My very own controversy! Yes!

A couple of old freinds from The Mental Militia, from which I'm probably drawing all my readers at present, queued up to mildly take me to task for some things I said about freedom-oriented literature. And they're right in what they say, of course. It is in the eye of the beholder.

In the best political tradition, please allow me to revise and extend my remarks.

Not all bad freedom literature finds small audiences. Atlas Shrugged has been an international best-seller since the invention of rock. Atlas Shrugged is also, by any conventional measure of such things, a very bad novel. Absurd, wooden characters that barely rate "one-dimensional". Dialogue that, to this day, inspires some of the funniest parodies on the tubz. Lectures that are actually...lectures! And that go on and on and endlessly...well, John Galt's radio address is just legend. Of course Ayn Rand's whole purpose in the novel was to teach her philosophy. And of course Ayn Rand became rich and famous. So much for my original thesis. Nevertheless, as literature, Atlas Shrugged stinks.

Next case, John Ross's Unintended Consequences. In terms of reading enjoyment, this book makes Atlas Shrugged look like a light weekend read. I own a copy, and mostly use it for breaking walnuts. You could cut 500 pages from this book and it would be a better novel. And even after you've removed all the quasi-historical preaching, you're still stuck with unbelievable characters and an unlikely plot. The dialogue's better, though. Yet here again, Ross made his career on this book. I don't know what its actual sales have been, but it's certainly become part of the canon for gun-owning freedomistas; he must have sold a shitload of them.

So in detail, my theory doesn't actually hold up all that well. You can preach and still sell books. Of course, you can fall from an airplane and live to fly again, too - but that's not the way to bet.

Most of us freedom-livers who write fiction, myself included, are really hoping only to entertain and encourage those who believe as we do. I've written two books that could be called "freedom lit," and the first one wasn't even originally intended to become a book - I serialized it on TMM for the entertainment of my friends. It shows, too - it's got some real clunky parts and continuity issues. Neither it nor its sequel have sold well at all outside my larger circle of friends, nor did I ever expect them to. So when I talk about such things, understand that I understand that the pot is calling the kettle black here. Like anyone who writes, I write because I like to - and I write about the things I like to think about. Obviously I don't really knock it.

It's just...well, let's try to keep it entertaining, okay?