Review: Mackey Chandler’s April Series tells a good SF story with themes of agency, emancipation and declarations of independence

 


By William H. Stoddard

Back in 2020, I encountered an online listing for a novel by Mackey Chandler with the provocative title Who Can Own the Stars?, twelfth in a series and a 2021 Prometheus Best Novel finalist.

After reading it, I went back to the original volume, April, and read it and, in succession, all the rest. Two further volumes have come out since then – Let Us Tell You Again and The Long View, respectively 2023 and 2024 Best Novel nominees. With each, I’ve reread the entire series.

TELLING AN INTERESTING STORY

Chandler’s novels are self-published and, except for the first volume, only available digitally. They have some of the flaws that commonly go with self-publication, from erratic character names to simple grammatical errors. But it was clear from the first volume that Chandler knew how to tell a story, and that he had interesting things to write about, so the lack of polish didn’t turn me away.

In the first volume, April Lewis is a girl living in an orbital habitat, Mitsubishi-3, and is approaching her fourteenth birthday; two of the other major characters, Heather Anderson and Jefferson Singh, are sixteen, and they remain both major viewpoint characters and prime movers throughout the series. 

A JUVENILE SERIES IN THE HEINLEIN TRADITION

At least by the standard of age, that makes this a juvenile series — I use the older word, rather than “young adult,” because stylistically it’s more like the works of Robert Heinlein or Alan Nourse, or indeed like that of Rudyard Kipling, than like more recent fiction for that audience. At the same time, it’s quite capable of speaking to adult readers, but of course the same was true of Heinlein.

A classic problem for juvenile fiction, and indeed for fiction about young characters generally, is making it plausible for them to have enough freedom of action to have interesting experiences, whether that means adventures, sexual encounters, or responsible decision making. 

Chandler sets up a solution to this early in the first volume, when a visitor to Mitsubishi-3 from Earth is disturbed by seeing young children traveling about the habitat without the adult supervision that would be legally mandatory on Earth; the habitat’s people are both exceptionally competent and psychologically tested, making it a safe environment for free range children. 

April, somewhat older, is trusted to manage both her own education and her own finances, at which she has been impressively successful: She and her older brother have enough funds to invest in a small orbital spacecraft, and if they can pass examinations in piloting, there apparently are no barriers to their operating it. Her parents and even more her paternal grandfather are supportive of her independence.

A THEME OF EMANCIPATION

But Chandler takes the theme further, starting midway through the first volume, when April, back from some early adventures, attempts to offer a proposal to a meeting of the habitat’s people to discuss a crisis, and her right to speak is questioned on the basis of her age. This leads to the older man who has been mentoring her proposing her official emancipation, and to a substantial majority voting in favor—followed by similar votes for a number of other younger people. From this point on, the focal characters have the necessary freedom of action.

This issue of emancipation is a running theme throughout the series. 

There are something like a dozen characters, both in outer space communities and in North America, for whom the issue arises and needs to be resolved, sometimes benignly and sometimes less so. A contrast is repeatedly drawn between the “Earth think” of granting autonomy at a legally defined age, and not before then, and the willingness to recognize maturity in individual cases — though it should be noted that this is much more workable in Mitsubishi-3, with 2000 inhabitants who all know each other’s reputations, than it could be in a large nation on Earth! However, we also see some characters on Earth showing unusual maturity and asserting the right to control their own lives, informally.

“He thought of his cousin’s three children in comparison. They assumed everything should be fun and spent their parents’ money heedlessly, assuming it would always be bountiful. They were near the same age, but they would never ask him about matters of state and policy.” — April

ASTEROID MINING, EXPROPRIATION AND REVOLUTION

One of the issues facing the inhabitants of Mitsubishi-3 at the start is the legal status of an asteroid mining venture many of them have invested in. The government of the United States of North America (which includes Canada and Mexico, both apparently forcibly annexed) sees this as a source of wealth and has plans to expropriate it, leaving the investors without recompense, and to forcibly take control of the habitat, perhaps moving many of its people down to Earth. This motivates April and her friends Heather and Jeff to privately agree to support revolution and secession. 

As it turns out, many of the colonists have similar feelings, leading to the defeat of a small North American military force and the proclamation of independence. In fact, political emancipation, as well as personal, is a key theme all these novels; they look back to the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims the intention “to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,” and even before that to John Locke’s political writings, which begin with a sustained criticism of the argument of Robert Filmer that the right of kings to rule their people had the same source as the right of fathers to control their children.

A STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

The ability of this tiny colony to remain independent has several sources: first, the arrogance of Earth political leaders and their military forces, who don’t anticipate serious resistance; second, the expense of sending military assets into orbit (reflecting Heinlein’s image of a man at the bottom of a well in a rock-throwing fight); but third, and most important, the possession by the people of Home of new and potent technologies — some invented by Jefferson Singh, an extraordinarily brilliant young engineer. 

In fact, all three central characters are effectively superheroes with abilities far beyond those of ordinary mortals: high intelligence, genetic upgrades (legally prohibited in many places on Earth), superior technology, but above all the ability to make hard choices under stress. We see this last quality in many of Chandler’s other characters in later volumes, as well. A big part of the appeal of his writing, for me, is its portrayal of characters with agency and the challenges they face.

A HISTORICAL TRANSITION FROM EARTH

On a larger scale, what Chandler is portraying is a historical turnover: the movement of political and military power off Earth to orbital habitats and lunar colonies (including one founded by April’s friend Heather, which starts out as a real estate venture but turns into an autonomous nation). 

A few novels into the series, one of the characters on Earth refers to “the Earth powers” and reflects on how novel it is that such a qualification should even be needed. 

In fact, several key episodes contrast the arrogance of Earth’s greatest powers, China and the United States of North America, with the readiness of other nations, including France, Japan, and Tonga, to trade and negotiate honestly with the new nations of outer space. Here again there’s a clear analogy to the emergence of the United States as a great power.

A LIBERTARIAN RESONANCE AND NEW SOCIETIES

The theme of emancipation, in both aspects, has definite libertarian resonance. But the new societies that emerge have interesting institutions as well. 

Mitsubishi-3, renamed Home, is set up as a direct democracy, with votes kept track of electronically; the right to vote is conditional on voluntary payment of taxes, which are a pro rata share of the costs of government. The economy has minimal regulation, and eventually develops its own currency, in the form of gold and platinum coins. 

In contrast, the lunar settlement, named Central, is a monarchy, starting when a refugee from the American research base, wanting to establish legally that Heather Anderson’s domain is a state whose protection he can appeal to, voluntarily swears fealty to her as his sovereign. 

Both sets of political institutions evolve in the course of successive novels, as the two societies assume their station among the powers of the Earth—or above them, in more ways than spatially.

It appears that the April series could have reached its end with the fourteenth volume, The Long View: The primary characters seem fully developed and the series is at the point of a new central action. But if so, I expect to reread it again with continued enjoyment.

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.

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Published by

Michael Grossberg

Michael Grossberg, who founded the LFS in 1982 to help sustain the Prometheus Awards, has been an arts critic, speaker and award-winning journalist for five decades. Michael has won Ohio SPJ awards for Best Critic in Ohio and Best Arts Reporting (seven times). He's written for Reason, Libertarian Review and Backstage weekly; helped lead the American Theatre Critics Association for two decades; and has contributed to six books, including critical essays for the annual Best Plays Theatre Yearbook and an afterword for J. Neil Schulman's novel The Rainbow Cadenza. Among books he recommends from a libertarian-futurist perspective: Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist & How Innovation Works, David Boaz's The Libertarian Mind and Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress.

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