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North American Confederacy #7
The American Zone
In the North American Confederacy . . .
People are free--really free. Free to do as they please, whether it be starting a business, running for elected office, or taking target practice in the back forty. There's not a whole lot of government, nor is there a lot of crime, because everyone who wants to carries a gun, and isn't afraid to use it.
But someone has bombed the Endicott Building, killing hundreds of people, and Win Bear, the only licensed detective in the confederacy, has to find out who did this dastardly deed, and why. Because whoever did it has already shown their willingness to commit more terrorist acts, no matter how many people are hurt.
And that can't go on, or soon the confederacy will be just as the bad old United States--and that is something they want to avoid at all costs.
People are free--really free. Free to do as they please, whether it be starting a business, running for elected office, or taking target practice in the back forty. There's not a whole lot of government, nor is there a lot of crime, because everyone who wants to carries a gun, and isn't afraid to use it.
But someone has bombed the Endicott Building, killing hundreds of people, and Win Bear, the only licensed detective in the confederacy, has to find out who did this dastardly deed, and why. Because whoever did it has already shown their willingness to commit more terrorist acts, no matter how many people are hurt.
And that can't go on, or soon the confederacy will be just as the bad old United States--and that is something they want to avoid at all costs.
352 pages, Paperback
First published November 14, 2001
4 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
L. Neil Smith
39 books69 followersL. Neil Smith was a Libertarian science fiction author and gun rights activist.Smith was born in Denver, Colorado.
Smith began publishing science fiction with “Grimm’s Law” for Stellar 5 (1980). He wrote 31 books, including 29 novels, and a number of essays and short stories. In 2016, Smith received the Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement for his contributions to libertarian science fiction.
He was editor of LEVER ACTION BBS [now defunct], founder and International Coordinator of the Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus, Secretary and Legislative Director of the Weld County Fish & Wildlife Association and an NRA Life Member.
Smith passed away on August 27, 2021 in Fort Collins, Colorado at age 75 after a lengthy battle with heart and kidney disease. Smith is survived by daughter Rylla Smith and wife Cathy Smith.
Smith began publishing science fiction with “Grimm’s Law” for Stellar 5 (1980). He wrote 31 books, including 29 novels, and a number of essays and short stories. In 2016, Smith received the Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement for his contributions to libertarian science fiction.
He was editor of LEVER ACTION BBS [now defunct], founder and International Coordinator of the Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus, Secretary and Legislative Director of the Weld County Fish & Wildlife Association and an NRA Life Member.
Smith passed away on August 27, 2021 in Fort Collins, Colorado at age 75 after a lengthy battle with heart and kidney disease. Smith is survived by daughter Rylla Smith and wife Cathy Smith.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 22, 2008
Award winning libertarian science fiction. Parallel histories, one of which evolved from different post-1776 events into utopian libertarian society. Now immigrants from various alternate Earths are causing problems for the North American Confederacy, and Win Bear & company are on the case. This sequel to "The Probability Broach" is also a thought-provoking & entertaining look at possibilities.
May 14, 2012
Loved it. Is it possible for a sequel to be better than the original? There were so many great quotes in here, I really wish I had read it with a notepad at my side. I love how one of the ancillary characters was named Suprynowicz. I watched carefully to see if the first name was Vin, but the author played that one very cagily.
September 26, 2013
In another romp through the North American Confederacy (coincidentally written BEFORE the destruction of the WTC), Win Bear shows us how terrorism would be handled in a society that's truly based on individual liberty, rather than on the mythology of liberty we have in the real world. Warts and all, I would much rather live in the NAC than in any nation-state that exists in the real world.
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August 12, 2017I had read this story a while back and deciding to reread in now was an interesting experience. Some of the issues that come up in the story such as terrorism and immigration are right up front in the news these days and makes the book more timely.
October 17, 2021
Started a bit slow, but, this turned into a fine follow-up to "The Probability Broach."
The "Fish out of water" concept is done very well, what with the Confederacy, due to its structure, not really needing a PI, until they do.
The "Fish out of water" concept is done very well, what with the Confederacy, due to its structure, not really needing a PI, until they do.
