This is a genuinely unique and bizarre combination of collaborative novel, blog/wiki, (not-necessarily-M)MORPG, attempted futurism and libertarian-u/dystopian screed. And lest you think anyone who could dream up such a thing, much less sit down and make it happen, might lack a sense of humor, note how the moderator/progenitor sums up the philosophy behind most of the people involved in the endeavor so far: “Government bad, guns good…”
Quality is about what you’d expect given all that baggage, but utilizing the conceit (brilliant in this context) of making each of the “characters” (contributors) post blog-style, “in their own words,” any roughness manages to come across as better than pure camp and no worse than the baseline adolescent fantasism that permeates trash sci-fi through the work of hacks like Timothy Zahn and his ilk. Which I would say makes the experiment a complete success. Bravo, guys!
(Thanks, Dad!)
Hi Dick, I am Bill Bartlett on the Colony Alchibah site and I agree with you on almost all counts. But we’re working on it! The premise of a collaborative libertarian SF novel was too much for me to resist signing up, All the Colonists are learning as we go along about how this format will really work.
Guns good Government bad wasn’t the original concept it just seemed to work out that way so far, Chapter 4, coming out around July 4th, should get us into different stuff. We are looking for some Colonists of a Liberal bent, to join the discussion. Where else can you be involved with an internet first? Go to Colony site for details. Maybe you Dick? We need a recruiter.
Any way Nice Review. Thanks Dad!
Best William Bartlett
Hi Likewise,
I am Andy Stuart on Alchibah.
My question with the story line is when do we put down the guns and build a civilization.
“Guns Good current Goverment Bad” began around 1776 as I recall.
We just demanded that it still be real!
Thanks for the review!