Customer Reviews

Alongside Night

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Back in 1987, a friend gave me a copy of the Avon paperback of "Alongside Night." I read it with great interest.

This novel reminded me a great deal of Robert Heinlein "juveniles" such as "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel." It is a bildungsroman following young Elliot Vreeland as he comes of age in New York City.

In the thirty years since J. Neil Schulman wrote the book, the dollar has been inflated more and more. The government has become larger, more corrupt, and much more like the government portrayed in the book. So, coming of age has gotten more and more difficult.

The great appeal for me in this book was its deliberate depiction of parts of society where government interference is not only gone, but actively prevented from getting involved. Free markets as part of an underground culture where people behaved without coercion had always appealed to me. In this book these markets were shown as real, vibrant, and substantial.

Nor is the future depicted any sort of utopia. There are problems in the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre with abuse of power and authority. There are problems with the government, too, which are far more pernicious. Yet, people manage their affairs and get by. Some thrive. Others suffer and die. Life's rich tapestry.

A decade ago, few would have believed that the monetisation of the government debt was threatening a hyperinflation of the dollar. Today it seems much more likely than ever. Who could have believed General Motors would be nationalised? Or Lehman Brothers and dozens of other companies would go under? Yet, today these are facts.

Alongside Night does an excellent job of showing a troubled world as a place to grow up. It also showcases agorism and individualism in ways never before or since.

I bought a paperback of "Alongside Night" about twenty years ago. When I learned it was the Freedom Book Club book of the month for May 2009, I got it out and re-read it. The author, J. Neil Schulman, is amazingly prescient.

One of the things that struck me as unlikely in 1989 was the telecommunications system. Wall-size screens. Interactive tools for getting information. Today, these are common. And to think the book was conceived in 1977 or so. Amazing.

General Motors plaza, in the book, is boarded up. The company is now being restructured, with the United Auto Workers pension to hold about 39% of the company. Chrysler has declared bankruptcy. The economy is not yet in the dire straits described in "Alongside Night," but it is very close. And, as in the book, Americans are responding with verve and elan.

I was delighted to be invited to a Facebook group celebrating this novel, and to learn that it is being adapted to a graphic novel and a feature film. It is high time that someone created a community for practicing agorists where we can meet, discuss, and exchange not only ideas but products and services.

Perhaps the online game being planned will feature "underground" mercantile centers like Aurora as described in the book. The technologies for dropping off the identity-controlled grid are well along. It's going to be fun!

First off, most reviewers are describing this book as "libertarian" when it is more accurately described as anarcho-capitalist: the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre *rejects* the notion of being the "one government" for the US in the end.

But that's nitpicking. I'm an AnCap and there's far too little literature out there for me to read, so stumbling across this book many years after it was written was a nice surprise for me (thanks Amazon for your excellent Similarities! Interested readers may want to check out Matthew Alexander's "Withur We" for a very recent AnCap book that would probably interest people that liked this book). The author clearly has an excellent grasp and fondness for AnCap concepts and the book shines the most when he focuses on how the people that have adopted an AnCap lifestyle function and get along.

Unfortunately, there's a couple of complaints about the book. For one, the above part that I liked was too short. In fact, the whole book is too short: nothing really has time to play out in a level of depth that satisfied me. And for a short book, too much of it was spent on things that just weren't that interesting, e.g. the entire raid on Utopia near the end of the book didn't do anything for me. What was the point of the various action scenes? A book that is trying to illustrate how different societal structures influence the resulting society doesn't need to become a Ludlum book for half of it. There really wasn't even a clear message or theme tying the raid into the rest of the book: was there a point to the fact that the raid was only partially successful? Other than perhaps trying to say "even for our 'heroes', not everything ends up exactly the way they want it", I'm not sure there was... and that point could have been in far fewer words.

A couple of other points: why do most "libertarian" novels focus on their "revolutions" rather than what happens *after* the revolution? The whole process of Schulman's revolution reads too much like a teenaged male's fantasies rather than a sober reflection on what they are actually advocating. Again, Schulman hits *some* of this and that's where the book shines, but I think that by stopping when the revolution hits and not exploring the mundane of the world that happens afterwards, he isn't going to bring in anyone who wasn't already sold.

