Novels

This review is part of a series covering each installment of the serialized novel Higher Cause, written by John Hunt and published by Laissez Faire Books. To catch up, start with the announcement, the book’s link-rich table of contents, and the first review.

We start out the second half of the book with two more chapters. Hunt is starting to benefit from the seeds planted in earlier chapters. There is a lot going on, a lot of side plots and characters to worry about, and as each advances, they give us that mild euphoria that comes from a new development or a new clue revealed. With so much to work with, these developments and clues come tumbling out of the prose at us.

The first chapter begins with some medical care for Jeff Baddori. It catches us up to date with Dr. Thomas Standall, whom we met earlier. The research done into the wounds that Jeff and Petur received adds a lot to the narrative. It also allows for some pro-market explanations. I would have omitted the first three paragraphs and had the information therein come out as dialogue though.

The second part of the first chapter is a bracing search for the bad guys. This time, something is found. It’s a stimulating little stretch of prose and leaves us with the certainty of trouble ahead.

The second chapter deals with Onbacher’s theories about the Bounty. He has made some progress in his own search, which he confesses was, initially, his principle interest in The Island. The novel has a lot of appealing aspects, and this is one of the main ones. It takes a historical fact, fills in a lot of gaps with some real imagination and then connects it all to the present narrative, which does not have to have anything to do with it. It could survive quite well on its own, but the addition of the historical fiction enriches the tale.

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I’m a little late with this post and I completely failed to send out the voting results email via our newsletter last month. All I can say right now is that I’ve been rather preoccupied with some momentous events for the site. First, I upgraded from shared hosting to a virtual private server (VPS) at DreamHost even though we’re not yet bringing in enough revenue to cover the significantly added cost. We’d simply outgrown shared hosting; the site was loading slowly and often failed to load at all, especially on the backend while trying to save and publish posts. Second, the new version of the theme I designed this site with, Thesis 2.0, was just released on the 1st. It’s a radically redesigned and powerful theme framework and I’ve been obsessed with scaling its steep relearning curve and redesigning Prometheus Unbound on it. Stay tuned for Prometheus Unbound 2.0. It’s gonna be awesome, if I do say so myself.

But enough with excuses… For the month of October, we are reading and discussing J. Neil Schulman’s classic dystopian science fiction novel Alongside Night, winner of the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award and currently being adapted into a movie starring Kevin Sorbo (Hercules, Andromeda):

The American economy is experiencing a systematic meltdown. The country is turning into a totalitarian police-surveillance state, but bold black-market enterprises use the latest technology to thrive. Anyone declared a terrorist by the administration is stripped of their Constitutional rights and sent to a secret federal prison. Caught in the middle of it all are the brilliant 17-year-old son of a missing Nobel Prize–winning economist (Dr. Vreeland), his best friend from prep school whose uncle was once a guerrilla fighter, and the beautiful but mysterious 17-year-old girl he meets in a secret underground… a girl who carries a pistol with a silencer.

The setting could be next week. But this Prometheus Hall of Fame Award–winning novel was written over three decades ago. And now it is being adapted into a film starring Kevin Sorbo as Dr. Martin Vreeland.

Our book giveaway is over, but if you missed out you can purchase a copy in Kindle or paper format at Amazon.com. Your purchase via our affiliate links will help support our work here at Prometheus Unbound.

Join us as we read and discuss Alongside Night. And stay tuned for the official event announcement of the upcoming live author chat with Schulman, hosted by Prometheus Unbound via Google+ Hangouts on Air.

You need not have voted on this month’s selection to join in the discussion, but you do need to be registered and logged in on this site to access the book club’s dedicated forums.

September Recap

I’ll update this post with a more extensive recap later in the month, followed by a full review, but for now I can say we enjoyed Jack Vance’s Emphyrio. The stylized prose and dialogue might not be for everyone, and the story takes a while to really get going (a lot of time is spent on background and setup), but the book is very enjoyable and worth a read. There is much for libertarians to appreciate in Emphyrio as well. The setting is a planet run as an welfare state by mysterious lords, in which the economy is artisan-based and any mass production or duplication is strictly prohibited and harshly punished. Events lead the protagonist, Ghyl, to rebel against this unjust system.

