No other issue exceeded deadlines as much as this one. Two months late, but finally ready, and in the mail next week. Includes coverage of the 2008 Prometheus Awards in Denver, and reviews of books by Cory Doctorow, S. M. Stirling, Lois McMaster Bujold, Joe Martino, George Zebrowski, and Brian Francis Slattery. Looks like the next issue also will be late at this point, but not nearly as late as this one.
Page 45 of 81
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.
In April of this year Katherine Mangu-Ward from reason magazine interviewed me as part of a story on the 2008 Prometheus Award finalists. This article appears in the December issue of reason, and has been posted online. Tor published all five finalists, and reason thought this interesting enough to write a long story on the libertarian elements of sf and Tor. Tor should not be considered libertarian, or any -ian/ist, but they have a fearless and independent editorial policy. Tor publishes great fiction, and does not shy away from political books. SF mega-blog site io9 also picked up the story.
A few items I’d like to note: The title of the article actually comes from a speech F. Paul Wilson gave in 1983. I think I attributed those words to Wilson, but if somehow I omitted to do this, my apologies. Also, L. Neil Smith’s The Probability Broach was published first by Del Rey, and that is the edition that won the Prometheus Award. Tor reprinted the book twice, for which they should be commended, as the book long had been out of print and is a libertarian classic. Many libertarian sf writers failed to get mentioned, especially Vernor Vinge, who has published many books with Tor, and won both the Hugo and Prometheus Awards.
Anyway, hopefully this article reaches more libertarian sf fans out there and gains some attention for the Prometheus Awards.
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.
One more reason I avoid sites like facebook and myspace. In the first place I would not like to be peppered with advertising at my “own” page. There’s the lack of time issue. And then, there’s the fact that your access can be revoked at any time, for unstated reasons. It’s almost like they’re the government, citing “security reasons,” so that users have no idea why they are banned, and can never discover the reason.
Law enforcement: seen by 99.99% of intelligent people as the sole prerogative of the state. Why? Because to let private individuals handle the task would mean only rich people received protection, that people with money could break the law with impunity (these days they just get bailed out by the federal government). Example no. 1,423,675 to show the state option is just as ludicrous as the private option. In the real world neither is perfect. Still, the state option is nearly held up as the only option.
On the drive home today this point was hammered home again. In the middle of rush hour just south of Austin I was passed by a motorcycle cop. A few minutes later I saw him parked along the highway with his radar, scoping for violators of the reduced speed segment of the highway due to construction. Not one mile later we chanced upon a car accident, with an overturned car surrounded by private samaritans. No police in sight. There is no money in saving lives. Maybe unfair, as the accident had just happened. Still, with the nearly daily examples from Radley Balko at Reason.com of police mayhem and brutality against innocents, and other mainstream articles on mis-management and fraud from the so-called thin blue line, where are the calls to eliminate the state police? I do not believe you could flip a switch and overnight have a fully private law enforcement paradigm, as the collective consciousness is too firmly wedded to the idea this is a “wild west” scenario (purely inspired by Hollywood and detatched from reality), and that bloodshed in the streets will rule.
Still, when even free-market libertarians keep faith in the holy trinity of the state (police, law, and defense — all nation-state concepts that dovetail nicely with fatherland/motherland/homeland mystical rites of the state), there is no hope for those who view anything free market related as horrible in being open to a market for law enforcement.
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.
The “libertarian” web site pimping for Ron Paul as a Republican Presidential Candidate, actually runs a political essay that makes sense.
Over at Tor.com, Kathryn Cramer points to a list that Dan Clore maintains, on essential science fiction for libertarians. When I have more time I’ll probably comment on the list. There are some interesting choices as well as omissions.
I’m looking forward to starting Brian Francis Slattery’s new novel this week, Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America. I intend to review this in the Fall issue of Prometheus. I enjoyed Slattery’s first novel, which even now remains quite vividly in my memory after reading the book over a year ago. Some books are forgettable the moment you turn the last page, but not so with Spaceman Blues, his debut novel from 2007.
