Indomitus Report on Mol?n Lab?! (For those who've read the book! BTP)

[planetaryjim]

? ? ? "The...Federal Government will - in the name of fighting the 'War Against Terrorism' - unwisely continue to squeeze an increasingly incompressible core, most of whom are politically conservative. Most of them are gunowners, and many of them are 'damn-the-torpedoes' Patriots. Thus, the escalating federal barbarity will eventually encounter a very resolved and highly prepared segment of the populace who will never dociley accept CS gas 'inserted' by tanks into their homes, or FBI snipers shooting their nursing wives in the face. Once the gun confiscation raids commence, the Government will have at last crossed that 'line in the sand' for hundreds of thousands of Patriots. I would give up nearly everything for that day never to arrive, however, the feds apparently believe they can pull it off, so they're going for it."
? ? ? - Boston T. Party, Mol?n Lab?!, 2004

Many long years ago, a guy named Werner Stieffel organized a group called the Atlantis Project. Roughly 1969, meeting in an old motel in a smaller town in New York, Stieffel and his crew planned a new country on the high seas. About the same time, the pirate radio king Roy Bates was outfitting "Rough's Tower" to create Sealand. Some years later, another character, Eric Klien, organized another Atlantis Project. It was similarly unsuccessful. Several of Klien's creditors met in November 1995 in New York City at a conference organized by Courtney Smith. The New Country Foundation was formed, flared briefly, and failed to catch hold. Roughly the same time, Richard Hammer was organizing the Free Nation Foundation, which eventually split up, with some of the group forming the Libertarian Nation Foundation. In Central America, a group called Laissez Faire City got going, before being infiltrated by the NSA and ripped asunder. In Costa Rica, the Movimiento Libertario began to take over parliament, and Limon REAL was organized. An author we like once said that when it is steamship time, everyone builds steamships; when it is railroad time, everyone is railroading.

Even without organized efforts by liberty activists (something of an oxymoron), new countries were forming all over the place. The disintegration of the Soviet Union between 1988 and 1991 created dozens of new and reinstated sovereignties. Native American tribes were demanding increased autonomy and recognition of their broader sovereignty interests. Somalis kicked out their dictator, considered the matter, and formed no new central government.

Years before there was an essay by Walter Williams to inspire Jason Sorens to organize the Free State Project, there were liberty enthusiasts gathering in Wyoming. One of these gatherings was in July 1997 in the Grand Teton "national" forest. We met writer Claire Wolfe, activist Louis James, Cowboy state computer guru Charles Curley, and many other liberty enthusiasts at this event.

Those who saw the Soviet Union fall apart were convinced that the United States would, as well. Many symptoms in the culture made it clear that there were far more forces pulling the last superpower apart than the few holding it together. Whether engineered or not, the 11 September 2001 crisis has been used as a Reichstag fire to justify extreme measures to hold together a failing empire. It should be obvious by now that these measures are not working.

One of the men most interested in those Wyoming gatherings in the late 1990s was Ken Royce. An author and publisher, Ken writes under the pseudonym Boston T. Party. His books include the untax classic Good-Bye April 15th; the serious arrest avoidance and constitutional liberty review You & the Police; a somewhat dated but still stimulating Bulletproof Privacy; the most intelligent treatise on the USA constitution's unholy alliance with big government Hologram of Liberty; a survival manual Boston on Surviving Y2K and Other Lovely Disasters; and three books on guns: Boston on Guns & Courage; Boston's Gun Bible 2000 edition; and Boston's Gun Bible 2002 edition - a substantially different, updated, and much more thorough treatment of the gun owner's tome.

