Rating: 
Summary: Mr. Smith is back in form!
Review: "Pallas" reminds me a great deal of another novel by Mr. Smith that I greatly admired, "The Probability Broach". In that novel he first introduced the concept of citizen's arming themselves and anarchy ruling rather than a government. I will not soon forget the Presidental election in that novel where the entire Country voted -None of the Above- into the Presidental office and it was accepted! "Pallas" has returned to this concept, but through fresh eyes. The author does not assume that we have read his other novels or have heard of his unique ideas of government before (a trait that I noticed in several of his other novels). The story follows a young man who escapes from a socialistic colony and learns to stand on his own two feet in a "wild west" style fronteer town set on the asteriod of Pallas. The future technology descriptions and ideas are logical and very detailed, reminding me somewhat of Robert A. Heinlein's work. While I have many qualms about letting anarchy rule the day, I have to admit that I have been a fan of Mr. Smith's for many years and I hope to see more novels of this caliber (if you will forgive the pun) from him.
Rating: 
Summary: A bit dry, but still a decent read...
Review: I must agree with the Publisher's Weekly reviewer on this one - it reads more like a manifesto in novel guise than a true novel. I love the politics and the ideas behind the story, but I did not enjoy the lack of character depth. Much like the colonies, the characters were black and white - in fact, it reminded me quite a bit of Rand's Atlas Shrugged in that respect. However, if you're not in it for the character development, I certainly recommend it for the contrasting politics.
Rating:
Summary: A bit dry, but still a decent read...
Review: I must agree with the Publisher's Weekly reviewer on this one - it reads more like a manifesto in novel guise than a true novel. I love the politics and the ideas behind the story, but I did not enjoy the lack of character depth. Much like the colonies, the characters were black and white - in fact, it reminded me quite a bit of Rand's Atlas Shrugged in that respect. However, if you're not in it for the character development, I certainly recommend it for the contrasting politics.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful stuff. Anarchy as only Neil can write it!
Review: I read this BEFORE I read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. While this book has some similarities, I think Neil has done a much better job than Heinlein's classic novel when it comes to giving detail about being a "rational anarchist". Pallas is exciting, fun, sarcastic, sad, loving, forgiving, and even a bit preachy, but less overtly than his book "The Probability Broach." I found the story of the life of Emerson Ngu to be one of the most moving things I have ever read. Neil even switches his style of writing towards the last half of the book. Quite honestly, it is probably THE best book I have ever read. If you are closed minded about Anarchy, individual freedoms, guns, cigars, and sex, you won't like this book (and you might want to do a sanity check on yourself)! I would so enjoy living in a world like this!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful stuff. Anarchy as only Neil can write it!
Review: I read this BEFORE I read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. While this book has some similarities, I think Neil has done a much better job than Heinlein's classic novel when it comes to giving detail about being a "rational anarchist". Pallas is exciting, fun, sarcastic, exciting, sad, loving, forgiving, and even a bit preachy, but less overtly than his book "The Probability Broach." I found the story of the life of Emerson Ngu to be one of the most moving things I have ever read. Neil even switches his style of writing towards the last half of the book. Quite honestly, it is probably THE best book I have ever read. If you are closed minded about Anarchy, individual freedoms, guns, cigars, and sex, you won't like this book (and you might want to do a sanity check on yourself)! I would so enjoy living in a world like this!
Rating:
Summary: Pallas and Smith's Message are Long Overdue
Review: In a world where individual freedom is under seige from both sides of an obsolete political spectrum, Pallas and the other works of L. Neil Smith are a godsend. In Pallas, Smith conveys a simple message: Freedom. This freedom has been absent from most of the world throughout human history, and it's about time that we start striving to obtain the free market society that Smith envisions.
Rating:
Summary: Pallas is a MUST read!
Review: In this book, there are two kinds of societies on the colonized asteroid 'Pallas'. 'The Insiders' live in a walled city where no sense of individual identity exists and their lives are heavily regulated by the government. The other society, called 'The Outsiders', have lots of radios, lots of guns, lots of rights, but no government.This book by L. Neil Smith is a must read for freedom-loving people everywhere!An entirely free society resisting authorities from Earth who have gone full-blown socialist.I LOVED IT!
Rating:
Summary: Damn, but I loved it!
Review: L. Neil Smith has done it again: a Libertarian novel that manages to be page-turning entertainment without being dull or preachy. My profound wish is that Mssrs. Clinton, Gore, Schumer, et al would read Pallas--and see themselves as we see them!
Rating: 
Summary: Flaws? Yes, but easily overlooked ones...
