{"id":1515,"date":"2020-04-25T20:01:12","date_gmt":"2020-04-26T01:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lfs.org\/blog\/?p=1515"},"modified":"2024-01-03T21:00:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T03:00:03","slug":"heinleinesque-adventure-romance-bioengineered-humans-and-anarchy-in-the-asteroids-an-appreciation-of-sarah-hoyts-darkship-thieves-the-2011-prometheus-award-winner-for-best-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/heinleinesque-adventure-romance-bioengineered-humans-and-anarchy-in-the-asteroids-an-appreciation-of-sarah-hoyts-darkship-thieves-the-2011-prometheus-award-winner-for-best-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"Heinleinesque adventure, romance and anarchy in the asteroids: An Appreciation of Sarah Hoyt\u2019s Darkship Thieves, the 2011 Prometheus Award winner for Best Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

To highlight the Prometheus Awards\u2019 history while making clear what makes each winner deserve recognition as pro-freedom or anti-authoritarian sf\/fantasy, the Libertarian Futurist Society is presenting weekly Appreciations of past award-winners.\u00a0Here\u2019s the Appreciation for Sarah Hoyt\u2019s Darkship Thieves<\/em>, the 2011 Prometheus Award winner for Best Novel:<\/p>\n

By Anders Monsen<\/a> and Michael Grossber<\/strong><\/a>g<\/p>\n

Few sf\/fantasy novels attempt to envision a fully free future, and only a fraction of those efforts prove fruitful and plausible, not to mention gripping in narrative and appealing in characters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Darkship Thieves, <\/i>with central characters to care about and a suspenseful, fast-paced plot,\u00a0<\/i>is especially intriguing to libertarians for its plausible portrait of a high-tech anarchist society among the asteroids.<\/p>\n

With this 2010 novel, Sarah Hoyt launched a series of novels in the same future solar-system-wide scenario focusing on a heroic woman from an anarchist colony in the asteroid belt who must fight for her freedom and identity against a tyrannical Earth.<\/p>\n

Hoyt, a deft master of many genres, blends science fiction with romance, adventure, political intrigue and individualist-feminist themes.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here are excerpts from Anders Monsen\u2019s review of Darkship Thieves<\/em> for the Fall 2010 issue of Prometheus,<\/em> the LFS\u2019 former quarterly print journal published from 1982 to 2016 (and now replaced by this Prometheus blog):
\n<\/i>
\nSarah Hoyt is a prolific novel and short story writer in several genres, including fantasy, historical fiction, romance, and science fiction. She dedicated her novel,\u00a0Darkship Thieves<\/i>, to Robert A. Heinlein; there are echoes of some of his earlier novels in her book. Her female protagonist fiercely independent, verging on self-centered and certainly prone to rash behavior.<\/p>\n

Athena Sinistra, daughter and heir to one of earth\u2019s ruling council, reluctantly accompanies her father into space on a routine tour. While docked at a station near a field of energy producing powertrees, she wakes to find the ship hijacked and in mortal danger. Through luck and pluck she escapes into the powertree field, and there finds refuge among a ship illegally harvesting the energy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The pilot of this ship, Christopher \u201cKit\u201d Klaavil, belongs to an outlaw society descended from earth\u2019s former rulers, genetically engineered humans modified for super-intelligence, strength, and speed, but unable to breed.<\/p>\n

These biohumans, or Mules as they also were called, were overthrown centuries before. The remaining few fled into space to hide and exist on the verges, stealing power from the powertrees. When Athena steps aboard Kit\u2019s darkship, she sets in motion a series of events that hauls earth\u2019s past out of the darkness, and onto a collision course with an even darker present.<\/p>\n

The descendents of the Mules bioengineer their chldren, growing them in vats with various capabilities. They view themselves as Engineered Life Forms. Kit is such a being, suited to working in dark space.<\/p>\n

The rest of the inhabitants of Eden, the home of the descendants who fled earth, fear Athena and her links to earth.<\/p>\n

Hoyt\u2019s portrayal of the society of Eden is almost a straight-forward libertarian utopia. No government is in charge, yet the rules are focused and sometimes complex, and Athena\u2019s hot-headed responses end her, more often than not, in trouble. Her return to earth is inevitable, and here supplies new twists to the history of the Mules, and Kit and Athena\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n

Hoyt\u2019s novel is rife with ideas and non-stop action…\u00a0 This enjoyable sf novel offers a rare glimpse into a Galt\u2019s Gulch society that works.<\/p>\n

Note: Sarah Hoyt, who moved from Portugal to the United States in the early 1980s and became an American citizen in 1988, has published more than 30 novels of science fiction, fantasy, mystery and historical fiction. Her Darkship series includes the direct sequels Darkship Renegades,\u00a0<\/i>a 2013 Prometheus Best Novel finalist; A Few Good Men<\/i>, a 2014 Best Novel finalist; Through Fire<\/i>, a 2017 Best Novel nominee; and Darkship Revenge<\/i>, a 2018 Best Novel finalist.
\nHoyt also won the 2018\u00a0<\/span>Dragon Award<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>for Best Alternate History Novel for\u00a0<\/span>Uncharted<\/a><\/i>, which she co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson.<\/p>\n

