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Freedom Book of the Month for May 2000:
Forge of the Elders
by L. Neil Smith
Baen Books, 2000, hardcover, 534 pp.
$21.21 from Laissez Faire Books
Capitalist monsters from outer space!
Well ... not exactly. Turns out they're not monsters, but sapient individualists. And they come from all of the various alternate universes where evolution took a different fork in the road and the crustaceans or the dinosaurs ended up as the dominant and intelligent species.
L. Neil Smith is known for his brand of no-holds-barred space opera centered around a libertarian theme. "Forge of the Elders" "seriously discusses life-and-death ethics, epistemology, metaphysics (the Aristotelian kind), physics, evolution, the authoritarian personality, and politics of unanimous consent," the author said in a recent letter. "In many ways, it's my most ambitious literary undertaking so far."
I think it may be his downright best in terms of grabbing a reader and yanking him down into the suspension of disbelief that fiction requires, too.
Smith predicted the fall of the Soviet Union, but in this saga, communism made a big worldwide comeback. The protagonists are the captain and crew of three mothballed space shuttles approaching an asteroid dubbed 5023 Eris on a mission of exploration and exploitation on behalf of the United World Soviet. But someone has beat them to it ... a culture composed of sapient nautiloids, obsequious reptiles and inscrutable arachnids -- and rescued humans from a civilization predating our known history.
They're individualists, they're capitalists, and they're already there; what's more, their technology is of such superiority that it wouldn't be difficult for them to wipe out three space shuttles, their misfit crews, and perhaps the home planet before lunch. Naturally, the Soviet apparatchiki aren't hearing it though, which leaves Captain Guttierez, Major Reille y Sanchez and company in a delicate situation. Hilarity and philosophy ensue. Only L. Neil Smith would have the temerity to have a character ask, with a straight face, "Who is John Galt?" And he has the talent to carry it off.
The characters -- from Mister Thoggosh (nautiloid "Proprietor" of 5023 Eris) to Rosalind Nguyen, chief medic of the lamented expedition -- face a series of murders, delicate diplomatic situations and the ultimate mystery: the origin and fate of "the Eldest," a sapient race that came and went before all others. They may be Smith's most well-rounded cast.
Don't let the good humor, the tension of mystery and the empathy Smith generates for his characters obscure the depth of Smith's exposition of ideas. This book is a winner from every angle.
edited by Thomas L. Knapp
June 2000: Law's Order by David Friedman
May 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith
April 2000: Reciprocia by Richard G. Rieben
March 2000: The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand
February 2000: Addiction is a Choice by Jeffrey A. Schaler
January 2000: Revolutionary Language by David C. Calderwood
Special December 1999 Feature: The Freedom Book of the Year: Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998 by Vin Suprynowicz
November 1999: Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell
October 1999: A Way To Be Free by Robert LeFevre, edited by Wendy McElroy
September 1999: Assassins (Left Behind) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
August 1999: Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom by Claire Wolfe
July 1999: The Mitzvah by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman
June 1999: The Incredible Bread Machine by R.W. Grant
May 1999: Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz
April 1999: It Still Begins with Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille
March 1999: The Dictionary of Free-Market Economics by Fred Foldvary
February 1999: Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand edited by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra
In December 2004 this page was modified significantly from its original form for archiving purposes.
, founded in 1995, is now a part of ISIL.
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