Michael Flynn

[YankeyMCC]

Anyone else here read him?

His novel "Wreck of the River of Stars" is one of my favorites. The characters and how they interact - well it just blows me away - and he does a damn fine job at the hard science.

That was the first novel I ever read by him and in fact it took a while for it to grow on me.

Finally the other day I picked up another Flynn novel - Firestar.

A good story for someone like me that longs to see space exploration and yes Exploitation on the scale described in the book. The character development didn't seem as good as in River but there were flashes of good development.

But although I still enjoyed it (considering it was over 800 pages a considerable achievement) it struck me as a very "libertarian" "hard right free market" treatise of sorts. An awful lot of jabs at government - yes they certainly deserve jabs for letting the ball drop so to speak with manned space exploration but it was hard not to see the jabs in a more general light at government in general. In fact there were many comments from leading characters on how government eventually just gets in the way of everything.

[phantom power]

1. I have a theory about libertarianism and SF authors.

I think one connection may be a general space-enthusiast frustration at how little has happened since the Apollo programs (in terms of human space colonization).

Another connection is that many SF fans/authors seem to gravitate toward political idealism. Or naivete, as I've gradually come to think of it.

Yet another connection is that space being so BIG and all, there is likely to be quite a bit of frontier-style lack of government out there, if we ever really get out there. I mean, how would anybody govern something the size of the asteroid belt? Or the Oort cloud, etc?

I guess that's really three theories, not mutually exclusive.

[YankeyMCC]

2. Well I think

you're on to something with all three of these ideas. As I was thinking these thoughts about Flynn it occurred to me how much these same themes recur in SF.

Ah well nothing that reading a little Kim Stanley Robinson wont cure :)

[phantom power]

4. KSR is the man. Or Greg Bear.

I just re-read Darwin's Radio over the holiday. What a masterpiece!

[politicat]

3. That book makes me sad...

I like the concept of Firestar - I like the idea that someone with the wherewithal could spend her fortune on getting us back into space.

But I hated the never-ending harping on the free market-as-God. Because the world doesn't work that way - as too many families in West Virginia know tonight, corps are rarely out for the good of the people.

I'm not a big fan of Flynn - he's a little preachy. For space exploration (getting us there) SF, I prefer Bova's Rock Rats series.