Dust bunny colony established a thriving metropolis in this site due to inactivity on my part. Most of last year I spent running – marathon training. That tends to take over your life, and all my plans to get more active here withered away. I’ve read a few books since then, watched a few movies – things I planned to write more about last year. I’m still running, but I’m hoping to put some thoughts on paper about running and other things, especially those things that fail to convey any meaning in 14 characters or less.
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Awesome track from Stripmall Architecture
Stripmall Architecture | We Are Not Cool (Nite Session 01) from Stripmall Architecture on Vimeo.
Over at lewrockwell.com, Thomas Luongo presents a libertarian view of Philip K. Dick. Very interesting article, and a different perspective of many of the elements of PKD’s novels.
I’m a few days late posting my thoughts on io9’s annual nod to libertarian themed science fiction from April 18, which contains some unexpected titles and the usual political debate in comments.
I’m a little puzzled by the inclusion of William Morris and H.G. Wells on this list, and I think F. Paul Wilson’s An Enemy of the State is a better candidate than Wheels Within Wheels. I am surprised that neither L. Neil Smith nor Vernor Vinge made the list with some of their fiction. I have a list of 50 works of fiction I’d recommend to people that deals with liberty and power; few of my books are on this list, though I cover books across multiple genres.
Reading the comments is funny yet sad. One person sees these books as ones to avoid (way to broaden one’s mind) and that libertarians are all about “me, me, me” while he cares about the nebulous “community as a whole” in true collectivity fashion. Libertarianism is about individuals, which perhaps some people confuse with solipsism. Some comments are far more rational, but many spout the “I disagree with you so I’m going to call you a lunatic” philosophy so prevalent these days among both left and right.
Unfortunately, no other novels were suggested in the comments, so instead of discussing liberty and fiction the comments revolved around the idea of libertarianism and and capitalism being good or evil.
As a FileMaker developer and trainer, I believe standard exist to leave well-defined breadcrumbs when I or anyone else has to re-trace steps to understand how solutions were developed. This goes for layouts, naming conventions and structure in the relationships graph, scripting, and calculations. Kirk Bowman of MightyData has some great links to articles on standards that are well worth reading and re-reading.
Hard to argue with this post, which quotes Jeff Riggenbach saying, “All the best known libertarian novels are science fiction novels.”
I should have posted about this sooner, but forgot to link to this February 24 article from the UK’s Guardian online about the social realism of Scandinavian crime fiction. Of course, with all the noise surrounding Sweden’s Stieg Larsson and his Millennium trilogy, attention turns to other Scandinavian crime writers. No mention of Norway’s Gunnar Staalesen, alas. He’s a great writer, and a definite socialist, so would have fit this narrative perfectly. Certainly there are more Scandinavian socialist crime writers, because virtually every member of the literati there grew up a socialist or Marxist-Leninist. Socialism is part of the culture of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Still, there might be some anti-authoritarianism there, and crime fiction written from the perspective of non-police people lends itself more to question authority.
Nice review over at the Wall Street Journal of a recent Poul Anderson collection, Admiralty: The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson, Volume 4, NESFA’s continuing effort to publish all his short works. Discusses the evolution of Anderson from a more rigid engineer view of society to a libertarian world view.
Long review of part 1 of the recently released Atlas Shrugged movie. Not sure if or when it will make it to theaters near me, but it has been many years since I last read the novel.
On April 4 the Libertarian Futurist Society announced the finalists for the 2011 Prometheus Award. Five novels made the cut, out of the ten nominated. I’ve read two of the five nominees, and am in the middle of reading a third.
- For the Win, by Cory Doctorow (TOR Books)
- Darkship Thieves, by Sarah Hoyt (Baen Books)
- The Last Trumpet Project, by Kevin MacArdry lasttrumpetproject.com
- Live Free or Die, by John Ringo (Baen Books)
- Ceres, by L. Neil Smith (Big Head Press, also published online at bigheadpress.com
)
Cory Doctorow won a few years ago for Little Brother, a book that I thought was great until the final chapter. I’m 100 pages into his novel For the Win, and so far the theme appears to be “virtual workers of the world, unite.” This theme reared it’s little head ca. 75 pages into the novel, which up until then had seemed quite interesting, sort of a cross between Vernor Vinge and Charlie Stross. Oh, well. Maybe it will make sense later. I’ve never read anything by John Ringo, but from I hear he is far from a libertarian. Strange choice, if that’s the case. Military sf never really makes any libertarian sense. I like parts of Sarah Hoyt’s book, and will have to read Smith’s Ceres once more as I first read it five years ago. I’ve not heard of MacArdry, but the premise seems interesting.