There's too much coincidence for my tastes: Elliott just happens to start a giant riot simply by being spotted by one policeman, the school he goes to just happens to be the secret headquarters of the underground movement and his teachers just happen to be the movements' leaders, he just happens to stumble upon the daughter of the FBI and fall in love with her, etc. The world is too big for all of those coincidences, but ok, that's just my taste.

I think the thing I disliked the most is a common complaint I have in this kind of literature: the various AnCap organizations in Schulman's book *are all populated with people versed in and devoted to AnCap/libertarian philosophy*. Sure, Galt's Gulch works if it is populated by people who are intensely self aware of libertarian philosophy, but if your AnCap society can only work if it populated by experts in the philosophy, it's never going to work. No matter how much one hopes that the entire world will be educated on the finer points of Objectivism/libertarianism/etc, *it's never going to happen*. What needs to be imagined is an AnCap/libertarian world *in which the vast majority of people have no more understanding of why it works than they do of why today's system is flawed*. The vast majority of the population are not going to become experts on economics and political theory. AnCap/libertarianism *doesn't require them to*. It just is not realistic to think that this underground of hyper-aware supermen is going to form up and more or less defeat the government. It's a nice fantasy, that all of these smart and principled people are working unbeknownst to us to remake the world in a better image, but it just reads a little too much like fantasy.

That's a lot of negative things I'm saying and I'm rating this book 4 stars: it's easier to talk about the negatives than the positives. I enjoyed this book! And I'll recommend it to others. I just think it could have been better... But I also realize that this is a really hard genre to write in with *any* success at all, and I give Schulman credit for having done so.

At a writing level, I thought Schulman's prose was acceptable, not great but certainly not bad. The characters didn't have a lot of time to grow because of the shortness of the book, but within that constraint the characterizations were acceptable (we really could have had more insight into the FBI director's motivations: why exactly was he that way? What would drive a father and husband to do the horrible things he did to his daughter and mother? I felt a little empty in that one).

It appears that Schulman may have some other fiction and I liked this enough to check that out as well; perhaps his writing matured with experience, and I'd look forward to it.

As a final postscript, since the author appears to sometimes read these reviews: I think you're wrong on IP. Go read Kinsella. I think it's pretty devastating to your point of view (and he does reference you, in case you haven't read him). The fact that IP as you envision it rips apart physical property concepts is just devastating. If I have a paper and a pencil that are my property, somehow your writing a book in your home reaches into my household and prevents me from using that paper and pencil as I wish (I am not allowed to write down the same things you did)? It's proof by contradiction. I say this as someone who leaned pro-IP until I decided to spend some time researching it over the last couple of years, but the arguments against it have swayed me. If nothing else, since I know you'll still disagree, you probably should understand that your condescension towards anyone who doesn't agree with you does not do your point well. I'm not a statist, I'm an AnCap/libertarian, and my stance against IP isn't because I'm some greedy thief out to steal your work, it's based on logic rooted in the very concepts of AnCap/libertarianism. IOW: there's a valid debate here, and to pretend there isn't just kind of removes you from the debate.

Over the years I've read this book several times. With it's young adult protagonists it stays at an easily understandable level -- even when it briefly explores some complicated concepts. The goal of an entertaining read is achieved by showing, not telling the books theme. First written decades ago, the events pictured in prose have been rhymed by our emerging dystopian realities. Alongside Night is well worth your time.

It's 2010, not 2001, and we're not quite up to the events at the beginning of this book. I estimate it may be as much as another year before we get the hyperinflation that is described therein.

Read this book. It will help prepare you for what's coming.

This is indeed an excellent book, and was an important step on my own pathway to anarchism. But it's not by "L. Neil Schulman" because there is no such person; Amazon seems to have confused two different anarcho-libertarian science fiction authors, L. Neil Smith and J. Neil Schulman. This book is by the latter.

Although it has been portrayed as dystopian, "Alongside Night" does not imagine the future as bleak and hopeless, as "1984" and "A Brave New World" have done. Strong, yet inexperienced protagonist Elliot Vreeland, and his calculating but principled lover Lorimer, find themselves teamed up with the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre while the United States government is in it's death throes.

