LRC Bestseller List - two Prometheus Award nominees

The Lew Rockwell Center posts a bestseller list compiled from Amazon.com referral sales, and two Prometheus Award nominated novels made the list. A third novel, John Twelve Hawks' The Traveler, was reviewed in the Fall 2005 issue of Prometheus. The two Prometheus Award nominees? Claire Wolfe and Aaron Zelman's Rebelfire at No. 3, and Vin Suprynowicz's The Black Arrow at No. 13. (See list below for current list of nominees.)

I Must Speak Out now online

Since 1986 I have subscribed to Carl Watner's The Voluntaryist. I own every published issue of this fine publication, which I find to be the most consistent form of libertarianism ever expressed. A short while ago Watner published a "best of" book entitled I Must Speak Out, an anthology containing 70 essays from the first 100 issues. This book now is available online as a free PDF download. I highly recommend spending a few minutes of your time reading this book. You might agree or disagree with the premises and conclusions of Voluntaryism, yet also I believe you'll be intellectually challenged.

Right wing movies

Previously I mentioned the Liberty Film Festival. Jesse Walker of Reason magazine actually attended the events, and details his experiences here. As I expected, rather than deal with pro-liberty issues, Hollywood's Conservative Film Festival (as it called itself) is more about taking on the left, especially Michael Moore and anti-war ideas. As Walker muses, "If these movies represent contemporary conservatism, then conservatism today has little room for libertarian ideas." An excellent article that covers many of the films from the festival.

Death Is Easy - novel

From Russel Madden, a detective story set in a world where liberty is taken for granted. Yet, "Even in a fully free society danger abounds." The novel is published through Lulu, which was founded by Bob Young, co-founder of open source company Red Hat, and touts itself as "the web's premier independent publishing marketplace for digital do-it-yourselfers." Death is Easy is available as print paperback and download, with a 51 page PDF preview. Support libertarian fiction and check it out.

Preliminary 2006 Prometheus Award nominees

Two writers have already made mention of their book being nominated for the 2006 Prometheus Award. Below is a preliminary list of the current nominees. Additional books are still being considered, and in early 2006 this list will be whittled down by a judges panel to five finalists. As of August 25, eight novels have been nominated for the 2006 Best Novel category. This is by no means the final list, but since I printed this list in the fall issue of Prometheus, I wanted to make it available online as well, with links to Amazon for those who wish to buy (or read more about) the books.

Chainfire, by Terry Goodkind (TOR Books)
Reflex, by Stephen Gould (TOR Books)
Noble Vision, by Gen LaGreca (Winged Victory Press)
The Black Arrow, by Vin Suprynowicz (Mountain Media)
Accelerando, by Charles Stross (Ace/Putnam Books)
Infernal, by F. Paul Wilson (Forge Books)
RebelFire: Out of the Gray Zone, by Claire Wolfe & Aaron Zelman (RebelFirePress)
The Mists of Everness, by John C. Wright (TOR Books)

RIP Originality in the Movies

Sad news about more regurgitated retreads. A four 'page' store from ABC News on sequelitis in Hollywood, throwing in the opening tidbit that Sylvester Stallone's last three movies all were Direct to DVD dreck like Avenging Angelo, Shade and D-Tox (originally titled Eye On You). A far cry from inspiring Henry Winkler's Fonzie in The Lords of Flatbush, and the original "Rocky" and "Rambo" movies. Old Sly is far from alone, as in the bottom-line corner, weighing in at there-must-be-profits-here-somewhere, we find planned sequels to Die Hard, Terminator, Basic Instinct and Indiana Jones. Now three of these are "IV," and Basic Instinct only looks ahead to number two, but come on. Hasn't the story in each case been told enough? Move on to something new. There's still great original unfilmed books out there, but we see are sequels and re-makes. How about Probability Broach, the movie? Or The Stress of Her Regard? Two very different yet quite worthy ideas, and the latter even has vampires! As always, the lure of money trumps any statement by former stars to never appear in sequels. And enough people will rent or buy the DVDs to make them profitable, so get ready for a whole host of remakes and sequels for a very long time.