Review: L. Neil Smith is famous -- or infamous, depending on your take of the subject -- for his heavy-handed political sermons, even to the point where the sermons seem entirely detached from the story he is trying to tell._Pallas_, fortunately, is mostly free of irrelevant libertarian proselytizing (Smith's politics are still evident, but they are worked into the story skillfully and in a way that makes sense), and it becomes wonderfully clear that when Smith just sets out to tell a story, he really does a pretty damn good job. This book does contain flaws, however, which keep it at 4 stars instead of 5 -- Smith, for one thing, is remarkably poor at painting his characters in shades of gray. He seems to make some gamely attempts to do so throughout the book, but for all that, his characters either fall solidly in the "good" or "evil" camps. Related to this is another serious problem with this book (and Smith's writing in general, actually): his characters are simply not fleshed out very well, and it makes it hard to empathize with them. Smith's style of characterization is essentially to take some odd trait, attach the trait to a name, then pass it off for a character. This is why, in my opinion, his supporting characters especially come across as caricatures, which detracts somewhat from the story. However, in spite of these problems (and others), I found myself liking _Pallas_ a great deal. Whatever his flaws in characerization, Smith is a remarkable wordsmith, and some of the concepts introduced in this book, regardless of their real-life feasibility, are fascinating. _Pallas_ is an enjoyable read with flaws that are easily overlooked while being carried along by Smith's skilled, and at times captivating, prose.
Rating: 
Summary: There's good SF, there's bad SF, and there's Libertarian SF
Review: L. Neil Smith is similar to Robert Heinlein, in much the same way that a fish taco is similar to the Great Wall of China. Heinlein wrote novels, even going so far as to include archaic distractions such as plot and characters. There is no way of identifying "Pallas" as a novel, since the entire thing is one long lecture on the virtues of toting weapons and murdering anybody who's different from L. Neil Smith. This would be distressing enough, even without the fact that L. Neil Smith is insane. But he is, and things get ugly.
The book features somebody (I hesitate to say a character) named "Emerson Ngu" (Emerson Ngu?), who heroically escapes from a Stalinist commune run by "Gibson Altman" (Gibson Altman? And didn't Stalin kick the bucket in 1954?) Since anyone who isn't an utter moron could figure out the ending of the book without bothering to read it, I won't bother explaining it. The important point is that the book does not really contain anything other that Mr. Ngu lecturing on the virtues of libertarianism. So in short, if you're one of the college-aged losers who has sexual fantasies involving Ayn Rand and uses the word hardcore to describe Ludwig von Mises, then you might as well read this slop heap since you have nothing better to do with your miserable life. But if you're a normal person wondering whether there's any entertainment to be had in "Pallas", the answer is: NO. Mr. Smith truly is insane; I'm not just saying that. To give you some idea what you're up against, consider that in a recent column Smith accused George W. Bush of collaborating with Osama bin Laden.
But the point of the book is really this. What are Gibson Altman's traits? Well, he's an exile who's on the fringes of society, he sucks off the hard work of others, he spends his days reciting nonsensical political junk that no one else believes, and he knows that he has no future. In other words, he's a perfect duplicate of the college-aged Libertarians who sit around schmoozing off their parents' money while knowing that no one in the real world will ever care about their moronic "philosophy". Libertarianism is just a glurge fantasy about how the rest of us will eventually be dragged down by our own supposedly corrupt and decadent society. But of course that fantasy will forever remain a fantasy, nothing more. To truly understand how Smith and his ilk maintain such fanatic support among their microscopic fan club, what you truly need to understand is that these people are self-loathing. It's no surprise that they enjoy seeing Smith repeatedly kick their own mirror image.
L. Neil Smith is like Robert Heinlein in one way at least; they both represent extremes in their approach to human existence. About one of his greatest characters, Heinlein once said, "Lazarus Long is so in love with life that he refused to stop living it." The same could be said of Heinlein himself, whose soul lives on in his still-popular books though his body may have failed him. Heinlein loved life, loved himself, loved others, loved science, loved art, loved love, loved sex, and he poured his love for all those things into his books. Smith, on the other hand, hates everyone else almost as much as he hates himself. His hatred for the human race is so strong that he'd gladly wipe it out just to stop other people from getting the enjoyment of life that he's denied to himself. And the purpose of his fiction is to let himself slaughter off his enemies, which is virtually everyone, time and time again without giving them a chance to fight back. I used to be offended by junk like this, but "Pallas" is so pathetic that it isn't worth my while to be offended. I used to think that Terry Brooks was the worst author of all times. Congratulations, Mr. Brooks. Against all odds, and in defiance of smug predictions by so-called experts who insisted it was impossible, you've just reached number two.
|
