“The American Zone,” like most of the books set in L. Neil Smith’s North American Confederacy universe, suffers from preachiness. Which is understandable, considering Robert A. Heinlein’s great influence on Smith. Heinlein has been accused of preachiness.
But, unlike the first grandmaster of science fiction, Smith lets the preaching get in the way of the action. For every page devoted to advancing the plot, it seems there are five that portray characters doing little more that sitting and standing around telling each other, in no uncertain terms, what an evil thing government is.
It’s hard to blame Neil for this. Becoming a libertarian is a, well, liberating experience. It’s like a damn bursts in your soul. Suddenly, even the slightest government intrusion — especially those once considered innocuous — are the horrible violations of personal liberty. Neil’s characters — unless they’re the statist villians — almost universally seem to be in the early stage of post-Libertarian conversion. It seems unnatural that people who are the products of 200-plus years of libertarian civilization would be that worked up about the evils of a form of government they have never experienced first-hand.
Smith is preaching to the choir. Anyone uninitiated into libertarianism is going to be very put off by this book, and write it off as far-right dogma. True believers aren’t going to learn anything new and will get bored quickly.
“Yeah, we get it Neil. Got anything new to say?” I had hoped to see Neil’s insights into the events of Sept. 11. Nothing.
At the end of the book, a bad, pro-government character is portrayed at having a sense of honor. Much the same thing happened to a different pro-government character at the end of “The Probability Broach.” Neither redeemed character was developed further.
I recommend “Probability Broach” and others book in this fictional universe, like “Tom Paine Maru” and “Brightsuit MacBear.” Both are libertarian science fiction at its best. In “The American Zone,” Smith neglected the science fiction part.
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