Fans of Ayn Rand, a two-time Prometheus Award-winner, can now appreciate some of her earliest-published fiction through the visually striking and fresh perspective of graphic novels.
The Atlas Society, a nonprofit organization promoting Ayn Rand’s fiction and philosophy, has launched an ambitious long-range project: to commission and create graphic novels of Rand’s stories, screenplays and other fictional works as they fall out of copyright and become available for fresh interpretations.
First up was the Society’s graphic novel of Rand’s poetic dystopian novella Anthem, followed by adaptations of Rand’s early screenplays into Red Pawn and Top Secret.
TOP SECRET: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
Published most recently, Top Secret: The Graphic Novel is based on Rand’s screenplay for a movie about the making of the atomic bomb. The graphic novel adapts Rand’s 16-page outline from Jan. 19, 1946.
Set during Hitler’s rise to power, the story focuses on a heroic lead character, John X, as he recruits scientists working on the physics of the bomb abroad, serves in the military and is assigned to guard American nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos.
Rand’s individualist and libertarian themes are highlighted in the Atlas Society’s description:
“While the characters and the plot in Rand’s notes were nascent, her theme was explicit: ‘Man can harness the Universe-but nobody can harness Man!’ She wanted to emphasize that the technological achievement represented by the Atomic Bomb was made possible by men of the mind working freely-not as servants of a totalitarian regime.”
“She stressed that the movie “must show clearly” that the Manhattan Project was the work of scientists supplied by Industrialists, “not the Government,” Rand wrote, “The general tone of our picture will be that of a Tribute to America-an Epic of the American Spirit.”
RED PAWN: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL
Similar in theme to Rand’s first novel We the Living, Red Pawn focuses on a love triangle set in Soviet Russia and dramatizing the evils of dictatorship, collectivism and statism.
Joan Harding, an American citizen who becomes the first woman to set foot on a harsh Soviet island prison, initially strives to set free her husband while disguised as a former high-priced call girl requested by the prison commandant.
Yet tragically, Harding becomes enmeshed romantically with the commandant, known as the “Beast,” who earns her grudging respect even while she’s trying to compel her true husband to keep her secret and follow her plan.
Beyond its similarities to Rand’s first novel, Red Pawn might also evoke a classic Beauty and the Beast” tale. Also interesting to spot: surface similarities with Beethoven’s great and only opera Fidelio, a very modern work of liberal protofeminist individualism that centers on a woman protagonist bravely entering a prison to free her beloved husband.
Ultimately, Red Pawn is another work of Rand’s that embodies the classic Promethean themes of heroic individualism that energized her Prometheus Hall of Fame inductees Atlas Shrugged and Anthem.
THE ATLAS SOCIETY MISSION
On its website, the Atlas Society explains its overall mission and why it has launched its exciting project to bring more of Rand’s shorter fiction to renewed life as graphic novels:
“Ayn Rand’s fiction has been the most effective “gateway drug” to liberty, which is why CATO Institute founder Ed Crane deemed Rand the “all time greatest recruiter for the liberty movement.”
“THE CHALLENGE: How to preserve and grow that recruiting role when daily reading of books among young people has fallen from 70% in the late 1970’s to 12% today?
“The Atlas Society is meeting this challenge: pioneering artistic, technologically savvy ways of marketing Rand’s ideas to new audiences through a variety of vehicles. This includes animated videos, graphic novels, social media, and both virtual and live events.”
* Read the Prometheus blog about the two different graphic novels adapted from Rand’s Anthem.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS:
* Prometheus winners: For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including 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, which now 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.
* 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.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies (including the recent 2023 ceremony with inspiring and amusing speeches by Prometheus-winning authors Dave Freer and Sarah Hoyt), Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.
* 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.