From the ashes of iFeminsts

Wendy McElroy shuts down one forum and launches another, broader forum. Some of the topics of interest include "Entertainment," which is sure to bring up books and movies related to liberty.

Chinese anarchist writer

Via Liberty and Power.
An enticing obituary of Ba Jin, dead at the age of 100, who once wrote "Never for a moment will I put down my pen. It is kindling a fire within me." Taking his name from Bakunin and Kropotkin, Ba Jin fell victim to the Cultural Revolution, of which he said, "Where else have authors in the world throughout history gone through something so terrifying and ridiculous, so bizarre and agonizing?" There's a ripe history barely hinted at in this article, that I hope some modern Chinese anarchists will pick up and publish.

Karl Hess Club blog

J. Neil Schulman Thomas M. Sipos have started blog based on the log-running Karl Hess Club dinner discussions (see link to the right on this page). So far the most interesting post (in my opinion) dealt with copyright.

Linaweaver's Der Krapp columns online

Under the premise of finding something good to say about the worst movies ever made, Brad Linaweaver penned 17 entries under the column name "Der Krapp." Now online at Big Lizards, this is sure to feed some Netflix queues. Or not.

Announcing Roswell, Texas

Scott Bieser posts hot news about L. Neil Smith and Rex F. May's new novel, Roswell, Texas, to be published as a graphic novel as web-installments, and possibly a print version if there's enough market demand. The premise certainly is enticing...

Imagine a world in which Texas never joined the United States, NAZI Germany conquered England but was held in check by a nuclear-armed Irish Republican Army, the Catholic Church has moved its headquarters to Brownsville, Texas, and Mexico is ruled by a neo-Aztec emperor in partnership with French colonial bureaucrats-in-exile.

In this Texas-that-might-have-been, residents are required to have permits not to carry firearms. The Federated States of Texas includes most of what we know as New Mexico and Colorado, as well as Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, parts of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Missouri. Not to mention Alaska, Cuba, Venezuela, most of Central America, and the Phillippines. Its currency is based on petroleum, and its limited government is financed entirely by a monopoly on garbage collection.

And in 1947, Texican President Charles A. Lindbergh was faced with a most amazing, and potentially world-changing, situation — reports of a flying saucer crash in far west Texas, near the town of Roswell.

Dark is the Might

NY Times reports on the effort to "recalibrate" comic book heroes like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman for "a grittier century." Damn, and I thought the last century was gritty. What do they know that we don't?

Conger on Barsoom

Wally Conger mentioned recently at his blog, out of step, news about Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars novels coming to the big screen. I grew up reading ERB's books on Tarzan, Venus, Mars, and Pellucidar, lending credence to the statement that the Golden Age of science fiction is twelve. (Personally, the Pellucidar novels were my favorites, under the Ace imprint from the 1970s.) I am somewhat leery of this cinematic effort, though. One fascinating tidbit I take away from director Jon Favreau's interview linked at out of step is the fact it's taken 75 years to get this close, and the script isn't even ready yet! Much easier for Tarzan, which arrived in cinemas almost before the print dried.

Pinter Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

An interesting choice for this year's Nobel Prize. I was not aware of Harold Pinter's poetry as much as his plays, nor his recent political stance against the Iraq Invasion. Julian Sanchez over at Reason Hit and Run seems more amused by the fact that Pinter was born in Hackney, although this bio mentions Pinter's recent anti-war book of poetry, as well as this interesting quote: "Pinter's early fascination with politics was also evident in The Hothouse (1980), a bilious black comedy set in a state-run hospital in which nonconformists are classified as mental patients. Written in 1958, it was never publicly performed till 1980." In a subsequent sentence, however, it just seems like Pinter copies Henrik Ibsen's play, The Wild Duck, in discussing The Caretaker, which is "about power and pipe dreams: about the desire for domination and about the human need for illusions." The Nobel Price tends to result in an upsurge of sales for the winner, and often puzzlement at the selection by critics. Earlier this week the Nobel Prize for literature received another type of attention when a judge denounced last year's selection and quit the panel.

