The arrival of a review copy of this book in Prometheus"s mail is a bit of a puzzle. It's not a science fiction novel, nor is any libertarian content perceptible. In fact, it's not even quite a novel, as Beller has embedded his fictional narrative in the midst of a series of recollections of the New York World's Fair of 1939. Trademarked product names, commercial and political catch-phrases, news stories, and cameo appearances by famous people give it the effect of a souvenir book translated into prose. Even as factual research it seems slightly questionable; for example, the dialogue on page 106 mentions Captain Marvel, a character not published until February of 1940. Perhaps the connection is through the idea of "futurism," given the World's Fair's claim to present a vision of the future; but Beller's fictional theme seems to be mockery of all such visions, whether philosophical or superficial. When his story does emerge from the montage of historical references, it's not interesting enough to justify the reader's attention. I recommend passing this one by, even as a curiosity.

The Brazen Image is definitely a science fiction novel. Its libertarianism isn't so clear, but its political point of view is certainly informed by libertarian ideas and figures. I regret to say that I found it unsatisfactory for other reasons; it took me a long time to finish it, because reading it never went from an obligation to a spontaneous pleasure.

Part of the problem is that Burgauer's future seems a lot like the past. It's set in 2342, but much of the technology is 20th-century; for example, one plot point turns on people responding to surveys by filling out paper questionnaires and mailing them back in envelopes that have to be licked to seal them—there doesn't seem to be a palmtop in sight! The political situation would be plausible as an extrapolation of the next half century, with a corrupt United States being pressured by a rising China. Even the manners and slang recall, not just the 20th century, but the era of pulp fiction, complete with stereotyped "Chinamen."

What really brings a work of fiction to life is the characterization; a plot that really works is one that grows out of the motives of the characters. But it's hard to tell what the motives of Burgauer's characters are. They have what pulp writers used to call "funny-hat characterization," they have short—10 term emotional reactions, and the novel's mentor figure has a series of philosophical and historical lectures to deliver, but I never felt that any of the characters was actually a person with internal solidity.

One of this novel's main functions seems to be providing a framework for Socratic dialogue—the authentic Platonic version where the wise man lectures and the other participants say "Yes, Socrates" or raise shallow objections. Burgauer's primary focus, oddly enough, is on the constitutional history of presidential term limits; this choice would be more persuasive if it were clearer what causal relation it bore to the novel's plot. Some of the ideas suggested are interesting in themselves—an essay on the constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy, for example, could be worth reading. But my turning from the story to the canned lectures with relief and interest shows how little I found in The Brazen Rule as fiction.

By all appearances, The Living Image reflects Ayn Rand's literary influence. In fact, it carries it virtually to the point of pastiche, evoking the grandeur of Manhattan Island in the first paragraph and the legend of Atlantis in the third. Its hero, Joseph Anton, has chiselled, angular features and a manner of arrogance and is both a brilliant painter and a man of action. The plot, a struggle of individual vision against collectivism, is nearly a retelling of The Fountainhead. In fact, Hardin's most striking departure from Rand is that so much of his story reiterates her fictional themes and style rather than creating his own as she did hers—which suggests a certain failure to get her point. Libertarians usually think of Rand primarily in terms of her political or philosophical themes. But Rand had other aspects; there are readers to whom her novels were most memorable for the hot sex scenes—or for the hints at kinkiness. Hardin makes these same aspects explicit and central to his plot, the love story of an artist devoted to the portrayal of women as ecstatically sexual and a model who regard sex in purely physical terms and worships male physical strength. In fact, Trish Vinson almost exactly fits the classic "insatiable woman" image of pornography. Hardin presents this motivational pattern as the result of a false premise, but it's notable that he describes her purely physical encounters with men who hold her in contempt in much more detail than her spiritually meaningful encounters with her artist lover. Even so, this is the one really original idea in this novel.

Like many pornographic stories, The Living Image has only the barest pretense of realism. Its sexual physiology is absurd, for example, attributing Trish's constant pursuit of pleasure to extraordinarily large ovaries—a physically deterministic explanation that also clashes with the thesis that sexual conduct reflects philosophical premises. Its treatment of the legal system is worse. The reader is asked to believe that after a group of men inflicted nearly lethal physical abuse on a woman they would be charged only with rape, not with assault or attempted murder; that her consent to sexual activity would be taken as sufficient reason to drop any charges based on physical harm; that a prominent art critic who had condemned paintings of her would be allowed not merely to sit on a grand jury hearing the case, but to be its foreman; and that when the men in question began turning up shot dead, the police would not even think of questioning the artist! This entire thread of the plot seems to be set not in the present-day United States, but in some surreal alternate world of wildly exaggerated legal corruption and incompetence.

Considered purely in literary terms, Hardin's novel falls short of its apparent Randian models. The plot is not properly resolved; the central conflict is between the hero, who views sex philosophically, and the heroine, who views it purely physically, but it is not actually resolved within the narrative; in fact, the heroine is comatose during most of the time in which it could be resolved. As for the characterization, consider the hero's sending another of his models to watch over Trish's medical treatment; he can't go, he says, because his vision of her must never be affected by any hint of pain. The Ayn Rand who showed Hank Rearden flying over Colorado for a month, looking for Dagny Taggart's body, understood love better than that. A proper fairy-tale happy ending is preceded by agony and terror, which make the ultimate joy more compelling. However closely Hardin emulates the superficialities of Rand's style, he has failed to learn some important things from her, both about philosophy and about literary method.

The Citadel gives the impression of a young adult novel, and not only because its protagonist is an adolescent. The characterization is fairly simple, and the conflict is a straightforward struggle of good against evil, without the deeper and more painful conflict between good and good. The sexual content may be too explicit for the young adult market, but otherwise that seems its most natural home. Schroeder's categorization of good and evil seems at least related to a libertarian outlook. However, there's some ground for caution about endorsing it. The mock quotation that opens Chapter 3 discusses John Marshall's doctrine of judicial review as a coup d'etat that subjugated the will of the majority to judicial elitism, and the last chapter has the book's political theorist calling for straight majority rule. But majority rule is at best a halfway point between one-man dictatorship and unanimous consent; applied without restraint it can be another form of totalitarianism, in which "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one." It's also disturbing to find all of Schroeder's good people being Christians or Orthodox Jews, and all of his bad people being secularists; the historic ages of faith were far from libertarian and in many ways were profoundly evil.

Part of The Citadel's goal seems to be political satire; the mid-21st century American president for life is a close, if exaggerated, portrait of Bill Clinton. That sort of satire is usually better taken straight; mixing it into a novel of adventure produces an awkward hybrid now, and in another decade the satiric content will have died and will get in the way of reading the story for other purposes, whether inspiration or simple entertainment. Schroeder's writing would be improved by a sharper focus, either on satire or on romantic adventure. This book may entertain readers who already agree with it, but it's not going to become a classic.