Here are excerpts from Sarah Hoyt\u2019s Prometheus Award acceptance speech, later printed in the Fall 2011 issue of Prometheus\u00a0<\/i>(Vol. 30 No. 1):<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/b>I wrote\u00a0Darkship Thieves\u00a0<\/i>because I was furious. Right about the time that cloning started being talked about, I expected and wasn\u2019t disappointed, to see the spate of books coming out, about how cloning was a bad thing, because it was going to lead to people being cloned for sexual objects, or people being cloned for spare parts. In fact there was a movie about that recently. And all that stuff, that I expected, I expected the dystopian view. What I also expected but didn\u2019t like was the fact that the tone of all these novels was, \u201cthere ought to be a law.\u201d And the fact that all these corruptions of the technology were envisioned as happening as if society were \u201cfree,\u201d and people were able to do this. And that made me furious.<\/b><\/p>\n

A free society is better for preventing that kind of abuse. For one, cloning an entire person, to have your brain placed in them, is incredibly inefficient. The same way that slavery is inefficient. Raising humans is very expensive. And it\u2019s not worth it. It would be much easier to clone body parts, which in a free society is more likely to be enforced by public opinion. While if we make it illegal, it will go underground and then all sorts of abuses happen. And this connects to the fact that people tend to react to new technology, particularly technology that can enhance human life, which cloning can by allowing people to live longer and thereby lowering our risks of failing. And extending human life and extending our possibilities in a thousand ways.<\/p>\n

People tend to react to this with fear, and by saying there should be a law. Anything that\u2019s enforced by law will get corrupted. Look at the French Revolution. Liberty, equality, fraternity. There is no way to enforce the last two, except by becoming a tyranny. And that\u2019s why we had the guillotine.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what will happen. Every time you enforce something, no matter how high your virtue, by the force of law, which ties in to\u00a0Animal Farm.\u00a0Animal Farm\u00a0<\/i>by the way, had the force of a completely subversive work to me, when I read it in Portugal shortly after the revolution, because, again, in the Portuguese revolution they were trying to enforce equality by law. And that always goes wrong. So reading\u00a0Animal Farm<\/i>\u00a0was a profoundly freeing experience, because I went, \u201cYes, I\u2019m not alone in seeing the problem with this!\u201d<\/p>\n

So, that was why I wrote the book. Because I wanted to contrast a society where bioengineering \u2014 cloning, all sorts of bio advances \u2014 were illegal, and therefore went underground and became profoundly corrupt. To a society where they were allowable, and therefore public opinion could police them, and make it inadvisable for individuals to go to the extremes. Humans aren\u2019t angels, and laws aren\u2019t going to make them angels. We\u2019re more likely to get there in our own self-interest, and by being watched, and having things in the open.<\/p>\n

My son, when I told him about having to speak about the novel, said I should say two things, and I\u2019m going to say them because he couldn\u2019t be here \u2014 he\u2019s driving his younger brother to school. My son said to tell you that the future is free, but the past is extremely expensive. That is, technology can free us, and can allow for more individual scope, but if we insist on trying to narrow technology and doing things the way that it\u2019s always been done, and flattering up to the past, it\u2019s going to cost us a lot, not just in money, but in lives and in opportunities.<\/p>\n

We see this right now. A lot of professions, including mine, are changing very rapidly with technology. And people are trying to legislate us back into the past. Or to use tricks to bring us back into the way things were done.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s never going to work, and it\u2019s just going to cost opportunities. It\u2019s going to cost money. It\u2019s going to cost lives. In the same way, my son said to say, that it\u2019s possible, in fact the future is a boot stomping on the human face forever. However, when a boot is stomping on your face you\u2019re in an ideal position to kick the person in the nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>* See related introductory essay<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0about the LFS\u2019 40th<\/sup>anniversary retrospective series of Appreciations of past Prometheus Awards winners, with an overview of the awards\u2019 four-decade history.<\/p>\n

* Other Prometheus winners:<\/strong>\u00a0For a full list of winners \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 and convenient, linked Appreciations to each work, visit the recently updated and enhanced Prometheus Awards page<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0on the LFS website.<\/p>\n

* Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards, join <\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit volunteer association of libertarian sf\/fantasy fans and freedom-lovers.
\nLibertarian futurists believe cultural change is as vital as political change (and often more fun!) in achieving universal individual rights and a better world (perhaps eventually, worlds) for all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To highlight the Prometheus Awards\u2019 history while making clear what makes each winner deserve recognition as pro-freedom or anti-authoritarian sf\/fantasy, the Libertarian Futurist Society is presenting weekly Appreciations of past award-winners.\u00a0Here\u2019s the Appreciation for Sarah Hoyt\u2019s Darkship Thieves, the 2011 Prometheus Award winner for Best Novel: By Anders Monsen and Michael Grossberg Few sf\/fantasy novels … Continue reading Heinleinesque adventure, romance and anarchy in the asteroids: An Appreciation of Sarah Hoyt\u2019s Darkship Thieves, the 2011 Prometheus Award winner for Best Novel<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43,159,2206],"tags":[433,425,437,327,430,436,432,435,424,431,427,426,21,18,423,428,429,434],"class_list":["post-1515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-best-novels","category-sarah-hoyt","tag-a-few-good-men","tag-anarchist-colony","tag-animal-farm","tag-asteroids","tag-bioengineering","tag-cloning","tag-darkship-renegades","tag-darkship-revenge","tag-darkship-thieves","tag-galts-gulch","tag-genetically-engineered-humans","tag-individualist-feminism","tag-robert-heinlein","tag-sarah-hoyt","tag-solar-system","tag-super-intelligence","tag-super-strength","tag-through-fire"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-or","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1515"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6813,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions\/6813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}