Imagine human colonies on the moon, restless and on the precipice of a revolution against increasingly intrusive Earth authorities.
Robert Heinlein famously imagined such a scenario in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, one of his four Hugo Awardwinning novels and one of the first two works inducted in 1983 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
So did Travis Corcoran, the only author to win back-to-back Prometheus awards for Best Novel for The Powers of the Earth (in 2018) and its sequel Causes of Separation (in 2019.)
Yet, the lunar-revolution scenario mentioned above also describes Dust Mites: The Siege of Airlock Three, James Bacon’s 2022 SF novel.
Setting his story in the year 2075, Bacon weaves a narrative in which the inhabitants of the moon’s Galileo Station have grown restless and resentful of control from Earth.
As the U.S. government takes steps to bring its free-wheeling lunar colonies under greater control and negotiations stall over the colony’s right to settle new territories, a U.S. Attorney orders U.S. Marshals to enter the underground settlement, take its Governor and bring him to trial in U.S. territory.
According to the Amazon description of the novel, “The plan goes awry, the Galiletians resist, and events spiral out of control. The actions of a handful of men and women determine the fate of the Moon and, with it, the geopolitical balance of power on Earth.”
The 409-page novel, brought to our attention this year by Prometheus Best Novel judge Carolyn Blakelock, is available in hardcover ($25.99), paperback ($19.99) and Kindle ebook ($9.99.)
“This book, tragically overlooked when it was published, is excellent sci-fi and most definitely libertarian,” Blakelock said.
“The novel is evocative of Heinlein, and Galileo Station is explicitly libertarian in its life philosophy,” she said.
Bacon himself describes his novel as, not SF, but “a work of future fiction,” in which “space-faring civilization is as recognizably similar to the world we live in as the year 1970.”
“This action-packed page turner is more than a thriller, it is a commentary on our own time and a reflection on the eternal struggle between tyranny and liberty,” Bacon writes.
In an Author’s Afterword to his novel, Bacon writes: “A life-long journalist and blogger, Bacon leans towards the Libertarian persuasion, although he would call himself, if there were such a phrase, a ‘pragmatic libertarian.” Human nature is a real thing, not socially constructed, and as a consequence humanity is unavoidably messy… He imagines Galileo Station as a place where people hold such ideals and make such concessions… to the messiness.”
Although Dust Mites appears to be the first science fiction novel by Bacon, a former publisher and editor-in-chief of Virginia Business magazine, it’s not his first published book or first novel.
In the genre categories of mystery and historical fiction, Bacon most recently has written The Mystery of the Empty Tomb, a 2025 novel set in the year 33 A.D. in Judea.
Bacon’s nonfiction books include the biography Maverick Miner: How E. Morgan Massey Became a Coal Industry Legend (2021) and Boomergeddon: How Runaway Deficits and the Age Wave Will Bankrupt the Federal Government and Devastate Retirement for Baby Boomers… (2010).
A life-long journalist who lives with his wife and two cats in Richmond, Virginia, Bacon has published the Bacon’s Rebellion blog since 2002 and has been active since 2020 with the Jefferson Council, a University of Virginia alumni organization dedicated to preserving and updating Thomas Jefferson’s legacy in the 21st century.
For related reading:
Check out LFS President William H. Stoddard’s comparative essay-review “Back to the Moon: Lunar fiction from Heinlein to McDonald, Weir and Corcoran”
ABOUT THE LFS AND PROMETHEUS AWARDS
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
Libertarian futurists understand that culture matters. We believe that literature and the arts can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future.
In some ways, culture can be even more influential and powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.
* Prometheus winners: For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website. This page includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to the latest Prometheus Blog posts.