UPDATE: Just read a comment over at Libertarian Samizdata calling Pinter an apologist for Slobodan Milosevic, "Europe's most prolific socialist mass murderer since Joseph Stalin." Pinter else has been ridiculed as a "Champagne Socialist" and hypocrite for declining a knighthood by a conservative government and accepting state honors from a social democractic one. Perhaps this award is a good thing after all, as it will shine the light of truth on its recipients.

Serenity in 2000 Words or Less

Can't help myself. This is too damn funny. (But don't click unless you've seen the movie.)

Collateral Damage in the Culture Wars

Conservatives must have relaxed the drug laws slightly to come to this conclusion, that penguins somehow represent conservative values. Earlier in the Fall, the New York Times also mused on the rise of conservative movies, wondering whether a few recent movies viewed as having conservative values should be "interpreted as peace offerings in the culture wars, or as canny attempts to open a new front in the endless battle for the soul of the American public?" Since most American media members see the world as liberal and everything-not-liberal-as-conservative, lumping The Incredibles as a "conservative" movie demonstrates a Procrustian worldview. And yet, there is a conservative movement out there, far-reaching and ambitious, that could co-opt or take down libertarian ideas entirely in the public's mind. Witness Libertas, which throws around the word "liberty," yet also advertises itself as a "forum for conservative though on film." No wonder the modern left sees libertarians as part of the conservative movement: no one talks liberty as much and loudly as the conservatives, while trampling gleefully on individual freedom at the same time.

3000 Years

Today I received in a mail a copy of 3000 Years, a novel by Richard Mgrdechian published this year. I plan on digging into the book right away, posting a brief review here, and then probably a longer review in the print edition of Prometheus in a few months - yes, hard to believe in our internet age, but print newsletters still exist. Published quarterly, at around 16 pages per issue, Prometheus has been around under various editors since 1982, nearly 25 years now. The Fall newsletter should be in the mail to LFS members, subscribers, and friends Any Day Now. Send me an email if you're interested in getting a sample copy.

Resurrection of Liberty

Another entry from the "books not yet read" department, Michael L. Wentz's new novel (published October 6, 2005), Resurrection of Liberty. The description makes it sound like a space opera/young adult adventure story amid a background where "freedom has been leached from the galaxy, replaced with slavery, oppression, and destruction."

More Heinleiniana

By strange coincidence (see earlier post) I came across this article from the 1997 edition of the first ever issue of The Heinlein Journal. Sf critic Farah Mendlesohn places some comments about Heinlein's "feminism" in context, and provides insight into the decline of strong female roles in sf during the 1940s and 1950s. One can argue that this falls into a greater social contraction in media with the rise of movie Production Codes, strict editorial guidelines, and crackdown on comic books. Heinlein appears to emerge as the only writer of that era to grant his female characters greater roles, but no doubt there are others out there, too.

Robert A. Heinlein, Feminist?

[cross-posted at Liberty and Power] Thanks to David Beito for the guest blogging opportunity.

With the Heinlein Centenary celebrations scheduled for July 7, 2007, more and more stories about sf writer Robert A. Heinlein will start to surface. Long criticized by liberals, Heinlein (seen by many fans, writers, and critics as the first libertarian sf writer), gets a nod over at the New York Times (registration required) for his radical ideas instead of the usual reactionary claims. M.G. Lord's essay hints that Heinlein's radical ideas about women found better expressions in his earlier works, especially the less serious juvenile stories. Lord even praises parts of Starship Troopers, often mis-read as a "fascist" and "militaristic" work. Several of Heinlein's young female characters indeed appeared more capable and individualistic than their male counterparts, and tended to remind me of Harper Lee's Scout, from To Kill a Mockingbird. This may be a matter of opinion, but I tend to agree with the contrast between Heinlein's earlier and later books; works published after 1970 grew longer and more complex, but at the same time less interesting.

