Found on Freedom’s Phoenix
July 23, 2013
Review written by L Neil Smith
Too many years ago to think about comfortably, I made a convention speech in Phoenix entitled “You Can’t Fight a Culture War If You Ain’t Got Any Culture” (and yes, I am aware that it should have been “No Culture”).
Well here’s the news, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, and everybody else in between: the libertarian movement has plenty of culture. Its latest manifestation has arrived in the form of a motion picture version of J. Neil Schulman’s long-beloved novel, Alongside Night, a prophetic story of a revolution brought on by a monetary crisis, the sort of crisis seven billion people are living through today.
It’s also about “Agorism”, an anarcho-capitalistic alternative to organizing human civilizations around the brute initiated force of government.
I suppose a few disclaimers are in order here. The first is that I have known and been friends with “the other Neil” for 34 years, since 1979, when we met at the national Libertarian Party convention at the still-futuristic Los Angeles Bonaventure Hotel, somewhere close to the “there” that Dorothy Parker famously complained there wasn’t any of, there.
His first novel, Alongside Night, had just been published; he was at the convention to promote it. I was there to serve on the national platform committee (little knowing it would be my last such appearance), but my own first novel, The Probability Broach, had been sold and was due to be published in December. We also met F. Paul Wilson (who came to accept the very first Prometheus Award) and Robert Anton Wilson, who was there because quantum entanglement had brought him.
We sat in the concrete-modern hotel lobby and talked for a very long time. In those days, he was skinny and I was fat. I think Schulman was already talking about a movie version of his novel even then. So when I heard, a couple of years ago, that he was doing the job himself, I didn’t know quite what to expect. The next thing I heard was that Kevin Sorbo was starring in it, and I became extremely interested.
Overall, the cast includes a lot of names that are very familiar to most libertarians and TV science fiction fans. First, on my list, anyway, is Sam (Jenkins) Sorbo, Kevin Sorbo’s wife, the lovely creature who played the Golden Hind on Hercules, the Legendary Journeys.
Next, in no particular order: Gary Graham, star of the TV series Alien Nation and the actor who played the Vulcan Ambassador Soval on Star Trek: Enterprise; Garrett Wang and Tim Russ, Ensign Kim and Commander Tuvok, respectively, of Star Trek: Voyager; and Jake Busey, as the President of the United States. We also get glimpses of Adam Kokesh, Ron Paul, Brad Linaweaver, and “King” David Friedman. Schulman himself plays a small but pivotal part.
Special mention to Christian Kramme, a relative newcomer who looks and sounds exactly as I always imagined Eliot Vreeland would look and sound. He also handles an autopistol like he knows what he’s doing.
Read the rest of the review here .
L. Neil Smith is a libertarian science fiction writer. He was the Libertarian Party of Arizona’s candidate for the Presidency in 2000. J. Neil Schulman is also a science fiction writer who is most often associated with Agorism.
J. Neil Shulman also behaved very badly. There were at least two very public, inappropriate and embarrassing outbursts. I don’t know the man (nor do I care to), but I understand he’s prone to this behavior. I’m glad he doesn’t seem to identify as a big ‘L’ Libertarian.
I had the opportunity to watch “Alongside Night” over the weekend at Libertopia. My review: It’s awful, absolutely awful. It was quite boring and several times jumped scenes to where the watcher had no clue where the characters were or what had happened. I’d like to say something positive, but the only thing I can come up with is this: Kevin Sorbo is a nice-looking man who did a decent job of acting.