Cyborg cities. Mobile marketplaces. Native territories. Dusty, ancient prisons. Agoristic lands in the heart of Mexico. Underground bunkers. And an eco-city made up of concentric circles. Breathtaking chases, late night brawls, technological scheming, messages of love and freedom, and the threat of warfare.
All these and more can be found within the pages of The Agorist Writer’s Workshop’s compendium of author-submitted short stories written specifically for this first volume of The Clarion Call: Anarchy Rising.
And what a beginning! The volume grips you right from the start with a heart-wrenching threat and leads you on a multitude of journeys (some in the very same story!) right through to the very end of the book. The writing styles and tones so obviously convey the creative differences and diversity that a real agorist marketplace would: some deeply emotional, some whimsical, some with a multidimensional sense of realism.
If I can sum up the common qualities of the stories in two words, it would be clever and imaginative. There are all kinds of unexpected twists and turns that even I as an experienced, anticipating reader didn’t see coming. Some were mind-blowing in import. I’m sure that any open-minded individual unacquainted with the basic philosophy of anarchy would find them even moreso. This surely is a creative way to introduce readers to the concepts of liberty.
Many of the worlds one is immersed into have nearly the breadth and imagination of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (a tough task for any short story unattached to a larger narrative series!), yet with better thought-out philosophy, economics, and anthropology, and Vernor Vinge’s short tale The Ungoverned (whose full-length novels, I’ve heard, have even more of an immersive quality to them).
There’s much to be said for this impressive start to such a promising series, but the words of the book can speak for themselves, and I don’t want to give away too many spoilers. I would like to say, however, that for the Christian libertarians in the audience, there’s a special “easter egg” tucked away amongst the pages (no pun intended).
It was relatively short, but definitely satisfying. I can't wait for the next volume which hopes to include even more submissions!
Review originally published here: [...]
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