October 29, 2023
I finished the sequel to this one, "The American Zone" (2001). The plot is that they've figured out how to deliberately open broaches to other parallel dimensions and people are moving between them. Statist types are turning up in the Ancapistan type world and trying to bring it down. Win Bear is once again the guy trying to stop the conspirators with help from his friends.
This one seemed a little less focused on being a hard-boiled detective novel satire. It still was peppered with subtle witticisms, many of which I'm sure I didn't even notice as they went over my head. There was a TON of references to people looking like some celebrity or another from the 1940s-60s, many of whom I didn't know what they looked like and so the reference was lost on me.
The sequel is very readable and might be a little more straightforward than the original, with fewer and less-confusing plot twists. This actually kind of suits both books, since the first one is about a guy who unexpectedly gets thrown into another dimension and is completely disoriented at first and spends the rest of the story trying to figure his new environment out. The next book takes place 9 years later and the protagonist is more established in his new life and can more easily follow what's going on.
An interesting thing that occurred to me about both books is that, for all of the gun stuff in them, the only types of firearms that appear in the books are handguns (there's a MAC-11 and a Vz.61 Skorpion at various times, both of which could generously be called "machine pistols"; I'll leave it to you to decide if those are exceptions) with no long guns at all. Perhaps this is a reflection of the times that Smith was writing in, the 80s and 90s, when the type of martial firearm that Americans were most interested in was the handgun? Kind of an interesting contrast to today where ARs are the hotness.
A theme in the book is mass-casualty terror attacks and the book was published in December of 2001. I wonder when the writing actually started and if 9/11 influenced the plot? It seems like it would have been written long before that if that's the publication date though. Supporting this theory, the book takes place in 1996, so I'd guess that's when Smith began writing the sequel.
I recommend both books for being interesting and funny and for being very fast reads. I now want to check out more of Smith's work, even if it's not in the same series.
This one seemed a little less focused on being a hard-boiled detective novel satire. It still was peppered with subtle witticisms, many of which I'm sure I didn't even notice as they went over my head. There was a TON of references to people looking like some celebrity or another from the 1940s-60s, many of whom I didn't know what they looked like and so the reference was lost on me.
The sequel is very readable and might be a little more straightforward than the original, with fewer and less-confusing plot twists. This actually kind of suits both books, since the first one is about a guy who unexpectedly gets thrown into another dimension and is completely disoriented at first and spends the rest of the story trying to figure his new environment out. The next book takes place 9 years later and the protagonist is more established in his new life and can more easily follow what's going on.
An interesting thing that occurred to me about both books is that, for all of the gun stuff in them, the only types of firearms that appear in the books are handguns (there's a MAC-11 and a Vz.61 Skorpion at various times, both of which could generously be called "machine pistols"; I'll leave it to you to decide if those are exceptions) with no long guns at all. Perhaps this is a reflection of the times that Smith was writing in, the 80s and 90s, when the type of martial firearm that Americans were most interested in was the handgun? Kind of an interesting contrast to today where ARs are the hotness.
A theme in the book is mass-casualty terror attacks and the book was published in December of 2001. I wonder when the writing actually started and if 9/11 influenced the plot? It seems like it would have been written long before that if that's the publication date though. Supporting this theory, the book takes place in 1996, so I'd guess that's when Smith began writing the sequel.
I recommend both books for being interesting and funny and for being very fast reads. I now want to check out more of Smith's work, even if it's not in the same series.
June 3, 2025
Another Libertarian Utopian fantasy by the late L. Neil Smith. He was a gun enthusiast and dedicated Libertarian and those interests/pursuits figured heavily in all of his writings. Billed as a direct sequel to his first novel "The Probability Broach" (1979) it continues with the further adventures of Win Bear in the North American Confederacy. Readable enough, but unlike TPB this one is rather smug and puckish instead of earnest and straight forward. Smith was not interested in writing stories with any type of layering and there was no place for the color grey. His way was the right way and any political/economic beliefs that did not fall within the Libertarian world was not only wrong, but just idiotic. You have to give him credit for being confident. He decided where he stood when he was a young man and he never lost the faith.
