Of all the tributes paid to Robert A. Heinlein in the sad year of his passing, the one that said the most virtually passed unnoticed by the science fiction field. It was a novel, Brightsuit, MacBear, by L. Neil Smith.

Smith wasn’t in the newsletters or monthly magazines where writers might gather to bid farewell to the Dean of Science Fiction. Nobody talked about Rational Anarchy in these publications (although The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was frequently mentioned, minus its ideological content). An upcoming issue of New Libertarian will help correct many oversights.) Heinlein’s impact on libertarians was mentioned in passing, but only for readers who didn’t blink. Because, frankly, the libertarian connection is an embarrassment for most of the “serious-minded” people working to win SF its place in the sun, an artificial sun largely funded by tax dollars.

But Brightsuit, MacBear is a different sort of tribute, a product by a writer who has done more to carry on the sense-of-life, the heroic style that was the sine qua non of Heinlein more than anyone else. We’re not talking a cheap-jack copy, second-hander’s rifling of another’s literary trunk. Smith is very much his own writer—inspired by Heinlein, but saying his own words. For one thing, Smith is a more ideologist writer than was Heinlein. For another, he has completely different sense of humor.

Writer after writer has admitted the debt owed Heinlein, the debt the whole field owes to Heinlein. Yet when L. Neil Smith writes his love letters to the Grand Old Man, in books that say that Heinlein will never die, he is either ignored or called derivative by writers who, several breaths later, tell you how much their style and intentions owe to Heinlein.

Even critics of Heinlein himself, who lambasted the brilliant later books for the crime of putting philosophy center stage, had to admit how important were the series of novels for juveniles. These books are icons. You don’t mess with icons.

Sure there have been lots of science fiction novels written for young adults. That doesn’t make them juvies. There’s a special quality that my friend Bill Ritch describes as “subversion for teenagers.” If it ain’t subversive, it ain’t a juvie.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve met fans who say that their first encounter with the idea that you-can-tell-the-government-to-go-to-hell was in a Heinlein juvie. Nobody else does books like this for young adults—until this book.

The popular elements of a juvie are here. You’ve got a young adult undergoing a rite of passage. You’ve got adventure in a strange world. You’ve got a great cast of aliens. Smith’s best foray in this area since Their Majesties Bucketeers. The book is straightforward with clever ideas sprinkled throughout.

But what of subversion, the necessary spice to lift this adventure in the Tom Paine Maru universe to the exalted heights of uncivic duty? Well, first of all, there’s grandfather figure, Dalmeon Geanar, who is not what you’d expect. Instead of a wise mentor, this guy is a regular son of a bitch. Instead of preparing his grandson to face the tests of the world, he undercuts Berdan at every opportunity—projecting a contradictory universe right out of Elsworth Toohey. After the many positive father figures in Heinlein, this comes as quite a surprise, but it proves an important principle: the Wise Old Man’s advice is where you find it, and not every father figure is a good guy. This book puts you on your toes from the start!

Smith saves his full-scale subversion for wild adventures on the jungle planet, Majesty. Best of all is his satire of conservatism and liberalism in passages worthy of Jonathan Swift. The conservatives have a clanking, cantankerous vehicle; the ungraceful Crankapillar. Their leader is Captain J'Kaimreks. He is sadistic, unclean, perverse and a classic authoritarian, he and his slaves are like parasites in their undulating, insectoid ship. He also is an honest opponent for Berdan and Pemot (Berdan’s cranky lamviin friend—see Majesties for more on these oddly-shaped folk). Once the Captain has made his aggressive intentions known, he is easily dealt with by the heroes—and they in turn are faced with a knottier problems: THE SLAVES DON’T WANT TO BE FREE. The scene is handled very effectively and leads me to conclude that it is a shame that L. Neil Smith wasn’t writing when John W. Campbell, Jr., was in his heyday as an editor. They would have gone great together.

The conservative ship, the Intimidator, is an apt symbol for how conservatism accepts a fundamental tenet of Marxism: namely, that capitalism is inextricably linked to imperialism. (Conservatives accept the equation rather than complain about it.) A more subtle endorsement of imperialism is satirized aboard the elegant craft, the Compassionate, where the Captain-Mother wants to help everyone and everything, whether they like it or not. Here Smith scores his greatest ideological victory. The liberals turn out to be every bit as racist (or species-ist) as the conservatives in their disdain for the planet’s natives, the taflak.

For the teenager reader who perhaps is reading Brightsuit MacBear in the public schools, this is a major heresy. But if an archetypal grandfather figure cannot automatically be trusted, the young adult is better prepared to take the rancid nutrition of public schools with several grains of salt. After all, the flip side of liberal’s “love” is your guilt, as Ayn Rand pointed out so many times.

Brightsuit, MacBear is high romanticism. All the villains get their just desserts, and there are no dull moments. There are more debts to Heinlein in this regard that I’ll leave for the reader to discover because I don’t want to give away the plot. (If you liked the aliens in Star Wars, you’ll have a ball on Majesty.)

Predictably, Smith’s juvie has been pretty much ignored by the SF reviewers, one exception is worse than no review at all. (I refer to an individual who always writes the same review of “Smith” novels, each time lamenting that these are formula books; but as the reviewer is the same every time, the reviewer is doing formula reviews. It doesn’t matter. Smith writes for his readers.

If juveniles educate the reader as they entertain—and I believe they do—then Smith’s message is especially pronounced in Brightsuit MacBear. It explains what we’re up against—we who believe that freedom is something more than words on paper.

Libertarians do not want to take over science fiction. They do not want every book written to pass a test for ideological correctness. They do not want opposition views to be silenced. All they want is a place to call home and an opportunity to make their case. This seems like an outrageous, non-negotiable demand to powerful elements within the publishing establishment. No, these elements aren’t able to silence us; they only manage to make our lives a living hell. If we are not at war with these elements, then libertarianism is nothing, because without courage we are nothing.

Brightsuit, MacBear reminds us of our youth, of those days when we had guts; when we made the decisions that either ruined our lives or gave us a chance to save our souls.