was a bizarre, self-contained place of happiness and conformity, much like in Glasshouse. Everyone talks about “the village,” and in Glasshouse there’s a sign that says “Welcome to the village,” which to me is a very direct allusion. The taxis in Glasshouse also seem to mirror those in The Prisoner. I probably am reading too much into this allusion.
“I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.”