Commenting on the situation in his introduction to Mol?n Lab?!, Boston asks, "Do I believe that the USG would willingly allow a national mitosis? No, I think the Federal Government would try to crush any such attempt, as it did in the 1860s. (Note the modern antipathy towards the Confederacy and its flag.) Once, however, the Crash hits and the welfare checks become increasingly worthless through inflation, and federal troops are patrolling the streets, we will become the Yugoslavia of the Western Hemisphere. Then, secession will finally have its chance. I firmly believe that the Rocky Mountain states will be the place to weather out this imminent 'Rainy Decade.' They are geographically defensible, beautiful, abundant in wildlife, and are generally populated by honest, 'salt of the earth' folks. I highly recommend that you seek high ground now while it's early and affordable to do so."

His premise of a market and currency crash followed by a "very sharp recession" or, what we used to call a "Panic" and then called a "Depression," and what Doug Casey has referred to as "The Greater Depression" is fairly easy to see. The evidence of a dollar collapse is all around us, including the book The Coming Collapse of the Dollar by author Jim Turk just released.

Boston writes, "The final premise is that the Government will view this alpine convergence of self-reliant Americans as too embarrassing a contrast to the liberal urbanites who stand in soup lines. As the West becomes stronger and stronger, and the East becomes weaker and weaker, the Government will feel forced to act. Partition, much less secession, indicates to the world that Washington, DC has failed, and the politicians will do whatever they can to prevent the secession of a state. I expect they'd even call in foreign UN troops (as did the 1960s Congo Communists to forcibly regain the independent and prosperous Katanga region). This is where the 'fun' begins. So, I have written Mol?n Lab?! with these assumptions: Early 21st Century will be a mess, and the feds will worsen it to the point of instituting martial law. The President will then usurp the Congress through his Executive Orders. Dr. Gary North's prescient book Government by Emergency will come to pass. Will we win? Will we successfully carve out an oasis of freedom in America where our lives are our own again?"

What follows is a series of vignettes. Chapters are named with years, ranging from "1995" to "2021," providing back story and plot. Some chapters are prefaced with quotes from history, others with quotes from fictional characters. Unlike many novels, this one has appendices, which include a report on the merits of Wyoming which was begun in August 1997, an entire chapter from the body of the novel in the form of a Playboy magazine style interview with the protagonist, two wise but challenging essays on revising democracy to encourage more liberty and responsibility, an essay on encryption, and two pages excerpted from a Wyoming almanac. In other words, it is not like most other novels we've read. It is, however, very much like other books by Boston T. Party - filled with facts, organized to suit the author, and not dedicated to any foolish linearity. Like other novels, it is paginated sequentially; other Boston books are paginated by chapter.

The story begins in 2006 with what any federal prosecutor would call a conspiracy. Hundreds of men and women have moved their families to select counties in Wyoming. They have the numbers for the upcoming election in Novembe 2006 to win elections in five or six of the lowest population counties in the state (which is, itself, the least populated in the country). Moreover, two state employees have noticed this unusual pattern of immigration into the state, and are preparing a report on the subject. They take a break to go to a nearby tavern, get drunk, drive back toward the office in a snowstorm, skid on black ice, and crash - burning to death by the side of the road along with their computer analysis.

Following this prologue, the story turns back to 1995. A traffic stop near Casper, Wyoming, leads to the unconstitutional arrest of gun enthusiast Bill Russell. We follow his story to federal court. We meet a lively defense attorney named Juliette Kramer, a defense witness Harold Krassny, and a very interesting juror named James Preston. We also meet the bad guys, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms rat Gordon Lorner, and assistant US attorney Jack Krempler who are presented with considerable accuracy. The case against Russell centers on whether his rifle had an illegalized flash suppressor. Lorner fakes some video using two very different gunpowders to simulate a dramatic difference in flash. Preston reviews the tape in the jury pool, persuades the other jurors of the malfeasance, Russell is found not guilty, and Preston falls in love with Kramer.

