J. Neil Schulman (1953–2019)

It's quite an interesting concept and every time I think about China and their hopelessly idiotic one-child policy, and their apparently not being able to imagine what would happen in a society that places such a high premium on boys over girls, I think of this book. The only consoling thought is that China is filled with "Little Emperors" rather than a bunch of warriors. Anyway, I did enjoy this book both times I read it. Sometimes the philosophizing is interesting; other times not so much but that's more Ayn Rand's fault that this author's. Anyway, it's an enjoyable work especially the first time around. And lest I give a wrong impression, there's nowhere near as much philosophizing in this book as in an Ayn Rand novel. Not even close.… (meer)

This book could have been great. I was reading it primarily to review for Prometheus 2019, and mentally tracked my rating...3 early on, when it was just word salad of references to other books and libertarian concepts...then shooting up to 5 for about 25% of the way through to 50%, and then back down to 3-4/5 once time travel and general stupidity came into the picture. It could have been a pretty clear 4.5-5/5 if he'd just stopped at the end of the book, vs. all the crap added for the second half to fill it out, and removed a lot of the fan service/pandering.

I think it's probably a reasonable rule that any novel which includes the novel's authors other works in-book as books, as well as multiple split personalities/wish fulfillment fantasy versions of the same author, is probably going to be a lot more enjoyable for the author to write than for a reader to read.

Still, there were enough good elements of the story to make it 4/5 vs. 3/5, even if I didn't like the overall book to that degree.… (meer)

I rather agree with the criticism of one reviewer that this reads as if Schulman having a point to make wrote the novel around it. I think that's the reason for the novel's flaws, but also I think getting that from the beginning helped. I never saw this as a plausible projection of the future--or as meant to be. In his acceptance of the Promethean Award, Schulman remarked that the book started as an argument reducto absurdum taking "the sixties slogan, 'Make Love, Not War' at face value." In a world that takes the military draft for granted, it perhaps takes this kind of reversal to convey what a violation of the person it is to force a man to go to war. So in Schulman's future society, women are drafted into a "Peace Corp" where they're forced into prostitution. And believe me, some of the graphic sexual details in this novel are nauseating. They're meant to be, I think, the equivalent of the gruesome carnage of combat.

And because war is connected with a warrior culture seen to be deeply associated with patriarchy, Schulman gives us a matriarchy, with Wicca the state religion and where judges are women who take "ovimony" rather than "testimony." Never mind, as one Amazon reviewer pointed out, that contemporary Wicca is feminist and tends to be pacifistic. That reversal is rather the point. It's not as if Christianity ("Those Who Live by the Sword...") is fundamentally martial. The unequal gender ratio that was the catalyst for this transformation? Not quite as absurd as it might seem. Communist Romania and Nazi Germany outlawed abortion and promoted big families, just as Communist China today has forced abortions. And the future gender imbalance caused by sex selective abortions has been the subject of at least one serious, mainstream book examining concerns about it creating a hyperaggressive society.

Mind you, all three of the above examples are police states, as is the dystopia The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood with which Rainbow Cadenza shares several themes. I admit part of what I find hard to fathom in this imagined society is how what seems a fairly free, democratic society could ever evolve or accept women being treated the way they are in this novel, particularly one where women seem politically dominant. Schulman might respond the same could be asked about the military draft for men in democracies. Except that has never been accepted very quietly and easily--at least in America. There were draft riots when the draft was instituted in the American Civil War and considerable civil unrest over it during the Vietnam war. So I can't understand quite how people came to accept, and continue to accept, this institutionalized conscripted prostitution.

But yes, this is self-consciously libertarian science fiction, so that means this is going to scrape at sensibilities left and right. Traditional conservatives will not be happy with the anti-war message. Those on the left, given the reviews, are no less happy. They probably don't like how Schulman turns the sixties counterculture to his purposes. And because, yes, Schulman does have a point wider than the immorality of the draft, a message against the coercion of any kind of the individual in the name of the greatest good for the greatest number. And while I wouldn't say you have to be a libertarian to like the book--it does help. A lot. Who but a libertarian would be so interested in trying to reconcile the world view of C.S. Lewis and Ayn Rand?

I did find this novel written well enough, and thought-provoking enough, to give it the three stars. Because it did hold me from beginning to end. I also liked how Schulman used laseography as an art of the future. And goodness, it's nothing if not memorable. How many books do I remember the outlines of the plot, particular discussions between characters and scenes years after I first read it? I'd be a bit hesitant recommending the novel to a general reader nevertheless. This is not, unlike The Handmaid's Tale, destined to be a classic, with incredible prose and a credible dystopia. Frankly, I think this would have done better as a broad, satiric parody with a touch of zaniness to it. It's too serious, but not quite plausible enough of a world to take seriously.… (meer)