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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
STRONG ENCRYPTION AND THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM!, February 6, 2001
This review is from: Revolutionary Language (Paperback)
An excellent new near-future SF novel, dealing with the current inroads on liberty and how strong encryption might reverse the trend. The novel focuses on a computer programer whose life is wrecked because a Federal Prosecutor decides to "make an example" of him for unwittingly writing code to be used by a company involved in drug dealing. After losing everything he owns due to asset forfeiture and doing time in prison, the sadder but wiser hero begins to write an encryption program which will allow individuals to "opt out" and live invisible to government. The novel raises many good philososphical points and tells a gripping story. If you're interested in encryption or the future of liberty, READ THIS BOOK!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Scale-model, updated "Atlas Shrugged", March 24, 2007
This review is from: Revolutionary Language (Paperback)
People whose worldview were shaped by Ayn Rand will encounter similar themes in this book, updated for a contemporary setting and scaled down to the level of what an individual can do. No, the protagonist in Revolutionary Language does not want to "stop the motor of the world" by organizing a global strike of the productive class. He only wants to help the "producers" shift ever-growing chunks of their lives beyond the rapacious grasp of the "looters."
As the Duke lacrosse case demonstrated, nobody is immune to the attentions of ambitious political figures, who are willing to ruin lives in order to further their own careers. But new technologies bring with them new hope. The blogosphere turned "Nifong" into a verb, for example. Mr. Calderwood suggests that true privacy, a secure and anonymous form of digital currency, can deprive the parasites of their hosts.
A well-written and well-paced thriller. Calderwood, alas, does share some of Ayn Rand's preachiness. (hence, four instead of five stars) Fortunately, the sermons are less than a page long, and the action tells the story very well.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Great libertarian novel exploring the implications of encryption technology to the pursuit of anarchist goals, May 23, 2011
This review is from: Revolutionary Language (Paperback)
I learned about this novel three years ago by clicking the link at the bottom of one of author David Calderwood's articles on LewRockwell.com. I started the book twice before, and only made it through a few pages each time. For some reason, I decided to give it one final try four days ago, and once I made it through those first couple of chapters again, the book immediately got a whole lot better, and I breezed through the rest of it. Revolutionary Language is divided into two parts: Bliss, which consists of about 20 pages; and Enlightenment, which consists of the remainder of 307 pages total. The Bliss set-up, although necessary, isn't very captivating. The much longer Enlightenment portion, however, is highly enjoyable -- I didn't want to put it down. In fact, if work and other obligations hadn't intervened, I probably would have read Revolutionary Language in one sitting.
Revolutionary Language tells the story of Andy Archer, computer programmer. At the start of the novel, he's working on his e-mail encryption program, Bliss. Andy is a sole proprietor/freelancer: he sets his own hours and is his own boss. This causes some problems for his fiance, Laurel, who doesn't understand his entrepreneurial nature. Andy also leans libertarian, as many entrepreneurs do; while Laurel is a liberal who volunteers at a drug-rehabilitation center. I don't want to spoil the plot, but let's just say that Andy's programs end up having far wider reaching applications, and they threaten to undermine the entire tax system. This makes him the target of government persecution, which at times explodes in violence. Along the way, Andy makes friends with various minarchist and anarchist philosophes, and hones his own understanding of the relationship between man and state, and what that relationship should be. Some of the highlights of the book are the tirades various characters go on when explaining their disdain for statism.
Revolutionary Language is exciting, entertaining, and thought-provoking, but I did feel it had one major flaw: The paragraph structure Calderwood uses is a bit erratic, and with sparse use of dialogue tags (and imperfect character-voice differentiation), I often had a hard time telling who was saying what. Sometimes I'd figure it out a few lines down, but other times I could read a whole scene and not know who had said what by the end. This was frustrating, but by no means reason enough to pass on this otherwise great libertarian story. The book is especially good for a first-time author, and it is unfortunate that Mr. Calderwood is an only-time author! I would like to read more of his fiction.
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