Liberty's Daughter

by Naomi Kritzer

Beck Garrison lives on a seastead — an archipelago of constructed platforms and old cruise ships, assembled by libertarian separatists a generation ago. She's grown up comfortable and sheltered, but starts doing odd jobs for pocket money.

To her surprise, she finds that she's the only detective that a debt slave can afford to hire to track down the woman's missing sister. When she tackles this investigation, she learns things about life on the other side of the waterline — not to mention about herself and her father — that she did not expect. And that some people will stop at nothing to keep her from talking about . . .

Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Dystopia

261 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 21, 2023

Reviews

[Diana Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have enjoyed other books by this author, and Liberty's Daughter was no exception. The first half was truly exceptional and I would give it a full five stars. The world building was spot on, as was the plot development. About halfway through, the story changed directions and I felt it became less convincing. I still enjoyed reading it, but the new crisis seemed farfetched, and the main character grew too super-powered in her ability to fix things. I would give the second half of the book three stars. So, on average, my rating is four stars. This rating also fits with the high quality of the writing, combined an unfortunate abundance of typos. The publisher REALLY needs to improve their proofreading. A shame, when the book itself is so good. Wonderful concept, stellar beginning, and overall an engaging read.

*Update - November 2025* As this author's recent work (near future speculative) has been really good, I've been keeping track of her upcoming releases. She's got a novella due from Tor in June 2026 Obstetrix that sounds really intriguing.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good female-perspective remix of a Heinlein juvenile. It's choppy and doesn't always make sense: the book started out as a series of short stories, published at F&SF 2012-2015: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?...
The book isn't a straight fix-up novel: Kritzer has done quite a bit of rewriting of the original stories, and (as you know, Bob) she's a first-rate writer. I read some of the shorts back in the day, and was looking forward to reading the novel. It's not quite as good as I hoped, but definitely worth reading. Cautiously recommended: my rating is 3.5 stars, and I'm still wobbling, as I type this, whether to round up or down.

The review here that's closest to my reaction is by my GR friend Tim Hicks:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Read his review first!

And here is the author, making the case for her book over at Scalzi's:
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2023/11/2...
Good stuff. Note the Kindle edition is currently $6.

Also worth reading: the novel's nomination for the 2023 Prometheus Award. Interesting stuff:
https://www.lfs.org/blog/review-the-p...

[X · Rating 4 out of 5]

Timely, interesting, charmingly unputdownable YA - I highly recommend.

I picked this book up on the discount rack at a bookstore in my hometown while on vacation - I had just read a short story by Kritzer and when I saw her name on the spine of this book I couldn’t NOT buy it. But I knew nothing about it going in. Pretty much instantly I realized it was YA, and the reading experience helped me understand why I generally avoid YA and yet why I loved this book. It’s because it’s not “YA”, i.e., a book with a teenage protagonist and a certain set of highly cliché tropes that is marketed to an audience of “YA readers,” it’s *actually* YA - a book written for an audience of young adults, about their experiences and concerns and perspectives, and with (a) the kind of sci fi dystopia adventure plot I BURNED through in middle school, but also (b) the kind of emotional/story arc that is eminently relatable to the actual lives of young adults - how do you navigate your relationship with your parents when they’re either neglectful, or trying their best to be in your life now when they weren’t before… and also you’re a teenager and they’re your parents? The way that Beck has to figure out how to respond to massive choices that her parents make that affect her, the heartbreak and growth that comes from figuring that out - that’s the YA experience.

I could keep gushing about this book for a while - it’s honestly the best YA I’ve read in years.

This book doesn’t pull its punches in depicting the seastead, which is to say, it shows you that it’s exactly the stupid dangerous corrupt terrible unnecessary place you’d think it would be… but for a kid who has never known anywhere else, it’s still home. It’s still filled with all the people they love, and they’re still going to fight for it to be okay.