The condition of liberty in the United States in 2002 and 2003 is covered in a short series of vignettes. We meet another character, briefly, to empathize with his experience at airport security. James Preston writes a note to his father about the benefits of home schooling and the difficulties of being tyrannized by the majority. He references the "Wyoming Report" in the first appendix. His father writes back filled with approval. An unidentified speaker at the Colorado Libertarian Party convention points up the difficulties facing the party if it won't concentrate liberty activists in one location. A thinly veiled "Whisk E. Rebellion" alter ego writes about how 46% of the Free State Project's participants participated in a vote that allegedly chose New Hampshire for the destination of many of them.

This essay by Mr. Rebellion contains a fine quote from Thucydides: "The state that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools." Last week in this section, we reviewed the slave rebellion cycle. Thucydides, who felt that the future would reflect the past, would have been intrigued.

Vignette follows vignette, and we find ourselves in 2007, watching as the FBI director quizzes an agent about this Wyoming migration. There's nothing unlawful about moving people to low population counties and having them register Republican, but then again there was that Rajneeshi group in a small county in Oregon some years back that ended up in federal prison. The FBI is having trouble putting the ringleaders together with the political movement owing to strong encryption. They are also hampered by the fact that the political leaders of the migration are individually decent rather than the usual scandal-ridden monsters the FBI seems to tame with extortion.

[planetaryjim]

second half --


Just when one is settling in for a fairly tedious political drama about the mechanics of rural county elections, it's 2008 and Harold Krassny sends an e-mail message to a sheriff's detective. Krassny had been his summer camp counselor, and uses the name of the camp for the password to an IDEA encrypted message. Krassny's encrypted message explains that he's carefully committed suicide in a very nice hotel room in Boulder, Colorado. In a message that is also circulated to various interested web sites, Krassny tells his life story. He flew fighter planes in WW2, got shot down, and killed three Nazis fighting his way through occupied Holland to Allied lines. After the war, the OSS trained him for intelligence work in postwar Germany gathering intelligence on the Soviets. In 2008, he applied this training "to kill international socialists." One is a USA Senator that Krassny views as "a modern reincarnation of Josef Goebbels" and the other is an "arrogant evil" man who "was consumed with creating a one-world government to rule over deflated nations and ...powerless peoples."

Krassny has not only killed these two, but also taken information from their computers which gets broadly published by liberty activist web sites. "It is my hope that this information will be stepping stones for further action against our would-be enslavers," writes Krassny in his suicide note. In his swan song, Krassny laments that he is too infirm in his 80s to do much more for the cause of freedom. But he rallies the freedom fighters, and inspires numerous imitators.

One thread of the novel's plot follows the actions inspired by Krassny. We have here a plot line reminiscent of John Ross's excellent tome, Unintended Consequences. Ross pointed out that individuals acting alone were the ultimate in revolutionary cells. No leadership needed to guide them, only principles of liberty. No communications could expose them, as they would plan their individual actions independently. The unintended consequences of despotism are thousands of individual acts of liberty. In Ross's novel, hundreds of government agents, judges, and politicians are killed by angry individuals tired of living under tyranny. In Boston's novel, the same targets are found, though in considerably smaller numbers.

Boston also thoughtfully examines the consequences for bystanders. Two freedom enthusiasts visit a Colorado city to consider a real estate investment. Their visit coincides with the slaying of a prominent fedgoon. The novel follows the FBI down the wrong path, with one liberty lover gunned down outside his home and the other confronting a swarm of FBI agents in the nude. Both early morning raids are "successful," though six federal agents provide a color guard in the after life for one hero, and the other successfully defends his innocence. Neither one had been involved in the slaying. We take another trip through the justice system's foul underside to another happy result - perhaps the most difficult area in which to suspend our disbelief.

