Politically Motivated Book Reviews

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 23 Mar 2002 14:30:14 GMT

A MESSAGE FROM L. NEIL SMITH

I've been writing for publication since I was about 10 years old, and writing novels for 25 years. In all that time, I've refrained from responding to book critics.

In the first place, there didn't seem to be much dignity in it. Also, I've always figured a bad review coming from the right critic could only enhance my sales. Mostly, because critics as a class (I've known some) are failed subcreatures who can only make a mark in the world by attacking the achievements of others, I reasoned that the most painful wound I could inflict on them was to ignore them -- and let it be widely known that I never look at anything they write.

In this case, I have no choice. It seems Publisher's Weekly and Book List don't care for my new novel The American Zone (or what it's worth, Library Journal differs with them), and that someone who agrees with them has posted their reviews on Amazon.com, so they'll be the first evaluation anyone sees.

Understand, I don't care how Publisher's Weekly and Book List feel about my work. I knew from the start of my career that socialists who call themselves "liberals" were going to hate every word I write, and resigned myself to nothing but bad notices. I'm surprised now and then by a good review, but in some ways those are more dangerous than bad ones, and I've never taken them seriously, one way or another.

But I must take these reviews seriously, because this is not just an instance of someone not liking what I've written. It's an attempt to make what I've written go away because -- even before the terrible events of September 11 proved me right beyond question and discredited them for all time -- it casts doubt on their fondly cherished and hysterically held misconceptions.

Publisher's Weekly says, " ... lines like 'an armed playground is a polite playground' may put off those who don't share Smith's views. This preachy book sends a message that rings hollow in the world post-September 11." Mind you, an armed playground would have prevented the Columbine massacre and similar acts perpetrated in America's self-defense-free zones. Publisher's Weekly doesn't care.

Book List says, "Nobody connected with the book is to blame for its release at just this moment in history, but ... the yarn's high body count, terrorist incidents, and such scenes as ... an 11-year-old girl buying weapons and drugs may raise hackles outside Smith's hard-core libertarian fandom." Would this reviewer really rather see a little girl raped in an alley and strangled with her own panties, than see her with a gun in her hand? You tell me.

They like to play dirty. They grudgingly admit I couldn't have thought this book up and rushed it into print after September 11, but it would never have occurred to anyone to wonder if they hadn't mentioned it. They wish you to believe that's what I did. I can't recall when I began creating the characters and story that would become The American Zone, but in 1995, six years before the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, I read a synopsis of it to a convention audience. I have the videotape to prove it.

Over the course of my career, like many another science fiction writer, I've managed to successfully predict thing like the digital watch, the laptop computer, the Internet as we know it, the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the Y2K "crisis" would come to nothing, and that individuals carrying personal weapons would trigger a precipitous reduction in the rate of violent crime.

I'd never claim I predicted September 11 in The American Zone. (The calamity at the beginning more closely resembles what happened to Oklahoma City's Murrah Building, fresh in my mind at the time.) What I did predict -- the very reason I wrote the book -- was that an event like September 11 would be ruthlessly exploited by evil politicians to enhance their power, at the expense of everyone else's freedom.

This, of course, is just what's happening today. September 11 -- an historic equivalent to the Reichstag Fire that gave Hitler an excuse to turn Germany into a fascist dictatorship -- has given the current regime an excuse to Nazify America.

Ironically -- at the risk of spoiling one of my novel's surprises -- it's just been announced that a group is being formed to harass and intimidate anyone who opposes this Nazification process. The man behind that effort is none other than former drug "czar" William Bennett -- who's also the "philosopher-thug" villain of The American Zone. Another accurate prediction from the keyboard of yours truly.

In almost the same words Publisher's Weekly and Book List try to dismiss a major point made by The American Zone. A point brutally confirmed by the unavoidable realities of September 11. A point they don't want to be forced to think about. A point they don't want you to think about, either.

The point? That September 11 couldn't have happened in a culture where anyone who takes personal charge of his own physical security may not be interfered with. If a passenger or two aboard each of those hijacked aircraft had been carrying a gun, the hijackings would never have happened. It would never have occurred to anyone to hijack them. Terrorists might have acted someplace else, in some other way, but not the way they did on September 11.

The inescapable conclusion is that advocates of gun control (what I've learned more accurately to call "victim disarmament") must accept moral responsibility for 3000 excruciatingly unnecessary deaths. That blood is on the hands of everyone -- including reviewers at Publisher's Weekly and Book List -- who supports today's victim disarmament laws.

No wonder they hate my book and don't want you to see it. But The American Zone is something people need to read if we're to prevent more terrorism, and at the same time preserve everything that makes America worthwhile. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered to write it.

From now on, when I begin to read their opinions of other people's work, I'll automatically wonder to what extent the political agenda of Publisher's Weekly and Book List colors their judgment. I suggest they stick with what's expected of them -- literary criticism -- and leave politics to those of us who actually know something about it.

L. Neil Smith
Fort Collins, Colorado
March, 2002

Three-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith is the author of 23 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope, and his collection of columns and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page" at http://www.lneilsmith.com. Autographed copies may be had from the author at lneil@lneilsmith.com

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair