Essential Science Fiction and Fantasy for Libertarians
Dan Clore, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Many works of science fiction and fantasy portray libertarian societies or otherwise bear relevance to libertarianism; this list names some that I consider the most essential reading for anarchists, anti-authoritarians, libertarians, and whatnot.
Selections include these two Autonomedia titles:
P.M., bolo'bolo (1985). This is a full-length attempt to design a libertarian-socialist society with enough respect for the diversity of humanity's desires that a community of cyberpunks who live on-line might be placed next to a community made up of bands of primitivist hunter-gatherers. The book is frequently whimsical but it is well thought-out; it sometimes verges into semi-fictional form.
Rudy Rucker, Peter Lamborn Wilson, and Robert Anton Wilson, eds., Semiotext(e) SF (1985). Perhaps the greatest anthology of original SF ever published, the editors obtained first-rate contributions from a large number of the best SF writers working at the time, especially the cyberpunks. Writers were intentionally encouraged to ignore or violate the typical taboos, making the volume as groundbreaking as Dangerous Visions. As the editors were unable to obtain any works of "radical utopian vision" from their contributors, they reprinted "Visit Port Watson!" from a magazine called Libertarian Horizons: A Journal for the Free Traveler (this is probably a fanciful account; the real author is probably Peter Lamborn Wilson). This is a very entertaining fictional description of the (real) Pacific island Sonsorol, combining ideas from libertarian-socialism, libertarian-capitalism, and the marginals milieu.
Full review is here:
http://www.nolanchart.com/article4700.html
