{"id":311,"date":"2017-10-01T12:56:23","date_gmt":"2017-10-01T17:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lfs.org\/blog\/?p=311"},"modified":"2024-05-10T23:33:01","modified_gmt":"2024-05-11T04:33:01","slug":"review-arkwright-by-allan-steele","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/review-arkwright-by-allan-steele\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Allen Steele’s optimistic Arkwright offers generations-long saga of seeking the stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Grossberg<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Science-fiction writers and fans have imagined the spread of humanity to the stars for generations.\u00a0Allan Steele hasn\u2019t given up the dream.<\/p>\n

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

In Arkwright,<\/em><\/a>\u00a0published by TOR Books, Steele sketches out a generations-long saga in an effort to dramatize how we plausibly can get there \u2013 even if we can\u2019t overcome or get around such implacable limitations as the speed of light, a major stumbling block to interstellar travel given the vast distances between solar systems in this spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy.<\/p>\n

A heartfelt valentine to the golden age of science fiction, which embodied an optimistic view of human progress and technology fueled by a stlll-potent Jeffersonian liberalism (i.e., libertarianism) that has since sadly faded, the novel is especially flattering to SF fans because of its focus on a popular science fiction writer whose financial success and legacy sparks a long-term plan to reach the stars.<\/p>\n


\n\"Arkwright<\/a>
\nEpic but also highly episodic, the 332-page novel seems consciously aimed at those who yearn for the return of a can-do American era, such as the early 1960s, when the popular culture was more heroic and hopeful about the future.<\/p>\n

Steele, who has carved a respectable niche as an SF writer inspired by the golden age of Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, tends to write more in the realistic and prosaic style of Ben Bova but with a touch of the poetic flair of Ray Bradbury.<\/p>\n

While some fans may question in certain ways just how likely is the real-world success of Steele\u2019s particular space-flight scenario, Steele has written a story that flatters the assumptions of diehard SF fandom that\u2019s been waiting for what seems like forever for humankind to finally figure out a way to colonize nearby exo-planets.<\/p>\n

Better yet, it’s a story easy for hardcore SF fans – the kind who attend Worldcons and regional SF cons – to fall in love with. (In fact, I haven\u2019t read an SF novel so appealing to knowledgeable SF fans since Red Shirts,<\/em> John Scalzi\u2019s clever and amusing starship-mission reconception of and tribute to the template of Star Trek.)
\n<\/em>
\nArkwright fleshes out a multigenerational, private and largely discreet effort to develop, finance and launch the first working starship without government support or state bureaucracy. Such a broadly libertarian approach prompted the nomination of this entertaining work last year for a Prometheus Award for Best Novel.<\/p>\n

Early chapters should entertain older SF fans in particular because of their charming focus on the Legions of Tomorrow, a fan-based group that emerges from the first World Science Fiction conventions as the roman \u00e0 clef story blends fictional characters with such familiar faces as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Frederick Pohl. That fan spirit animates the entire novel.<\/p>\n

The novel\u2019s title refers to beloved author Nathan Arkwright, best known for his \u201cGalaxy Patrol\u201d series of space adventures. (Think Heinlein crossed with E.E. “Doc” Smith, but with a heavy dose of Gene Roddenberry\u2019s original Star Trek<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

When Arkright dies, he leaves his entire and considerable estate to create and sustain the Arkright Foundation. The goal of the foundation: to send human genetic material inside a rocket to a habitable planet, so that the rocket\u2019s computer can create embryos and raise them in artificial uteruses into people who would colonize the new frontier.<\/p>\n

Succeeding generations of Arkrights further the foundation\u2019s efforts, with varying degrees of commitment and doubts, in what\u2019s basically a series of loosely connected vignettes, stories and novellas. (Some sections initially were published in Asimov\u2019s Magazine.)<\/p>\n

But the devil, as always, is in the details.<\/p>\n

Perhaps inevitably, as a byproduct of the novel\u2019s very concept and structure, generations come and go too quickly to allow much reader identification with particular people. Even when a character sustains interest, he or she departs from the story within another few chapters as a new generation dawns.
\nThere\u2019s some welcome suspense and mystery \u2013 What obstacles will pop up to delay or foil the plan? And will the latest generation of characters have the means and will to recognize and overcome difficulties? \u2013 but the ultimate resolution is rarely in doubt.<\/p>\n

One gets so involved with some initial leading characters that one misses them as the story moves on through five centuries.<\/p>\n

