War by Other Means, a Prometheus Best Novel finalist, is the seventh volume in Karl K. Gallagher’s future history series Fall of the Censor. After several volumes focused on military conflict, War by Other Means changes its focus to diplomatic relations among the worlds fighting against the Censorate.
In doing so, it brings Wynny Landry, the wife of Marcus Landry, the protagonist of several previous books, as a new protagonist, in the role of the ambassador from her native planet, Corwynt.
THE CENSORATE’S SUPPRESSION OF HISTORY
The series started out in Storm Between the Stars with Niko Landry, captain of a merchant starship, finding a newly opened route through hyperspace, and encountering the Censorate, a totalitarian polity founded on the suppression of all historical information, rather in the style of Qin Shihuangdi’s imperial government in ancient China.
Only one historical fact is still taught openly: That sometime in the past the Censorate bombarded Earth heavily enough to destroy all life on it. The fear of similar destruction keeps other worlds in line, though their people still preserve fragmentary records in secret (for example, Corwynt has a hidden Jewish population). When contact is reestablished, Landry’s home world, Fiera, faces the prospect of forcible incorporation into the Censorate and suppression of its culture—if not of complete sterilization. This leads to its waging war against the Censorate and fomenting rebellion on its subject worlds.
REBELLION AND REINVENTION
Ironically, one advantage of the rebellion is that it has access to historical records of past wars and military strategies. Censorate military officers are constantly having to reinvent forgotten strategies, in ignorance of which ones worked or didn’t in past battles.
Part of Wynny Landry’s past, on Corwynt, was service as a death creditor—a kind of unofficial public official on a planet where the Censorate’s official government does little to protect anyone’s rights.
A death creditor is partly a judge, rather on the model of the private judges in Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress—but a judge in an inquisitorial rather than an adversarial court system, with investigative powers, and thus partly also a kind of private eye. (One of the symbols of the role is wearing a fedora, though Wynny doesn’t do that in War by Other Means.)
TWO INVESTIGATIONS ON TWO PLANETS
Wynny undertakes two investigations using her skills from this role, on two different planets, both of which turn out to have implications for the political situation.
Going on from this, Wynny has to deal with hostage negotiations—once in conjunction with an investigation, and once, later, as a situation that has arisen separately. This is a point where her access to historic documents is an asset: She has read a manual of hostage negotiations inherited from before the Censorate.
THE COMPLEXITIES OF GALLAGHER’S WORLDBUILDING
And going on from this, Wynny has to actually function as an ambassador. As she does so, the reader gets to see the complexities of Gallagher’s worldbuilding: Wynny’s home planet, Corwynt, is one of some half dozen worlds formerly under the Censorate, each of which evolved its own local customs on matters to which the Censorate was indifferent.
But she also has to negotiate with a group of worlds that came over as a bloc, when their governor under the Censorate decided to change sides; with a large number of outpost settlements on various asteroids, with much smaller populations; and with Fiera, which has newly reorganized itself as a planetary federation in order to make war more effectively. The climax of the novel brings all these factions together for something like the American Continental Congress.
SOURCES OF DIPLOMATIC TENSION
Two main sources of tension run through the novel. On one hand, Wynny, as the most effective diplomat from the independent planets, finds herself having to deal with Governor Huang, whose motives she isn’t sure of; he facilitates various of her endeavors, but is this a subtle strategy for aggrandizing himself?
On the other, the Fierans, with a planetary culture of war fever, have damaged their own economy, in a way that gives rise to issues for other planets as well (such as Wynny’s first hostage situation), and are now trying to get the other planets to make a commitment to pay them for their military services—in effect, to reintroduce taxation. Gallagher’s exploration of the tension between fighting to preserve freedom and giving up freedom to fight more effectively drives much of the plot, and makes this novel profoundly interesting for libertarians.
AN INTERESTING HETEROTOPIA
The diversity of planetary cultures is also a point in the novel’s favor. I’m a big fan of heterotopias, fictional societies that are neither Good nor Bad but simply different, and War by Other Means explores several of them, in a kind of literary dim sum. And to make it more interesting, the viewpoint character for this exploration is herself from another heterotopia, a society where family was the only effective organization between the individual and the state, and we see the workings of that kind of family in the people on board the starship Azure Tarn. All of this makes War by Other Means one of the most interesting single novels in what has been a consistently interesting series.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karl K. Gallagher has been nominated seven times for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel – and each time, his nominated work has become a finalist.
He was first recognized as a finalist in 2018 for his Torchship trilogy (Torchship, Torchship Pilot and Torchship Captain).
Storm Between the Stars, which launched his Fall of the Censor series, became a finalist in 2021. Series sequels Between Home and Ruin and Seize What’s Held Dear became finalists in 2022, Captain Trader Helmsman Spy in 2023 and Swim Among the People in 2024.
READ THE REVIEWS OF OTHER BEST NOVEL FINALISTS
Note: The Prometheus Blog is in the process of publishing reviews of all five 2026 Best Novel finalists. So far, in addition to this review, reviews have been published of Sarah Hoyt’s three-volume No Man’s Land, J. Kenton Pierce’s A Kiss for Damocles and Harry Turtledove’s Powerless.
Coming up: A review of Dave Freer’s Storm-Dragon. Meanwhile, check out this Prometheus Blog post about Freer’s Young-Adult SF novel.
ABOUT THE LFS AND THE 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 international 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 the 106 works that have won a Prometheus 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.
