From the Imperium-controlled aetherlanes to a tech noir restitution agency in the Free Zone and from a steampunk, 1894 China with clockwork automatons to a post-1984 Orwellian dystopia with mandatory goodpharm, here are ten science fiction stories of defiance and daring.
Split evenly between strong female and male leads, these heroes fight losing battles on principle alone, discover lies hidden deep inside themselves, execute daring rescues and fight for love and liberty in a society where human dignity is cheaper than obsolete swarmbots.
These original, never-before-published works are from veteran authors, including William F. Wu, as well as emerging talents. It also includes the very first short story by Wendy McElroy.
Mike DiBaggio
There’s another Ascension Epoch novel available for free in the Liberty.Me library: After Dark After Dark is the story of Sebastian Pereira, an impetuous teenager who decided to become what he always dreamed of being…a superhero! The world that Sebastian lives in is different from our own, yet recognizable. He lives in Pittsburgh, a city still transformed by the Martian invasion (a la ‘War of the Worlds’) more than a century ago. The United States has been dead for more than 100 years; North America is broken up into dozens of small states, confederations, anarchic alliances, and free cities. Pittsburgh itself is a city of block governments, neighborhood associations, subscription patrol companies, and rights enforcement agencies trying to establish a better way of doing things in the face of a withering city government. Society is in many ways freer and more advanced than our own, and culturally much different as well. There are even personal aircraft! But this parallel universe is no utopia of perpetual sunshine and flowers. There is still crime, corruption, and racial tension, especially between radical talents (people with superpowers) and the existing order. As the costumed crimefighter known as Torrent, Sebastian runs up against werecats, mad gassers, corrupt police, supernatural vandals, and seductive radicals in the Global Parahuman Revolutionary Army. His challenges are ethical as often as they are physical, and his toughest opponent may be his fallen nature. Can he really serve justice as a vigilante, or is he only serving his own ego? I’d love to hear what you thought of the book, our characters, and our setting.
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George Donnelly
Hi and Happy New Year! I’m doing another liberty-themed anthology, this one (mainly) of flash fiction. All authors are welcome, whether you identify even remotely libertarian or are just writing a liberty-themed story. I would love to have you on board with this. Will you join me? Why am I doing this? Because I want to gain a greater collective readership for libertarian fiction. We’ve done lots of work reaching people with logical arguments for liberty. It’s time to inject more emotional arguments for liberty into the conversation. So you in or what? 🙂 Here are the details: Submit as many stories as you like, up to 5,000 words each but ideally around 1,000 words. These need to be complete stories with a beginning, middle and end, in any genre. The deadline for your completed story/ies is Monday, March 30, 2016, so you have plenty of time. But you might as well get on board with this marketing opportunity right now! You need to commit to helping me market the final anthology to the best of your abilities. Anyone can submit, whether you are published before or not. Get the full story here: http://georgedonnelly.com/seeking-short-fiction/ Thanks and I look forward to reading your stories! P.S. If you know anyone else who might be interested in this, please share it with them. TIA! P.P.S Here’s the last one we did, in case you weren’t aware of it: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QU9FU78/
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David Neilson
The Prometheus Award for Best Novel was created to honor new libertarian fiction, and the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award honors classic libertarian fiction. ThePrometheus Awards are hosted by the Libertarian Futurist Society. This is a list of all of the books that were nominated for these two awards. There are more than 500 books on this list by almost 300 authors, which is enough liberty themed fiction to keep anyone entertained and inspired for a long time. http://cryptoagorist.com/prometheus_awards.html
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P_Fritz
I have an Objectivist leaning friend who has read only Rand’s philosophical works (Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand Lexicon, etc). We have these great discussions as long as we’re discussing Aristotle or Egoism, but then if I mention a line from Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged he points out he hasn’t read those and it’s always kind of deflating. So so here’s my question: do you think someone can bypass Rand’s fictional works and still really fully understand and appreciate Objectivism? Or is there something about the fictional works that is essential to understanding Rand?
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G.R. Lyons
I put out this question on Facebook but thought I’d give it a try here, too (apologies: I’m still learning the ropes here on L.me!). As a writer, I’m curious as to what readers are looking for in the way of libertarian / anarchist fiction. What issues would you like to see addressed? What topics would you like to see covered? Anything in particular that comes to mind that you either find lacking in libertarian fiction, or that you simply think needs to be stressed more? I’ve got a ton of ideas for an upcoming fantasy series, but I’d like to know if there are any specifics for which readers might be looking.
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Steve Long
George Donnelly
Hi! I’m organizing an anthology of libertarian (science) fiction that will be published in time for Christmas gifts and New Year’s resolutions. More information at: http://georgedonnelly.com/libertarian-anthology/ Email me at [email protected] to let me know that you will be participating. I will keep you directly informed of updates. Let’s talk about your story idea, too. This project is happening no matter how many authors do or do not participate. If I get enough quality submissions, I will do multiple anthologies. If I only get a few, we will do it anyway. If I get none, then I will just write more stories and have all the fun to myself. So don’t miss out! P.S. This project is for both new and veteran authors. I need your proposal no later than July 14th so don’t delay.
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Mike Vroman
What lessons are there to be learned from the writers of fiction?
Jump to Discussion Post 2 replies Mike DiBaggio
I’m looking for beta readers for my forthcoming short story anthology about a band of teenage superheroes in Pittsburgh. The setting and several of the adventures are directly informed by libertarian philosophy, but the stories are primarily for entertainment rather than propaganda purposes. So if you’re looking for “This is John Galt speaking” monologues or dry economic treatises, this isn’t your thing. 🙂 What do I mean by a ‘beta reader’? It’s simple: I send you the pre-published text and you read it, comment on it, and tell me what you think of it. What works, what doesn’t. What you liked, what didn’t make sense, what was confusing, etc… I’m not looking for copy editors, although you can feel free to point out typos and stuff too if you want to. But what I’m looking for is input on the story and characters.
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B.K. Marcus
Do you have an embarrassing literary secret? Here’s mine: I think I just wasn’t meant for modernist novels. When I first tried to read James Joyce, Virginia Wolfe, William Faulkner, I kept saying the same thing about their novels: “There’s no plot!” I could rarely get past the first two chapters. Now that I’m older and revisiting some of the “greats,” my experience of so-called modernism is different, but not entirely. I just finished reading Faulkner’s Light in August, which I started, appropriately enough, while traveling through the deep(er) South in June. In the first two chapters I was thinking it might be the best English-language novel I’ve ever read, possibly as great as Tolstoy, whom I love. “Maybe,” I thought, “I just wasn’t mature enough when I first tried this novel 30 years ago.” But my overall experience ended up being the same as it was when I read his novel The Sound and the Fury: there are passages of brilliance alongside passages that strike me as incoherent (or at least thoroughly confusing and impossible to follow). There are scenes that move me profoundly. But by the time I finish the book, I feel let down. Why did it end there and not a hundred pages earlier? Or a hundred pages later? I don’t experience an integral whole. It’s just like dipping in and out of a great man’s mind — complete with liberal use (or illiberal use) of the dreaded N-word. Am I still too immature for modernism? If you think I’m missing the point, please feel free to say so. Or if you have any of your own literary bugaboos, let us know. I’ll ask this question again tomorrow night at the Bookworm Hangout: bookworms.liberty.me at 8 PM ET every Wednesday. All are welcome. (But I should say that the question I plan to ask often has nothing to do with the conversation we end up having. Last week, I wanted to ask about children’s literature, but we ended up talking about science fiction and investment books. Bookworms talk about whatever bookworms want to talk about.)
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