Another reason to buy this book is a detailed critique Boston provides for Jim Bell's Assassination Politics idea. He tears it to pieces. Bell's web site describing and encouraging discussion of assassination politics - a proposal to pay assassins to successfully predict the timing of the demise of some particularly egregious violator of individual liberty - created considerable interest in the late 1990s. Among other things, it made Bell the target of federal investigations which trumped up charges to put him in prison for some time. Boston points out that the proposal was inherently flawed. Had it been implemented, the contributors to the prize money and the individual assassins would have been needlessly communicating with a high-profile web site. No matter where it was hosted, it would be connected to criminal enterprise and a target. Even the timing idea was flawed, since the police and prosecutors could easily withhold information about the death of prominent individuals, claiming they were missing, and even asserting their deaths were at a far different time to thwart the payment of the assassin's fee, meanwhile taking a shrewd interest in whichever assassin had the actual timing right.

Why all this violence? Simple. The state demands it. "If the altnernative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be as violent and bloody a measure as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible." Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience is quoted in chapter 2011.

The Federal Election Commission announced this week that the 2002 campaign finance law which the US Supreme Court upheld limiting political speech within 60 days of an election will be applied to Internet speech. A federal district judge struck down the Internet exemption, and the Federal Election Commission asserts it is powerless to appeal. Congress has made it increasingly difficult for anyone but an incumbent to be elected. Under the guise of campaign finance "reform," the safety valve of electoral politics, as limited and as frequently pointless as it may be, has been ratcheted shut. Pressure will build.

In Wyoming, however, there is considerable political success, at least in the novel. By 2014, the freedom migration has captured a majority of both houses of the state legislature, and elected a new governor, James Preston. In his inaugural address, Preston tells "the Potomac Parasites, 'Mind the nation's business and stay out of ours!" He also tells his audience that under his administration, the Wyoming government "will leave you alone." He proceeds to do just that.

In early 2015, the state legislature makes ten points for liberty. Boston is wisely concerned that a sudden disruption of government power not lead to chaos which, frequently, leads to clamoring by a terrified people to be led right back into tyranny. So, Preston approves ten changes in the first major redress of grievances.

These are: (1) repeal of the sales tax on firearms, ammo, and shooting gear; (2) Vermont style open or concealed carry without permit - this includes an amendment of the state constitution to prohibit government agents at all levels from infringing, regulating, or taxing the right to keep and bear arms; (3) a state constitutional amendment prohibiting tax increases without the consent of three-fourths of the voters; (4) raising the daytime highway speed limit on Wyoming highways to "reasonable and prudent;" (5) guaranteeing the right to jury trial in all criminal prosecutions, repudiating the Supreme Court's Blanton doctrine which inserted the concept of jury trials for capital crimes only; (6) a fully informed jury constitutional amendment to guarantee the freedom of the jury to judge the merits of the law as well as the case, the motives and moral perspective of the accused, the extent of harm done, and the sanctions to be applied; (7) a Parental Rights amendment guaranteeing the freedom to homeschool; ( bonds for civil suits over $1000 to limit nuisance suits with "loser pays;" (9) another amendment to eliminate tax foreclosures of homesteads; (10) an amendment to provide for constitutional amendments by popular referendum.

We like these ideas. They aren't a perfect government of individuals by themselves, but they are an improvement over what Wyoming has now.

In item six, Wyoming would be brought closer to Texas, which has always provided for jury trials in all cases. Texas also has a history of the defendant being able to ask the jury to choose punishment rather than the judge. The importance of jury trials in Texas history relates to the failure of Generalissimo Santa Anna to uphold jury trials and other constitutional liberties in 1835 - conditions which led to the Texas Revolution.

Among the many innovations which make this novel a treasure is the passage describing the sales tax exemption for those openly wearing a handgun. Since sales tax is collected at cash registers, and as nearly all registers are set up to provide for tax exempt sales to businesses for resale or to charities, the plan is very elegant. Simply enlist business owners to not collect sales taxes for any transaction where the buyer is wearing a functional and loaded sidearm. Doing so encourages the wearing of guns by nearly all the people. Since they are providing for their own defense, the need to collect sales taxes to pay for sheriffs and police is much less. Those who cannot put up with the idea of wearing a gun can either pay the entire burden of sales taxes, or they can live in some other state. Not only supporting a gun culture, or leaving it be, but actively promoting it serves to encourage individuals to be capable of defending against crime - which happens quite often even today - or against tyranny. No finer purpose for a tax exemption could exist.

