Аннотация

Introduction
ABOUT L. NEIL SMITH’S THE PROBABILITY BROACH BY
ANDREA MILLEN RICH

You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not of sight nor of sound but of ideas and, yes, imagination.

Imagine a world—like our own, only more so—in which the American Revolution was never quite consummated, in which the bright promise of freedom gradually faded, gradually died. Imagine an America swamped by rules and regulations and taxes, an America marred by blighted hopes and ravaged lives. Imagine rationing: The dole (and Dole). And gun control. Imagine, if you will, a kind of universal slavery accepted and imposed by an almost-unanimous consent.

Now project a different world, built on a different principle: a world in which President George Washington was slain as a traitor to his country for trying to impose new taxes … in which the so-called Whiskey Rebellion was a success … the Constitution was scuttled as too Draconian … and, because the Declaration of Independence has a single extra word in it, the State has virtually withered away.

All of which makes possible a much richer, much more liberated kind of place—the society and world of the Confederacy—where, for starters, everybody’s got a gun (including the talking chimps).

You’ll learn how it all happened when you follow Detective Win Bear on his journey through the Probability Broach, a journey propelled by murder and mayhem and which, in the end, is destined to jostle more than one hard-lost misconception.

All of which is to say that L. Neil Smith’s first novel, now happily back in print, is one helluva read. It’s a hard-boiled, chatty, slam-bang philosophical adventure that looks and feels like a fusion of Raymond Chandler, Robert Heinlein, and Ayn Rand (that’s President Ayn Rand, this side of the Broach). But Smith’s voice is fresh, no mere expression of influences. The rambunctiousness that makes this transdimensional trek so charming and fun is his alone.

Are there some heavy ideas here? Yes. Do they wend their way into the dialogue? Sure. Do they clog and burden the narrative? Nope. Unlike some libertarian bards, Smith knows how to make his plot depend on ideological conflict, and he keeps the pace chugging and the reader’s interest engaged. A pivotal scene—you’ll know it when you get there—concerns the psychological and moral issues surrounding the right to bear arms. But it’s no dry ideological exchange. Not by a long shot.

A lot has happened since December of 1979, when The Probability Broach first saw print. The Reagan Revolution has come, and gone, and come back. The microchip has helped pump life into a creaky economy. The Soviet Union has cracked up, along with certain other ideological constructs; what will replace them is unclear. Hope alternates with despair on the seesaw that is the evening news. Rush Limbaugh alternates with Howard Stern on the radio. In this world, the battle of the “Jeffersonians” against the “Hamiltonians” is still far from won—but maybe, just maybe, the Jeffersonians are gaining an edge.

In the world beyond the Broach, the battle has been won. How a small, bitter, power-lusting remnant of Hamiltonianism threatens to blow that victory to smithereens is the tale that awaits you.

Whatever your own views, listen to what Smith’s heroes and heroines have to say. Admire them for their independence, their pluck, their frontier spirit, their feckless cornball humor. And, what the heck, you may as well appreciate the plight of small-time losers like Tricky Dick Milhous and the adenoidal Buckley F. Williams, Jr., while you’re at it.

Above all, have fun.
Now … fasten your seat belt …
It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

ANDREA MILLEN RICH,
President of Laissez Faire Books