One concern: A small part of Steele\u2019s scenario is simplistic or stereotyped (the worst stereotypes are about religion or race, but are thankfully minor and brief, largely reflecting familiar SF tropes that champion reason and science while condemning religious fundamentalism or ethnic fanaticism), making it a little harder for this novel to connect with today’s welcome and more diverse readership.<\/p>\n

Beyond questions of plausibility about the science and social changes, some have wondered whether even a wealthy private foundation would have enough millions to sustain any effort over a century.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t have a problem with that \u2013 not only because of what financial investment advisers like to refer to as \u201cthe miracle of compound interest,\u201d but also because of the widely underreported or taken-for-granted incredible progress that humankind already has made over the past century or two.<\/p>\n

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

(I highly recommend reading British science writer Matt Ridley\u2019s The Rational Optimist<\/em> or Johan Norberg\u2019s Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future<\/em>, insightful and revelatory books that marshal an amazing range of (often revelatory) history, statistics, science, economics and logic to demonstrate that our species has made enormous progress over the millennia and in recent centuries, largely because of the moral and practical policies that only in very recent generations have gelled into the social philosophy of market-oriented liberalism.)<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re so much richer, healthier, freer, more peaceful and longer-lived than past generations \u2013 and we are worldwide, with only a few grievous exceptions in the remaining dictatorships – then it\u2019s certainly plausible for Steele to imagine that his centuries of further advances in prosperity, growth and wealth will be more than enough to fund interstellar travel.<\/p>\n

The focus on human achievement \u2013 through private enterprise, and largely outside politics \u2013 is refreshing. Steele is at his best in exploring and dramatizing the real-world challenges of building and powering the starship, and identifying and later terraforming a suitable planet for colonization.<\/p>\n

Yet politics does intrude here and there, which also seems sadly plausible.
\nSome libertarians, in judging this novel for the Prometheus Award, objected to one plot point, when the foundation makes a sizable campaign donation to a prominent member of Congress in order to affect federal legislation in a way favorable to future private space flights.<\/p>\n

My view: If the donation had been made to obtain a special federal subsidy or to directly harm competitors through government penalties, I\u2019d agree with that criticism. But the foundation\u2019s action seems acceptable (if not ideal) to me because it’s taken to forestall coercive governmental overreach threatening the foundation\u2019s legitimate private efforts. Individuals \u2013 and groups of individuals, working through an organization, union or company \u2013 do have rights, including the right to self-defense, the right to advocate and to lobby to preserve their freedom.<\/p>\n

Overall, despite the episodic gaps built into its four-part generations-spanning structure, Arkwright offers an inspiring and realistically complicated family saga about a seemingly plausible effort to develop the technology to build an interstellar starship that flies at up to half the speed of light and is capable of colonizing a planet in a solar system about 20 light years away.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, this is a novel that champions initiative, entrepreneurship, private enterprise, innovation, technology, progress, fandom and the animating power of science fiction itself.<\/p>\n

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

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS<\/strong><\/p>\n

*\u00a0Watch the <\/strong>videos <\/strong>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\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/strong><\/a>
\n
\n<\/u><\/strong>* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/strong>For the list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to the full set of published appreciation-reviews of past winners.<\/p>\n

* Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n

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

*\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters! We understand that the arts and literature can be vital, and in some ways even more powerful than politics in the long run, by sparking innovation, better ideas, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights and differences.<\/p>\n

Through recognizing the literature of liberty and the many different but complementary visions of a free future via the Prometheus Awards, the LFS hopes to help spread better visions of the future that help humanity overcome tyranny, slavery and war and achieve universal liberty and human rights and a better world (perhaps eventually, worlds) for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Grossberg Science-fiction writers and fans have imagined the spread of humanity to the stars for generations.\u00a0Allan Steele hasn\u2019t given up the dream. In Arkwright,\u00a0published by TOR Books, Steele sketches out a generations-long saga in an effort to dramatize how we plausibly can get there \u2013 even if we can\u2019t overcome or get around … Continue reading Review: Allen Steele’s optimistic Arkwright offers generations-long saga of seeking the stars<\/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":[2353,8],"tags":[1635,1634,1636,1218,1637,1638,505,1639,567,1640,68,21,1309],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-review","tag-allan-steele","tag-arkwright","tag-arthur-c-clarke","tag-asimovs-magazine","tag-ben-bova","tag-e-e-doc-smith","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-galaxy-patrol","tag-isaac-asimov","tag-legions-of-tomorrow","tag-ray-bradbury","tag-robert-heinlein","tag-star-trek"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-51","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","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=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7548,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/7548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}