The book has endless ideas of this type. Wyoming is large enough to support an intra-state airline. Flyoming airline refuses to abide by FAA regulations, because it is not engaging in interstate commerce. Accordingly, Wyoming's people fly with their guns. Some flights might provide for smoking. No female passengers are fondled in the chest area by federal Transportation "Security" Agency goons, and no baggage screeners are pilfering luggage while the fedgov drops the theft charges citing "Sensitive Security Information."

How does it all end? The Feral Gummint is certain to react very negatively. How is a more independent Wyoming to defend itself? Its geography is mountainous in places, but its very name derives from a native Indian term for beautiful plains. Boston has some clever plot twists, and to say more would be to spoil the ending.

Those who don't mind a spoiler can Google for information on why Steven Wright's old friend Jigs Casey would be proud.

Many writers are prone to write the same book or essay repeatedly. The Indomitus Report is testament to that very fact. Mol?n Lab?! is another case in point. Boston has an excellent and graceful style. He's not afraid of tackling complicated issues. He's not shy about tacking on an appendix. He's also prepared to tackle cultural issues, not only what people should do, but why government shouldn't make any of them do these things.

There are many characters in Mol?n Lab?! who are met only briefly. We suspect that there's room for a sequel, or several. In the meantime, you should buy this book. It's available from the author's JavelinPress.com and Amazon. (Free market money note: Javelin Press will accept gold and silver bullion or specie for books. Contact them for details.) We didn't find the book at LaissezFaireBooks.com, although Boston's You and the Police is available there.

[planetaryjim]

Dear Ken,

Posted the review at your request.  The title, such as it is, was "New Country Developments."

If you wish to reprint or publish the review, please include links to http://indomitus.net/
and http://vertoro.com/ if you would be so kind.  Thanks!

Had to split it into two posts as it exceeds the 20,000 character limit for this board.

There's another old essay here:
  http://indomitus.net/ir20040515.html#new
which might be fun for some here to read.

Regards,

Jim

[Boston]

Jim, thanks so much for posting your in-depth review of Mol?n Lab?! here.
I hope our readers will enjoy it as much as I did.

Folks, if you're not already a subscriber to the unique and helpful Indomitus Report,
you've been missing out on a fine newsletter.

Also, there's a new cyber-gold provider in town:  http://vertoro.com/
I wish them great success!

[Paul Bonneau]

Geez, Jim, that review is great, although it looks perhaps a little too detailed. Don't you want to put a "possible spoilers!" warning up front?   

[planetaryjim]

Dear Paul,

Well, no, not really.  I am of the view that a book review has to cover the material well enough so that the reader can decide whether to buy the book.  Sometimes that involves going into a great deal of detail. 

On the other hand, having released the review into the world, if it were to show up with "Spoiler Warning" put there by some publication or publisher, it would not offend me.  Publishers also employ editors who often edit for length.  Having more material is generally a boon to editors, as they are rapacious with their crossing out - and if you don't give them much to begin with, they may have nothing left by the time they are done.  As well, if a person reading a review feels that too much is revealed, it is actually possible to stop reading.  This approach leaves the writer free to write as much or as little as he chooses and the reader the freedom to read as much or as little as he likes.

As with most of the books that I read, I did read Boston's book without consulting any review.  I tend to be very author oriented, and I will simply read anything Boston writes that I can get my hands on.  Similarly with Heinlein, Niven, Pournelle, L. Neil Smith, Lew Rockwell, FA Hayek, Ayn Rand, Neal Stephenson, Jim Blanchard, Jim Turk, Doug Casey, various others.

Writing reviews is a matter of style and choice as well as following certain conventions.  I don't make any effort to post spoiler warning as explained above.  And, I don't generally make much of an effort to read book reviews - I prefer to read books and form my own bizarre opinions. 

Also, reading reviews, when I do so, can be pretty rough going.  I often find that the reviewer is not a good touchstone for whether or not I would like a film or restaurant or book.  Pauline Kael (sp?) of the New Yorker was one of my favorite film reviewers because she was my perfect opposite.  Any film she loved, I would hate; any film she hated (e.g., Star Wars when it first came out) I would love.  So, I could pick up the magazine in a newsstand or bookstore somewhere, flip to her reviews, and figure out whether I was going to enjoy a movie.  But, all good things come to an end.

If you get the impression that what I'm saying here is: I wrote what I felt like writing; read what you feel like reading
then that would be a good thing.

Regards,

Jim
 http://indomitus.net/  http://vertoro.com/
 http://pvcse.com/

[DontTreadOnMe]

Fantastic review!

I really enjoyed it, it was like re-living "Molon Labe" but it only took a brief few minutes. I also enjoyed reading the opinions and views presented therein; much more enjoyable than most people's replies of "It was so cool, I really liked it!"

[Lady Liberty]

Well, no, not really.  I am of the view that a book review has to cover the material well enough so that the reader can decide whether to buy the book.  Sometimes that involves going into a great deal of detail.

But NOT revelations of plot twists, please!

If you get the impression that what I'm saying here is: I wrote what I felt like writing; read what you feel like reading
then that would be a good thing.

How do I know if I feel like reading something if I don't know up front that certain plot twists will be revealed? Some people don't care. Some people WANT to know everything up front. I'm neither of these people. If somebody spoils a movie or a book for me, I'll never read any review by them again so as not to spoil any OTHER movies or books. (Unfortunately, I'll probably not read the book or see the movie that's been spoiled, either. After all, I already know how it ends now...)

I agree it's a matter of personal preference, and given my own preferences, the book and movie reviews that I write do not contain spoilers. If any ever did, I'd make clear from the outset that it DID contain spoilers.

Your review is terrific, Jim, but I've already READ Molon Labe. If I hadn't, you would have ruined a good deal of the suspense for me, and the suspense is much of why I read in the first place.

Just my 2?...

Oh, yes, and for the group's reference, my own (much briefer) review of Molon Labe is here:

http://www.ladylibrty.com/book_review_archives/molon-labe.html

[canaan]

As with most of the books that I read, I did read Boston's book without consulting any review.  I tend to be very author oriented, and I will simply read anything Boston writes that I can get my hands on.  Similarly with Heinlein, Niven, Pournelle, L. Neil Smith, Lew Rockwell, FA Hayek, Ayn Rand, Neal Stephenson, Jim Blanchard, Jim Turk, Doug Casey, various others.

  http://indomitus.net/  http://vertoro.com/
 http://pvcse.com/

planetaryjim 

 I agree, I also have a 'must read' list of authors, I note several authors we agree on. I for one would be interested on the 'various others' you allude to.

My list also includes...

David and Leigh Eddings, Anne McCaffrey,  Skinner's "Walden 2" etc..

[planetaryjim]

Dear Lady,

> But NOT revelations of plot twists, please!

If it seems to me that a review needs to reveal something in the book, I'll write just what pleases me the most.

> How do I know if I feel like reading something if I don't know up front that certain plot twists
> will be revealed?

You must be asking this question rhetorically.  I certainly have no insight to how, or whether, you know one thing or another.  Much of what passes for knowledge on this planet leaves me cold.  People tell me that I seem to know a lot, but I'm with Newton.  I have stood on the shore of a great ocean of knowledge, seen some tiny part of the vastness it encompasses, and occasionally spotted a pretty pebble.  I don't know much, and if you aren't sure how to know something, I refer you to Ozzy Osbourne.  "Don't ask me, I don't know."

>  If somebody spoils a movie or a book for me, I'll never read any review by them again

Then don't.  You have a choice in what you read.  I have a choice in what I write.  I'll write what I please.  You read what you please.  This free market approach would seem to satisfy everyone.