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This review is part of a series covering each installment of the serialized novel Higher Cause, written by John Hunt and published by Laissez Faire Books. To catch up, start with the announcement, the book’s link-rich table of contents, and the first review.

We have finished the first half of Higher Cause with this, the 11th installment. We get three chapters this time, each dealing with different places and different characters. The action is well under way, so any break we get from here on out will be, one suspects, something of a cliff hanger.

The first chapter picks up where we left off last time, with Jeff and Petur dealing with the attack on the OTEC. As Jeff feared, there was more to come. Indeed, what transpires is perhaps the most harrowing part of the entire ordeal with the saboteurs and assassins. By the time it is over, it seems like a draw between the two sides, and we know that they will butt heads again, most likely multiple times, after they have licked their respective wounds.

The second chapter is perhaps the best thing John Hunt has yet given us. We return to Mexico, to the former drug family now involved in political revolution. We might discuss its placement in the book, because it is largely an establishing chapter and this is the very middle of the novel, but what it gives us is engrossing.

We have a father and a son. The other son is now deceased, as we saw earlier, and the living son has schemes. The dynamic between the two is good, and then we are treated to a scene of the son pursuing a lust-interest who works in the father’s home but who resists the son’s advances. This also adds flavor to the mix, tells us a little more about the son as we discover his motives and his attitude about the whole thing. As if this were not enough, a final twist is added at the end, and that is the best part of all.

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This review is part of a series covering each installment of the serialized novel Higher Cause, written by John Hunt and published by Laissez Faire Books. To catch up, start with the announcement, the book’s link-rich table of contents, and the first review.

As we near the midway point of the 22 installments of Higher Cause, we get the first major action set piece. The long-awaited OTEC arrives at The Island, and once again a deadly sabotage is attempted. By the end of the second of two chapters, it is clear that there is more soon to come. We are left with perhaps the biggest cliffhanger yet.

This was an excellent time to pull a scene like this. A lot of different pieces have been put into place and the main storyline is underway. It raises the stakes and gives us a long chapter from multiple viewpoints. If it were a movie, this section would probably feature in the trailer. The key, of course, will be to get a couple more such chapters in and increase the thrills and tension each time.

The pacing was spot on this week. We can feel a lit fuse burning to its end; a sense of foreboding laces the early segments. The picture of what is going to happen comes into sharper and sharper focus, and then the thrills start. It is a strong addition to the story so far.

There continue to be opportunities for improvement. One would be to do a little less explaining. There are times when a line of dialogue is explained when the thrust is obvious from the context and the wording. Other times a character’s actions or reactions are explained when it is not necessary; the reader understands what is going on and why.

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We’ve got another book giveaway for you.

I’m pleased to announce that we’re working with libertarian science fiction author J. Neil Schulman to give away copies of his classic dystopian novel Alongside Night.

Written over three decades ago, this Prometheus Hall of Fame Award–winning novel is a thriller set in an America facing economic collapse, a growing totalitarian police-surveillance state, and agorist counter-economic resistance. And now it is being adapted into a film starring Kevin Sorbo as Dr. Martin Vreeland.

We’ll be giving away the ebook in epub format for the rest of September, until 12:00am EST on October 1, 2012.

One lucky winner will also receive a signed paperback copy of Alongside Night.

For more information, click on the link below:

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Apropos to my recent post on Google Docs, novelist Silvia Hartmann is embarking on a brave new experiment using Google’s office suite. She’s letting anyone and everyone watch her write a new fantasy novel in a public Google document. You can watch every word — every single character — appear on the screen as she types or just check on her progress whenever you please. It’s almost like being able to look over her shoulder as she writes the first draft.

It takes a great deal of courage to publish even a completed and edited novel. Even more to serialize a novel on your website or blog every week as you write it. How much courage does it take to let people watch your every keystroke while you write the first draft?

Established authors could sell access to this kind of inside look at how the sausage is made. But that might not be the best way to make use of this new opportunity. Even established authors, but especially new ones, could use this “naked writing” as a new way to connect with fans and gain publicity. No need to go for the direct sale. Foster a deeper connection with fans and attract more of them, then you might make more money from your writing in the long run.

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