I like independently published books. Some of the best books I’ve ever read have been published in that way. No, I haven’t abandoned HarperCollins or Oxford University Press, despite their manifold and great errors of taste, judgment, and simple common sense. But there are lots of books that have fascinated me that could never have appealed to the trendy recent college graduates who function as “editors” in the normal publishing firm — young people who know what they like, and it isn’t very much.
Could Jane Austen get Pride and Prejudice published today? Not by one of them. Not with that weird opening of her book. Imagine, she actually starts out by saying:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. “But it is,” returned she, “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”
Nope, that would be a nonstarter at HarperColliins. But I would read a book like that, any time I found one.
With these thoughts in mind, I was delighted to discover a new novel by Liberty author Russell Hasan, Rob Seablue and the Eye of Tantalus. A creepy Eye, spells that can turn light into knives, people with special skills that put them in danger from "normal people," technology that might, in the wrong hands, substitute for humanity, the drama of growing up, the contest of the self-described "have-nots" against the "haves," the intransigence of individual choice — what more could a libertarian novel reader want?
Well, he or she might also want wit, humor, a warm grasp on the mundane world (in this case, the world of adolescents), and, in a fantasy novel, a plausible but dramatic relationship between the mundane and the fantastic. All these Rob Seablue has. The obvious influence of Ayn Rand has not prevented Hasan from doing things his own way. I can't tell you more about that way without spoiling the plot for you, but the book is ingenious throughout and most ingenious at its end — ingenious, I might add, without losing plausibility. Actually, the story continually becomes more plausible, as well as more exciting.
This first novel belongs, to an unusual degree, to its author, who is his own publisher. You can say the same thing about William Blake, you know.
Rob Seablue is available, like almost all other books in the wide, wide world, from Amazon — in ebook format readable on Kindle or any PC, Mac, or smartphone using the Kindle app.
Another recent independently published book that I believe will interest Liberty readers is Philip Schuyler’s The Five Rights of the Individual. I’m not sure that I agree with Schuyler about all elements of his theory of rights. For one thing, I think that all rights are ultimately one, and behold, he has five! But that’s close enough, and I don’t think that many libertarian readers will quibble about the point.
What I especially like about Schuyler’s book is the rich context — historical, social, moral, and psychological — in which he places his rights theory. He informs us, for instance, that we live in an historical era in which the US government “makes 350 pages of new laws each day” — and if you don’t think that entails a gross violation of rights, then you’re a bloodless political “scientist” who cares about theories, not about where they lead. I found Schuyler’s commentary on the psychological and cultural formations that support or destroy individual rights especially interesting. And thank God, his book is clearly and engagingly written — something you can’t say about 99% of university press publications on this subject and its conceptual neighbors.
I would be very remiss if I didn’t remind readers of Liberty that another of our authors, Gary Jason, recently published a fine collection of essays, many of which first appeared in these pages. His book is an encyclopedic account of political, economic, and cultural issues that confront libertarians and classical liberals (but it’s much more fun than an encyclopedia). Gary’s beat is everything from the environment to the movies, and you can never predict what will interest him. I don’t always agree with Gary, and strangely, he doesn’t always agree with me. But I always learn something from what he writes, and as I turn the pages, I always look forward to seeing what he’ll do with his material. That’s the effect of a real author.
When I was a student, eons ago, if I ever laid eyes on a libertarian book I clutched it to my bosom, fearing it would be the last one I found. Times have changed. Today, libertarian ideas are actually discussed on TV! But good books are still . . . well, they’re still not exactly common. The three books I’ve mentioned are very good books, and as independent in thought as in their means of publication. Take a look at them.
