Just for kicks and grins--and because it will drive some people crazy--let's talk a little about secession, revolution, and survivalism in popular literature, starting with Texas secession. There's a long skein of SF/Alternative History about "second civil wars," "second American Revolutions," "America invaded," or "post-Apocalypse/survivalist" scenarios out there. With regard to Texas, which gets into the US after fighting its own war for independence from Mexico, there is a Cold-War-era light fantasy (sorry, any novel with a battleship surfing a tsunami counts as light fantasy) by Daniel da Cruz, The Ayes of Texas [followed by a series of sequels and pre-quels]. Read the reviews at Amazon in the link: some people got it; others got their panties in a twist. More recently, expanding from Texas, there's Tom Kratman's A State of Disobedience , which is more radical libertarian polemic than novel in some ways. Neither of these bo...

From Coyote : If you can get over the cognitive dissonance of seeing Spock feel up Uhura, this is a very solid movie.

The review: Brilliant . The postscript: The franchise is back.

This weekend at the beach I took the kids to see Race to Witch Mountain remake, and I was prepared for the usual fairly plotless, inane Disney release. Well, it is pretty inane and in many ways clueless, what with the cut-rate Terminator sub-plot and all.... But the movie also has a surprisingly Libertarian slant. The bad guys--both human and alien--are the government. Both governments are determined to achieve their policy ends even it requires killing children, using massive firepower indiscriminately, and wrecking vast amounts of private property without the slightest hesitation. The one guy from the government who occasionally shows twinges of conscience from time to time never reaches the point of protesting: the idea that he should shut up and soldier to save his job always gets him back into line. But the really interesting scene takes places in a small southwestern restaurant/bar where the sheriff (Ike Eisenmann from the original film in a cameo) briefly stands up to the Fe...

I really didn't intend to write this post. When Waldo posted The Geek Closet , about the Star Trek franchise's reluctance to take on gay characters, I wrote one truly geek note about the two direct lesbian scenes/references [one in Deep Space Nine and one in The Next Generation], which he took--at least partly--as me evading his point. So then I wrote another five paragraph response ... that the blogspot comment editor promptly ate. I hate it when that happens. So I thought I would sort of semi-replicate it here, with a few addenda. First note: I am not an incredible fan of Star Trek novels [although the ones by Peter David are generally readable], but I have polished off a few in airports or hotel lounges when there was nothing better available. From that random sampling I know that on at least a couple occasions LGBT characters have also made it into the franchise via print. But again that doesn't serve to answer Waldo's question about why no gay characters on St...

Two of my favorite SF authors--for completely different reasons--are the later A E Van Vogt and Larry Niven. Niven is the acknowledged dean of hard SF, while van Vogt was famous for the often dream-like quality of his stories. Both writers have dealt with the interesting question of whether society could survive in a state of anarchy: Van Vogt with his 1977 novel The Anachronistic Colossus and Niven with the short story "Cloak of Anarchy" (which you can read in its entirety here ). Curiously, both arrived at the same conclusion: for anarchy to work, there has to exist an impartial authority with the power to prevent or punish transgressions. Both use ubiquitous monitoring systems that are in virtually every public space, with the power to zap the perpetrators of force or fraud before--or immediately after--they commit an act of aggression. Both systems are designed to run normally without human intervention. Both systems are designed to allow you to do pretty much what...

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.7 jolted eastern Japan early on Thursday, and was felt over a wide area, including in Tokyo, Japan's meteorological agency said. (Reuters) I am very glad that no one was hurt. I think we have some live footage here ...... We have some related historical footage too National Geographic could not cover it any better than this either. Link to Story

After a brief hiatus, this one is short--less that 2,000 words--and probably not what you'd expect. Easy Money An Original Science Fiction story by Steven H. Newton (c) 2008; all rights reserved Dead Annie had just been Annie back when she got very hungry and down bad for a fix of viper one day, and Little Georgie showed her the ad. It was a good piece of webPaper—even had sound. The man with the tinny voice and the big smile said, “Need cash? Need it now? Make up to $250 an hour as a product tester. No experience necessary, no references needed. Just walk in. Sheridan Design Associates needs you! Bring in this ad in the next twenty-four hours and enjoy our free buffet!” The address was four blocks up from the park, in what Annie knew was a row of mostly boarded-up businesses. “I gave blood before,” she said. “Never heard of this. They really pay like that? Food, too?” Georgie had wall-eyes; she was never sure which one was looking at her. “Yeah, you eat and they pa...

You might recall, that over at Delaware Liberal I was asking for the reincarnation of Thomas Jefferson. Well, in that vein, this is what the world of anime thinks of our presidential race with a special h/t to the dark lord Dick Cheney and his minions. This is one intense moment of Zen....

http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Strange-Land-Robert-Heinlein/dp/0441790348 I am pretty much a stranger in a strange land. When I compare myself with Valentine Michael in the book, I realize I am pretty much a stranger in a strange land. I say this because I believe in personal responsibility, individual freedom and human liberty. If you want to fuck whoever you want to fuck, I could care less. If I want to pursue any modicum of happiness I will as long as it does not screw the people around me over. I am going to do it and take responsibility for it. Without any preconception of what the world should be, and accepting things as they are, I am pretty much as idiosyncratic as a Martian. Though I am not nearly as rich- except as the Greeks used to say in the kind of richness that no "shipwreck, can take away" (knowledge)- I pretty much argue that every person is whole in themselves and should grow up and be responsible for themselves and others. I guess every libertarian feels t...

Part One . Part Two . Part Three . War on the Cheap An Original Science Fiction Story by Steven H. Newton (c)2008; all rights reserved Gully Foy did not appear surprised by the announcement that Elbers had ruled out fire support. He blew fluid and dirt noisily out of both tubes in the endearing spasm known as the “snot-fart,” a Xinq reaction to bad news they could not do anything about. Ignoring the occasional mortar round (most of which missed Hill 49 by at least 100 meters), the squat Xinq walked Arras along Recon’s perimeter. “Gonks be dumb ‘nough walk straight up hill, hold ‘em here,” he said. “Trained some those tubeheads back when. Never got the idea ‘bout flank attacks.” Gully Foy had placed nine of Recon’s fourteen warm bodies into line. Two snipers were using the casualties’ power packs to harass Gonk officers and mortar teams; the rest were improving their fire-points. Mazir and Ully Nood had hauled up the Luitingh, which they were setting up to cover the most obviou...

The writings of Science Fiction writer Robert Heinlein--the acknowledged grand master and nearly single-handed creator of realistic, near-future SF--are not for everybody. [ Alexei Panshin has apparently devoted his life to trashing him .] And as much as Libertarians would like to claim him on the basis of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress , the Grand Old Man ranged in his life (and in his fiction) from being a near-socialist to a jingoistic militarist. The older he got, the further to the right most of his fiction got--except (as with Stranger in a Strange Land ) he was very far on the left. His letters and papers-- now available online (for pay, but at extremely reasonable prices )--show the man behind the stories, and often read much like his novels. It is exceptionally moving to read Heinlein's correspondence between 1945-1948 as his career is really taking off, his first (actually, second, but that's another story) wife is descending into alcoholism, and he is tentatively c...

Tuesday March 4, 2008 Brian On Critical Assignment in Poorastan , near someplace no one really knows or cares about While increasing pressure mounts on the Bush Administration to admit that while it took four years to win world war II, and has taken over six to win the global war on terror, a lone man with a camera has done the unthinkable and actually found out what may have happened to Osama Bin Laden. For details, watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjxXX70_R0A Following this Bush Administration officials told this reporter, "no comment." While former presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, known affectionately as "Rudy" to supporters, said, "since the events of 9/11 the country has been in an ideological struggle with radical islamo -fascism." When asked about the reasons why Osama is basically gone, he responded, "no comment." One can only assume that the 9/11 phallus has repeatedly penetrated the American public's consciousne...

Biofuels are a hot topic. It seems everyone, and I mean everyone, wants to weigh in on it, from Bill Gates to Fidel Castro. So I want to send out a special thanks to Jesus' General for posting on what happens when biofuels go bad: http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2008/03/food-or-fuel.html The case can be made that Brazil already produces enough sugar cane ethanol to fuel the entire continent of South America; and that we could use the same technology without creating food shortages or following some of the more radical soylent green biofuel dystopias floating around in the policy-o-sphere like using thermal depolymerization on people....if you do not know about thermal depolymerization , please read about turning turkey guts into diesel and the same could be done to people; scary huh? I think so: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1125_031125_turkeyoil.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization Now Libertarian phobic fantasies have been around fore...

In my spare time (hah!) I've been rereading a couple of classic pieces of Libertarian-oriented SF. The best science fiction not only tells a great story and introduces new concepts, but includes some sort of mediation on society and the human condition (although it has to be carefully hidden as entertainment). Two of the best short novels that really seriously consider the idea of law and anarcho-capitalist society are both by Barry Longyear . [Longyear's most famous work is Enemy Mine , which was later made into a bad movie starring Louis Gossett Jr ., but it has never been my favorite.] Circus World is the better known, a collection of linked short stories assembled into a quirky novel, that centers on the planet Momus, that was accidentally settled by a spaceship filled with a circus troupe. Now, centuries later, circus tradition has resulted in an anarcho-capitalist society that only has one law: a law about how to make other laws in case they would ever be necessary. ...

War on the Cheap An Original Science Fiction Story by Steven H. Newton (c)2008; all rights reserved Part One of Four Everything shouldn’t seem the same when everything was about to change, Arras thought, exiting the shuttle. The sky had a familiar orange cast, the air stank from the tanneries. Attendants ignored the departing passengers, and Xinq taxi drivers squatted around a blanket to dice bones and gamble away their pay. “Damn them,” said a man struggling with a garment bag, suitcase, and two carry-ons. “They haven’t got the brains to see customers coming.” “They know we’re here all right,” said a thin man wearing the lapel pin of a retired major in the Xinquess Reach Armed Forces. “They don’t have to tote our bags until they pretend to see us.” “We don’t put up with behavior like that on Geffney. Our Xinqs either know their place or get shown it.” Arras crinkled her lips in a humorless half smile. Coarse black hair framed her face, cut for utility rather than style. Cr...