> (Unfortunately, I'll probably not read the book or see the movie that's been spoiled, either.
> After all, I already know how it ends now...)

Well, that makes no sense to me.  A movie is not just its plot twists.  A book is not just its ending.  If you think that by reading someone's opinion of Mark Twain's _Huckleberry Finn_ you have enough information to not bother with reading the book, then I don't know what to say.  Narrow minded people are always telling me that they haven't read Harry Potter books but they are sure that JK Rowling is an evil witch.  If you won't experience something for yourself because someone else has written an opinion about their experience of it, then you won't likely get as much out of literature, cinema, or life as you would otherwise. 

If I write a restaurant review and tell people how dessert tastes, I've spoiled the ending.  If I don't tell them that dessert tasted like mud, people won't like that either.  Your tastes are not mine. 

>  If I hadn't, you would have ruined a good deal of the suspense for me, and the
> suspense is much of why I read in the first place.

Okay.  So, guess what, you are welcome to read what I write, or leave it alone.  I wrote what seemed to me to be the review of this book that would cause more people to suppose that Free State Wyoming would be a good idea and might, after all, succeed.  If through my meager efforts I've added or subracted a few book sales then I've utterly failed.  I wrote about this book as a way of conveying the essential ideas about Free State Wyoming in a section of my newsletter about new countries.  I was in Wyoming in 1997 thinking about whether it would become its own country, I believe I met Ken at one of the Liberty Round Table events then, and I admire and respect his leadership of this project.  I read what he writes because he is a good writer and has something to say, but I'm not really in it to push his book sales - which he seems to do well on his own.  I'm here because I'd like the project to succeed.  And if spoiling the ending of the book but making a passionate case for the project furthers that end, I'll do it.  If not spoiling the book would have done just as well, in my view, at the time, I would have written the review that way.  I used my judgement.  Now, use yours.

You know what?  _Molon Labe_ is fiction in the same sense that "Candide" is a play.  It is about as suspenseful as _The Wizard of Ounces_ or Oz or whatever.  The function of the book is to illustrate a set of possibilities in an extremely critical time for the future of freedom - by which I mean the future of civilization.  It is not a mystery novel, it is not a science fiction novel, and it is not a work of escapist literature.  It is a message, wrapped in a novel, with some useful plot devices, decent character development, and more message.  It is, for crying out loud, a novel with appendices.  What are the appendices?  More message than novel, that's sure.

Now, I could see you leveling this criticism at me if I had reviewed Neal Stephenson's _Quicksilver_ and told you  that by the end of the last book, Jack and Eliza are married in Tuscany.  (Anti-spoiler note: they aren't.)  Quicksilver is a book people read because it is fun, written by a best-selling novelist, it is about a distant time and another timeline, and one might be absorbed for a few hours or days of fantasy. 

If people are reading _Molon Labe_ because they want to stop thinking about how horrid life is and escape into a fantasy, too bad.  I wasn't thinking about those people when I wrote my review.  I was primarily thinking about people, the audience who subscribe to _The Indomitus Report_ (where I published my review), who have either already read the book, would never read it and therefore would only absorb as much of the story and message as I told, or would read it because I told them about why it was important.  Case in point, some six months after my review was published where Doug Casey could read it (he reads my newsletter for some reasons of his own), Doug wrote a review of _Unintended Consequences_ and _Molon Labe_ identifying both as "straws in the wind."  Or weather gauges, if you would.

Would Doug have read the book if I hadn't written my review?  I've no way of knowing.  But Doug was one of the people I was thinking about when I wrote the review.  And, however you might feel about it, the fact is, you weren't a subscriber to my newsletter then, so I utterly didn't think even for a moment, "What would Lady Liberty think?"  Your angst over me spoiling the story for a lot of people to the contrary notwithstanding, I still don't write essays for my newsletter thinking about you, at all.  That's the way it is.  If you were a subscriber, that might change, but it might not.  It's a free market.  Go read something by someone who writes what you like to read.