During this tumultuous time, Elliot's main concern is for his family, who have been abducted by agents of the government. Lor's main objective is to 'stick it to the man,' at which she is not always successful. Together Elliot and Lorimer navigate the confusing landscape of a New York City beset by transit strikes, communication black-outs, rationing, and lest we forget, THE F'ing MAN who has been ordered to apprehend them both. In so doing, these teenage lovers form a bond which is worthy of a sequel.

"Alongside Night" is a wonderful ride, but not without it's bumps. When Elliot is forced underground, he was finding ways of escaping his memories and feelings about his family. I think it would have been better for Elliot, and for me, if he had taken the opportunity to explore his memories and the feelings they provoked in him. This would lend more depth and meaning to his quest.

After reading this book, I can see why such luminaries as Thomas Szasz and Ron Paul have praised it so highly. "Alongside Night's" clear and positive message of a better society through market activity, as opposed to the coercive force of government, shows the as yet unreached potential of voluntary human interactivity for what it is... limitless.

I first read this novel in 1983, and I now re-read it periodically because (1) it gives me hope for a better, freer society, and (2) it's so damn much fun. Without being preachy, Schulman's great libertarian sci-fi novel is like one of the terrific, old Heinlein juveniles -- simple, to the point, and fast-moving. Read it yourself, hand it off to friends (I keep a stock of tattered paperback copies just for that purpose), then re-read it yourself when you get in the dumps from too much statist TV exposure.

I first read Alongside Night not long after it came out in 1979. I could surely see then the conditions that Mr. Schulman describes so elequently, and today we have extremely similar circumstances, minus only the double-digit inflation. Mr. Schulman wrote a book that captures most capably the essence of what a FREE society could be like, and does so without preaching. His story is well-written and INTERESTING. Give a copy to your statist friends and watch their reactions to it! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I purchased this paperback in the mid-80s, and I've read it several times since then. A recent e-mail discussion with a friend brought it back to mind, and thus back to my bedside table. Alongside Night is a relatively quick read, and more than anything else it's a fun one.

It would be easy to characterize this "future history" novel (it's not QUITE science fiction, just an "if this goes on--" story) as interesting only to dedication Libertarians (with a capital or lower-case L), to SF fans who can get worked up about the governmental philosophy in such books as Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, or to fans of Ayn Rand (particularly Atlas Shrugged, to which the novel refers several times). People who fit in those categories should absolutely click on the "Add to shopping cart" button now, because I can assure you that you'll love the book. In particular, Schulman's essay at the end (a talk given at the L.A. Libertarian Supper Club in 1979) is an absolutely brilliant analysis of Atlas Shrugged (suggesting the reasons that John Galt was the weakest character in the book, speaking from a fiction writing-or-reading viewpoint, even if that opinion pissed off Rand).

But that sounds ever-so-dreary and literary, because this is a great "What if?" story that's lots of fun -- particularly if you're intelligent and well-read. (You're reading my review, right? You must qualify! <chuckle>)

The novel is set about 20 years in the future from the 1970s in which the author wrote (so 2001, though a somewhat different one than he posited -- or is it?). Elliot Vreeland is a 17 year old student who's just about to graduate from prep school and is contemplating his college choices. The New York he lives in with his sister and parents (his father had won the Nobel Prize for economics) is undergoing raging inflation, the government is trying to add even more controls (will people accept dictatorship rather than desperation?), and most of the real work gets done under-the-table.

But then Elliot is separated from his family, and he has to find out what's going on... and Save The Day while he's at it. The book is consciously reminicient of Heinlein's Between Planets (Elliot buys and reads a copy during the course of events), particularly in the sense of a teenager trying to make sense of economics and government theory (thus giving the author a great opportunity for exposition without bludgeoning the reader with it). Oh, and there's also a fun love story with a great, strong female character. (Every time I read the book, I cheer for her.)

If you're looking for a fun novel that isn't mental cotton candy -- that is, you want to *think* as well as laugh -- then I most heartily recommend you pick up a copy of this book.