Being a Libertarian, a classical liberal or a political individualist is about imagination. It’s about imagining alternatives to the way we live today and these alternatives are often as foreign and impossible as living on Mars. The focus on imagination in our politics differentiates us from most political tendencies whose adherents seek incremental changes of leadership and direction rather than changes in how we live. For this reason, we’re more liable to be understood by the scientist or science fiction fan than we are by the Democrat or Republican and it’s for this reason that political individualism has always thrived and found inspiration in science fiction novels.

Robert Heinlein – and maybe Robert Anton Wilson or J. Neil Schulman if you’ve really done your homework – defined libertarianism for a lot of people in the second half of the 20^th century. But the influence of science fiction authors over the libertarian movement isn’t surprising because they – like us – imagine new ways of life. Heinlein was probably most explicit in imagining new ways of life without government but this proto-libertarian strain runs through a lot of science fiction and can be found in the work of the most mainstream author from Harry Turtledove to Terry Pratchett.

But even though it’s not uncommon to encounter a whiff of libertarianism in science fiction, it is rare that one reads a science fiction novel that both advances science fiction and promises to advance our understanding of personal liberty. Rare though it may be, this is the case in Ken MacLeod’s 1995 masterwork “The Star Fraction.” A maelstrom of delightfully radical ideologies, the world of “The Star Fraction” is centered on a fractured England where hundreds of microstates rule territory once unified under a republican government. This environment of ideological ferment was the most enjoyable part of the book because it took modern ideologies and stretched them to their logical limits. The environmentalists have their society, the anarchists have their territory and MacLeod even fleshes out a fundamentalist Christian microstate replete with theocratic dictatorship and banned books.

This ability to realistically portray unreal – at least to the early 21^st century reader – societies is but a part of MacLeod’s ability to capture extreme possibilities in detailed, realistic prose. For instance, my favorite possibility portrayed in “The Star Fraction” was the existence of competing defense agencies. A pet subject for anarcho-capitalists since the 19^th century, the idea of competing defense agencies replacing national militaries fascinates me and MacLeod depicts this possibility in a way that makes it seem natural at the same time it explores the system’s logical strengths and weaknesses. MacLeod demonstrates this same skill of seamless description in the hard science aspects of his novel where he tackles virtual reality, artificial intelligence and smart drugs. Most importantly, MacLeod tackles all of these hard science possibilities in an accessible, fast-paced and entertaining fashion making his voice one of the most enjoyable of all the hard science fiction authors I’ve encountered.

All these aspects of “The Star Fraction” combine to make it an ideologically provocative example of science fiction that is bound to make individuals of every political persuasion think. Indeed, MacLeod’s version of the near future had me thinking about my politics – and their feasibility – the entire time I was reading. It’s this provocative nature of the novel that makes it valuable to libertarians and individualists who have so often seen their best ideas developed or expanded in popular fiction. What’s so special about “The Star Fraction” is that MacLeod combines this value with a fast-pace narrative and tight style of prose. For all these reasons, MacLeod’s “The Star Fraction” is a novel I can recommend without reservation.

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