> Oh, yes, and for the group's reference, my own (much briefer) review of Molon Labe is here:
> http://www.ladylibrty.com/book_review_archives/molon-labe.html

It would, it seems to me, be a good thing, were a press kit of reviews available for people to see, including those in the media who might excerpt a thing or two from different reviews in the steadfast conviction that they can write articles about books without ever reading them.  Marketing the project means marketing the first book in the series about how life would be like were the project to triumph.

Regards,

Jim
 http://freemarketmoney.com/

[Boston]

Jim, Lady Liberty, you both make good points.

Jim's primary goal was not to (directly) increase sales of Mol?n Lab?!, but to
increase interest/membership in the FSW.?

However many potential readers of Mol?n Lab?! who learned of it through
Jim's review may prefer fewer plot details described for them prior reading the book.

In short, I think a spoiler warning is fair, and it's generally expected.? While I agree with
Jim that there is much less plot to spoil compared to novel of a blatantly escapist nature,
nevertheless, there is some plot to be spoiled.

Perhaps the word choice of "review" lends confusion in the matter.
Perhaps "discusssion" of Mol?n Lab?! more clearly describes Jim's prose.

In any case, since the post is in the FSW Promotional category, and thus read by many
who've not yet read Mol?n Lab?!, some sort of spoiler warning seems only fair.
Thus, in the thread's title I added:

(For those who've read the book!? BTP)

Boston

[planetaryjim]

Dear Boston,

It's a good thing.  I gather that one of the good people involved in this forum is producing a .pdf of the
text.  As a writer, I expect editors to edit and publishers to publish as much or as little of my work as
they see fit.  And, as we both know, headline writers write what suits them.

So, it is all good.  Spoiler warnings in big flashing letters if you wish.  It is your site and the
media kit concept is to be published by your group.  You have my blessing to add warnings,
cut material from the review, put it in a box with a big red label <blink>warning! spoilers</blink>
and shrink-wrap read-at-your-own-risk license.  As before, all I ask is that the sites you've
mentioned be included wherever you use the review.  Seems like a deal everyone can live with,
somehow.

Regards,

Jim
 http://freemarketmoney.com/  -> we buy e-gold, 1mdc, Pecunix and send out checks, wires, etc.

[Paul Bonneau]

Yes, that seems the best solution. Everybody is happy: those who've read it or who don't mind spoilers, and those who do mind them. 

[ricwoz]

What about a "sticky" page somewhere on the site with a simple bibliography of useful books.  I know the Extropian site I used to frequent had one focused on their topics (libertarian economics, science fiction, life extension, artificial intelligence).

Just title, author and a breif synopsis in a sorted, regular format.    We could all contribute stuff to it and it would be an excellent resource. 

I volunteer to edit it if you like the idea.

 

[Lady Liberty]

What about a "sticky" page somewhere on the site with a simple bibliography of useful books.  I know the Extropian site I used to frequent had one focused on their topics (libertarian economics, science fiction, life extension, artificial intelligence).

Just title, author and a breif synopsis in a sorted, regular format.    We could all contribute stuff to it and it would be an excellent resource. 

I volunteer to edit it if you like the idea.

 

I, for one, think that's a terrific idea! I often run across books I'd like to let others know about but don't have time to review... I usually tell a friend or two, but that's unfortunately as far as it goes.

To avoid the topic getting too unwieldy for you and for readers alike, I'd like to suggest it be divided up into a couple of categories. Maybe we could start with such broad topics as:

Freedom fiction
Reference
Current events/politics
Self help

Certainly, a book might be in more than one place. But at least somebody looking for reference books won't have to weed through the synopses of worthy books like "Unintended Consequences" or Johnstone's "Ashes" series!

I hope you were serious about being willing to be editor because I'm going to suggest just that...