Serenity backlash begins

A few negative comments have emerged from people who saw the movie. Claire Wolfe's disappointment is two-fold. She believes it was better as a TV series, and thought a particular scene derivative. I tend to respect Wolfe's comments, but the scene to which she alludes, where Serenity arrives at Mr. Universe's planet to find an Armanda of Alliance ships, and somehow manages to surprise and slip past them, by no means originated with Galaxy Quest. Although the title eludes me, I seem to remember a Western movie where stampeding cattle was used much in the same way.

Seth Stevenson at Slate shares the same view. The idea that Whedon should stick to television comes from the perception that Whedon's "nuanced characters with complex, long-running relationships" are better suited to long-running TV shows rather than a two-hour feature film. Wolfe voices this as you " can't just scale up a TV series and call it a movie." Stevenson even quotes Whedon, who once said, "Why are the best writers in TV? Because they can control their product. They're given something resembling respect." Of course, the way Fox killed Firefly after Whedon garnered mucho respect disproved this statement. Whedon had limited control over his product, as executives demanded changes to Mal's character, kyboshed the original pilot for "more action," and dropped the show mid-way through the season. Another argument brought up for why TV is a horrible medium is actually raised as praise by Stevenson:

Whedon has killed off his shows' major characters, then resurrected them—repeatedly. He turned Buffy's friend Willow gay, then made her into a murderous hellion, then turned her sweet and good again. But even as Buffy's plots whirligigged around, the characters remained self-aware, and the banter remained off-handed and cute.

I suppose that if Firefly had lived, Zoe and Jayne might have gotten together, and Simon turned out to be an Alliance spy, killing Kaylee and running off with Inara. Such are the downfalls of TV and episodic shows with no defined story arc, as the current show Lost demonstrates. Who knows where it's going? Not even the writers themselves, I fear. Each episode of Firefly, 43 minutes in length once you snip out commercials, is barely enough to tell a small story or two. One could see the greater story arcs building in some episodes, but other episodes sacrificed this story to bring up more sex and violence, often with little or no character development. Serenity, at around 120 minutes (or three times the length of one Firefly episode), can show more of the major plot, but also (like any single episode), tends to focus on core characters. The ensemble cast of nine, plus two other supporting characters, must share precious time. Another movie with a fellowship of nine could give more time to each member over nearly ten hours, but not so in the constrained allotment of a single movie.

Box Office Mojo calls the movie "more episodic (and cacophonous) than cinematic" and an "obnoxiously loud movie." Serenity is merely a "cowboys and Indians space adventure." Box Office Mojo also listed preliminary numbers of $3.9 mil from Friday, second behind the more famous Jodie Foster's Flightplan, which is good news for Whedon and Universal. Other than failing to hear occasional dialog, I found the movie at times serene, never "cacophonous."

On the other hand, most mainstream reviews have been positive. Two thumbs up from Roper and Ebert, for example. Elsewhere I was taken to task for mentioning the movie in terms of "genre," yet almost every reviewer has mentioned Serenity in terms of its science fiction elements (the local San Antonio paper managed to do this in each of the first seven paragraphs of its positive review). Much has been made of Whedon's blend of Western and SF. Yet there are elements of siege movies (Zulu, Alamo), and horror (Dawn of the Dead), as well as space resembling the sea, with pirates, sharks, and killing grounds. Genre definitions can be limiting, yet also there are certain things you can do within the scope of SF movies than other genres don't really allow. Taking pieces from recognizable themes is no sin. For a movie with a $40 million budget, some effects fail to meet Industrial Light and Magic standards, yet the plot, dialog, and characters stand far above any recent Star Wars movie.

As for my last words, I'd acknowledge that some of the characters received less time and development than others. Yet again, given two hours and a story to tell, the writer has to make a choice. Bemoan not unfulfilled anticipations of what could have been, but rather examine the actual result. If there is no more Serenity, no more Firefly, Whedon has told his story. Events that might have happened in season two or three of a TV show all came to a head in this movie, for good or bad. I think aside from the Mr. Universe plot and how a couple of characters seemed more whiny than on the show, that Serenity was a damned good movie. Having seen it twice my opinions have not changed. And so, no more blog entries for me on this movie, until news of a possible sequel is announced.