This is a problem when it comes to this novel though. Like TPB Smith wrote a glorified political tract but without the charm and earnestness that his younger self imparted to his debut novel. This the work of a middle-aged man certain of the rightness and the superiority of his cause and he will allow no dissension. Not terrible but also not very complex. Libertarian propaganda.
This is a problem when it comes to this novel though. Like TPB Smith wrote a glorified political tract but without the charm and earnestness that his younger self imparted to his debut novel. This the work of a middle-aged man certain of the rightness and the superiority of his cause and he will allow no dissension. Not terrible but also not very complex. Libertarian propaganda.
July 1, 2023
Author L. Neil Smith became one of my literary heroes the instant I read his first novel, "The Probability Broach." It presented, in an exciting novel, all the concepts and precepts of human rights and individual liberty I believed in -- and still do! -- in a fictional form that was entertaining as well as instructional.
L. Neil's writing style just got better and better -- most of the time. (He had a vocabulary bigger than the dictionary and sometimes he did use too many words -- an understandable, and minor, flaw, I guess.)
As I've said in other reviews, L. Neil was so well-read and knowledgeable, he could over-awe near-hermits like myself who simply don't have the knowledge of popular culture he had. Therefore, some of the references went and go over our heads.
But that just means we can re-read and re-re-read his books and get fresh insight each time.
Yes, first we read L. Neil Smith's books for the philosophy, the ideas, the support of human rights and individual liberty, but we also read for his enjoyable style, his frequent tongue-in-cheek references.
Though Neil and I talked often on the phone, and e-mailed back and forth a lot, we never met. Still, I miss him every day. Selfishly: We need, we desperately need, thinkers and writers to help us spread the message of freedom.
We can, though, continue to be grateful we have what Schopenhauer called "that paper memory of mankind," books, plus Neil's powerful essays are also available on the Internet.
His influence remains. And we are grateful.
L. Neil's writing style just got better and better -- most of the time. (He had a vocabulary bigger than the dictionary and sometimes he did use too many words -- an understandable, and minor, flaw, I guess.)
As I've said in other reviews, L. Neil was so well-read and knowledgeable, he could over-awe near-hermits like myself who simply don't have the knowledge of popular culture he had. Therefore, some of the references went and go over our heads.
But that just means we can re-read and re-re-read his books and get fresh insight each time.
Yes, first we read L. Neil Smith's books for the philosophy, the ideas, the support of human rights and individual liberty, but we also read for his enjoyable style, his frequent tongue-in-cheek references.
Though Neil and I talked often on the phone, and e-mailed back and forth a lot, we never met. Still, I miss him every day. Selfishly: We need, we desperately need, thinkers and writers to help us spread the message of freedom.
We can, though, continue to be grateful we have what Schopenhauer called "that paper memory of mankind," books, plus Neil's powerful essays are also available on the Internet.
His influence remains. And we are grateful.
September 18, 2008
GREAT ideas, well presented. A little obnoxiously preachy. Also, the last book (Promethius Broach) spent most of it's time skewering liberal authoritarians, socialists. This gives lots of ammunition, as the world is full of genuinely evil examples of this (Stalin, Pol Pot, Lenin, Hitler, Castro), and there are lots of real examples of policies to skewer.
This time it comes across like he's trying to be "fair" and go after the conservative authoritarians - which he chooses Bill Bennett and William F. Buckley as examples/villains... Sorry, just not as believable or as scary.
Also, he has some type of vendetta, common among libertarians, against Christianity, which he holds accountable for the stupid actions of many Catholic and Protestant people who are frequently acting outside the bounds of their faith.
Despite the failings, still plenty of good ideas, just a lot less fun than the first time, and not nearly as much alternative history. Great sci fi and speculative fiction, tho.
This time it comes across like he's trying to be "fair" and go after the conservative authoritarians - which he chooses Bill Bennett and William F. Buckley as examples/villains... Sorry, just not as believable or as scary.
Also, he has some type of vendetta, common among libertarians, against Christianity, which he holds accountable for the stupid actions of many Catholic and Protestant people who are frequently acting outside the bounds of their faith.
Despite the failings, still plenty of good ideas, just a lot less fun than the first time, and not nearly as much alternative history. Great sci fi and speculative fiction, tho.
Want to read
November 21, 2008TBR
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews