Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

I don’t exactly know how to say this without the risk of being misunderstood, but recent events and various conversations with my colleagues have convinced me that it could be important, so I’ll just say what I have to say, regardless of what it makes anybody think of me.

Same as it ever was … same as it ever was.

You are probably aware that I have spent my entire adult life putting everything I know—and the way I think about it—into easily-digestible action-adventure novels—more than thirty-five of them. There’s a lot there, about history, economics, sociology, psychology, human evolution, language, and similar topics (not to overlook a modicum of sex and violence). As you know, I have made many historical predictions (such as the collapse of the Soviet Union) that have caused people to think that I was crazy—until they happened.

The great problem is that my work has always gone "against the grain" of those who foolishly imagine that they’re in charge, both among the northeastern "liberal" publishing establishment, and their east-coast conservative symbiotes—who are not our friends or the friends of freedom. Ask me sometime about my experience with agents—it wasn’t pretty. I know of one flagrantly left-wing book editor who retired a few years ago, openly lamenting that she and her husband would no longer be able to act as "gatekeepers"—she actually used that word. I now have a splendid next-generation publisher, Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick, who puts whatever I write into print, but regrettably does no distribution to speak of, and no promotion.

Here’s the point: I believe that any young person who reads all of my books, from The Probability Broach through Ares (I continue working on others, as well, Rosalie’s World, The Frozen Stars), might actually emerge from the toxic public indoctrination system relatively undamaged, just as I did, thanks to the works of Robert A. Heinlein and Ayn Rand. And I could worry a lot less about managing my mortgage payments. I’ve also written hundreds of essays, which I’m struggling at the moment to get between book covers.

The question before us is how to reach that potential audience of young people. It’s a question that has troubled me every single day for almost forty years. Answer it—it might help if I could get banned by the public schools—and we will have forged another effective weapon in the titanic struggle that those concerned with liberty write so anxiously about. In any event, that’s what I’m mulling over right now, with our precious Republic on the line (not to mention Western Civilization itself), and ludicrous cartoon villains filling up the House of Representatives.

Your questions, comments, and suggestions, addressed to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise, are all gratefully welcomed. Use the subject line "My Soap Box". Please remember that I’m an old man now—how the hell did that happen?—in a wheelchair, whose left arm doesn’t work, so I won’t be running any marathons or juggling chainsaws and bowling balls, to promote my work.

More’s the pity.