We’ve all been there: No sooner do we envision some groundbreaking good or service—a harmless but highly addictive alkaloid additive for children’s snacks, combination retirement homes/nuclear waste repositories, or even the harvesting of human pineal glands for the Arcturan market—than we discover that an intrusive nanny state blocks our way, kicking up a fuss about potential crimes against humanity and throwing up an impenetrable barrier of inflexibly applied regulation. Governments claim to value commerce and innovation, yet on all sides visionary disrupters are hemmed in by interfering states.
Whereas in life there seems to be no escape from such regulation, fiction is an entirely different matter.
The End of the Empire by Alexis Gilliland (1983)
Technological innovation combined with political discontent reduced the Holy Human Empire to a single planet. On the verge of losing even that, a last remnant of the HHE flees into uncharted space, hoping to find a new hope beyond the reach of the rebel fleet. Unfortunately for HHE intelligence officer Colonel Saloman Karff, his loyalty to the empire outweighs his awareness that his masters are a corrupt and incompetent lot. He accompanies the HHE fleet as a watchdog.
Fortuitously, the HHE happens upon a double planet settled nine centuries earlier by idealistic Mamnu anarchists. Local governance is minimalistic, primarily designed to prevent the rise of effective government. One consequence is a grim cycle of famines that keeps the population too low to autocatalyze conventional government. Another is that the defenseless system is ripe fruit for the HHE to pluck … provided Karff can outmaneuver his incompetent bosses before the rebel fleet arrives to crush Imperialists and Mamnu alike.
This can be seen as a comedy, in that absurd situations abound. The end of the empire could also be seen as a tragedy, because Karff’s unshakable loyalty to a corrupt system (and the bad luck of a boss who is working for the enemy) does not provide him with circumstances in which he could flourish. Although he does at least get a promotion before being ordered to hold off the rebel fleet more or less single-handed.
The Weigher by Eric Vinicoff and Marcia Martin (1992)
Slasher’s people are apex predators, blessed by nature with prickly temperaments, a profound distaste for each other, and an abundance of natural weapons that make every disagreement potentially lethal. Thanks to the unending efforts of Weighers like Slasher, Slasher’s people have, despite their inclinations, achieved a rudimentary civilization based primarily on transactional interactions.
Enter Ralphayers and Pamayers, curious humans as eager to observe local culture as they are to offer unjustifiably confident advice on how Slasher’s people could better themselves. Taking pity on the off-world naifs, Slasher takes Ralphayers and Pamayers under her protection. In so doing, Slasher inadvertently becomes (with her charges) the focus of an angry lynch mob.
Ralphayers and Pamayers are surprisingly nonchalant about risk, possibly because the starship that delivered them has the means to create large numbers of memory-imbued clones to replace fatalities. In fact, by the time the plot proper begins, the pair are down to their last clones, having run though the ship’s entire supply while blundering through first contact over and over.
Windswept by Adam Rakunas (2015)
Almost every settled world is managed by the Big Three corporations. Humans trudge from cradle to grave, their minimal existences devoted to maximizing shareholder return. The planet Windswept is a rare exception. Too insignificant to justify the expenditure needed to properly assimilate it, Windswept is allowed to offer refuge to malcontents.
One small cabal of Windswept visionaries has an innovative scheme that elevates Windswept from backwater world too poor to bother conquering to legitimate threat worth obliterating. The future looks grim for Windswept … except that Windswept union official and would-be entrepreneur Padma Mehta may have the ideal mix of greed-driven short-sightedness and panic-driven competence to save her endangered home world from the Big Three.
I had not noticed the parallel before but there are some similarities between the situation Windswept finds itself in and the one that Earth confronts in the novel Pebble in the Sky. Both are comparatively impoverished backwaters and both are endangered thanks to the bold plans of a small minority of extremists. However, Windswept seems a far more pleasant place to live, probably because Rakunas was inspired by Hawai‘i, whereas Asimov was inspired by events leading up to the unpleasantness of 66 to 74 CE.
Synners by Pat Cadigan (1991)
While governments still exist in the wired world of tomorrow, corporations have long since discovered how to game the system and how to suborn the regulators ostensibly limiting corporate excess. Thus companies like Diversifications are free to pursue their most ambitious plans free from the tyranny of functional regulatory guardrails.
Reality proves egregiously biased against Diversifications. Improved brain implants that sometimes kill their hosts would be embarrassing enough, but entire cities falling silent suggests the company has stumbled across a technological failure mode with apocalyptic implications. The end of civilization could well imperil the bottom line; better hope that ragtag malcontents prove up to the job of saving us all.
Readers may be somewhat surprised that the C-suite types are confident enough in their techs to cram cutting-edge implants into their own heads. They will be less surprised at the speed at which society decides to forget about the catastrophe and carry on with business as usual.
Liberty’s Daughter by Naomi Kritzer (2023)
A cluster of seasteads 220 nautical miles from the American Pacific coast, established almost a half-century earlier, are a bastion of freedom in an unfree world. The wealthy need not worry about legal repercussions from their dubious wealth-getting strategies, while the poor can immigrate and work for their wealthy betters. Everyone wins. Or at least, everyone who matters wins.
Beck Garrison’s father Paul is an influential man, but that does not mean the teen should not earn her way. Beck’s knack for finding lost items seems her most promising ability. However, it’s her knack for getting neck-deep in crises that results in her new vocation: teenaged trouble-maker and occasional community-saver.
Presumably, one factor in the seastead community’s longevity is that 220 nautical miles is too far for a bear to swim. It is not clear what’s deterring orcas from swarming the place. Perhaps that will be covered in a future installment….
***
There are many visions of libertarian utopias I’ve omitted because I have mentioned them in earlier Tor.com reviews [1] and others left out because they didn’t quite fit this essay. No doubt some of you have your favourites. Feel free to mention them in comments.
In the words of fanfiction author Musty181, four-time Hugo finalist, prolific book reviewer, and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll “looks like a default mii with glasses.” His work has appeared in Interzone, Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis) and the 2021, 2022, and 2023 Aurora Award finalist Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by web person Adrienne L. Travis). His Patreon can be found here.
