- Maymin, Zak.
Publicani.
Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace, 2008.
ISBN 978-1-4382-2123-6.
-
I bought this book based on its being mentioned on a weblog as
being a mix of
Atlas Shrugged
and
“Harrison Bergeron”,
and the mostly positive reviews on Amazon. Since both of those very different
stories contributed powerfully to my present worldview, I was intrigued
at what a synthesis of them might be like, so I decided to give this very
short (just 218 pages in the print edition) novel a read.
Jerry Pournelle has written
that aspiring novelists need to
write at
least a million words and
throw them away before truly mastering their craft. I know nothing of
the present author, but I suspect he hasn't yet reached that megaword
milestone. There is promise here, and some compelling scenes and
dialogue, but there is also the tendency to try to do too much in too
few pages, and a chaotic sense of timing where you're never sure
how much time has elapsed between events and how so much could occur
on one timeline while another seems barely to have advanced. This
is a story which could have been much better with
the attention of an experienced editor, but in our outsourced, just-in-time,
disintermediated economy, evidently didn't receive it, and hence the
result is ultimately disappointing.
The potential of this story is great: a metaphorical exploration of the
modern redistributive coercive state through a dystopia in which
the “excess intelligence” of those favoured by birth
is redistributed to the government elites most in need of it
for “the good of society”. (Because, as has always been
the case, politicians tend to be underendowed when it comes to
intelligence.) Those subjected to the “redistribution”
of their intelligence rebel, claiming “I own myself”—the
single most liberating statement a free human can hurl against the
enslaving state. And the acute reader comes to see how any
redistribution is ultimately a forced taking of the mind, body, or labour of
one person for the benefit of another who did not earn it: compassion at
the point of a gun—the signature of the the modern state.
Unfortunately, this crystal clear message is largely lost among
all of the other stuff the author tries to cram in. There's
Jewish mysticism,
the Kabbalah,
an
Essene
secret society, the
Russian Mafia,
parapsychology,
miraculous intervention, and guns with something called a
“safety clip”, which I've never encountered
on any of the myriad of guns I've discharged downrange.
The basic premise of intelligence being some kind of neural
energy fluid one can suck from one brain and transfer to another
is kind of silly, but I'd have been willing to accept it as
a metaphor for sucking out the life of the mind from the
creators to benefit not the consumers (it's never that way),
but rather the rulers and looters. And if this book had done
that, I'd have considered it a worthy addition to the literature
of liberty. But, puh–leez, don't drop in a
paragraph like:
Suddenly, a fiery chariot drawn by fiery horses
descended from the sky. Sarah was driving. Urim and Thummim
were shining on her breastplate of judgment.
Look, I've been backed into corners in stories myself on many occasions,
and every time the fiery chariot option appears the best way out,
I've found it best to get a good night's sleep and have another go at
it on the morrow. Perhaps you have to write and discard a million words
before achieving that perspective.
July 2009 