War, centralization, good intentions gone wrong: Poul Anderson’s “No Truce with Kings,” the 2010 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

By William H. Stoddard

In David Friedman’s first book, the libertarian classic The Machinery of Freedom, the first entry in the bibliography describes Poul Anderson’s “No Truce with Kings”: “A libertarian novelette that plays fair. The bad guys are good guys too. But wrong.”

“No Truce with Kings” is largely a war story, set in a future greater California recovering from the fall of world civilization — perhaps in a nuclear apocalypse, but Anderson doesn’t go into details; the backstory could be one of environmental collapse or hyperinflation or a dozen other global catastrophes.

The two factions are a local aristocracy and an increasingly powerful central government. The second faction is being aided by the Espers, a quasi-monastic movement that offers training in latent psychic abilities. But there’s more to it than that: Despite its relative brevity, this is a complex story. In fact, it’s what Aristotle calls a “complex tragedy,” one whose plot turns on the recognition of a hidden truth.

However, it’s not the identity of the good guys that’s hidden. Anderson’s title gives a large hint: It comes from a poem by Rudyard Kipling, “The Old Issue,” that warned against the dangers of central authority (a poem that’s unnervingly timely in our present situation). Kipling says, “Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.”

Anderson’s characteristic touch is rather that the bad guys, the advocates of authority and centralization, are not conscious villains out to do harm; they have the best of intentions — but they’ve chosen an unsuitable way to realize them.

In fact, this novelette reflects the influence of other poems by Kipling: “The Land,” which celebrates the tie between the common people and the land they inhabit, through the image of generations of “Hobdens” going back to Roman Britain, and “Norman and Saxon,” which focuses on a specific pairing of lord and peasant. These poems aren’t directly libertarian; if anything, they’re better described as feudalist.

Anderson’s story suggests that something like feudalism may better fit human nature, giving most people a place to be tied to and authorities who live close to them.

The libertarianism comes in indirectly, both through the Norman baron’s warning “The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite. But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right” (another timely line!), and through the unavoidably authoritarian means by which a central government imposes itself on these local loyalties.

This isn’t a vision of perfection, or of an ideal libertarian society. It’s a warning.

Both writers see a measure of liberty as attainable, at a high cost, and as in danger of being lost for what seem to be good reasons. And that’s why, in the last analysis, “No Truce with Kings” is not merely complex, but a complex tragedy, one whose “good guys” can end up regretting their own victories.

Note: Anderson (1926-2001), one of the most prolific and popular writers in science fiction, has won a Prometheus Award six times, the Hugo award seven times, the Nebula award three times and won the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Besides “No Truce with Kings,” the Libertarian Futurist Society recognized Anderson forTrader to the Stars (inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in 1985), The Stars are Also Fire (the 1995 Prometheus Best Novel winner), The Star Fox (inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in 1995) and “Sam Hall” (inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2020.)

Anderson received the first Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2001, an award accepted for the ailing author by his wife, Karen, at the 2001 LFScon at Marcon in Columbus, Ohio.