It’s interesting to me how SF dystopia for adult or general audiences focuses on oppression of adults, or people in general. The way that children are oppressed or marginalized by their parents’ or other adults’ choices is a topic that, outside of some children’s/YA lit (see the Rebecca Fraimow/Emily Tesh podcast on Diana Wynne Jones - they discuss how this was a common theme for DWJ), is rarely acknowledged in SF. Or in the world in general, frankly! And this book is really compelling (unfortunately timely) food for thought on this topic.

[Littleblackcart · Rating 3 out of 5]

hmmm. A book that requires a different scoring system than the flat one of "how many stars".

This is a young adult dystopia adventure novel (almost more a series of connected short stories) mostly taken up with describing the various parts of a society based on anarcho-capitalist tenets (I hate ceding any version of the label anarchist to this group, but they have so far won that jargon battle).

I was surprised by the take-away at the conclusion (or the concluding chapters), as it was both more actually anarchist and also less simplistic, than I had expected. Kritzer's prose is lean and straight-forward in a way that worked for me. I think she could've done more with all her characters as none of them were particularly complex, but that did make it more of a fun read than it would've been otherwise. And is also why both "young adult" and "adventure" are in the first line here.

[Beth Cato · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this young adult work as part of the Nebula Award/Norton packet. I found it to be a breezy, intense read, genuinely interesting from page one. I think my only issue was that it was clear that different segments were published separately, as the sections still felt somewhat disjointed. A fabulous work, though. I've really enjoyed everything I've read by Kritzer.

[Teleseparatist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely, surprisingly warm coming-of-age near-future science-fiction novel about the teen daughter of a libertarian big-shot on a semi-lawless seastead, having adventures and learning to question everything. Honestly, the charm and joy this had was that of a five-star read, I just wish the editing was a little more thorough and the plot and world were more fleshed-out - I feel like there could have, should have been more connective tissue and some obvious but unmentioned or barely acknowledged problems of the seastead could have been brought up in a story of greater length.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting mash-up of stories set on a libertarian seastead. Actually quite insightful given these were written over the last decade, they really nail the what these places are likely to be like.

[katayoun Masoodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

liked this and all these different stories on the seastead though can't say i liked the part where she went to california, especially since it was the end, felt flat and incomplete and beck did not like the strong girl she was at first. it felt like the covid was done, the author had things to do and was bored witht the whole main character and the world though agree that the last chapters were kind of a let down. still the writing was very good, if different stories a bit disjointed and not definitely felt like different short stories and not one book. again good that the stories were short, sad that you couldn't see much of the characters.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this! It is apparently from a series of shorter stories, so there's some repetition between sections and it's a bit episodic, but there are story threads that run through the whole thing as well. I loved the main character and how she learned and approached the challenges she was faced with. Definitely recommend for folks who enjoyed Kritzer's CatNet books.

[Kaia · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up. I really enjoyed this. Naomi Kritzer is definitely becoming a favorite author for me.

[Yev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rebecca Garrison, 16 years old, has lived in New Minerva since her father brought her to the seastead when she was 4. The seastead is located 220 nautical miles west of Los Angeles and was founded 49 years ago. It's an assortment of man-made islands, platforms, ships, freighters, and other vessels. Each collection of these is considered their own country with their own set of laws. What they share in common is a libertarian ideology, ranging from literally anything is allowed to minimal statism. Everyone has to buy a stake to become a citizen, otherwise they're a guest worker and probably soon to be literally sold into conditions little better than slavery. There's no public infrastructure or government services almost anywhere. A significant part of the economy works on the barter system, which is where Beck has found her niche as a finder. She trades favors and items and helps out at the miscellany store. This takes her all over the seastead, which eventually leads to her becoming more involved in its darker sides. Everything that happens here may be normal to her, but that doesn't mean it's ethical. She knows the majority of adults are criminals fleeing punishment, especially the wealthy ones, but she has no idea about why the seastead is allowed to continue existing or that there are secrets here that could change the world.

6 of the stories that make up this novel were serialized in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction from 2012-2015, which is where I read them. The seventh story, the epilogue, has only been published here. I enjoyed them both then and now. I was somewhat disappointed that there's only about an additional 2% in terms of word count added to the first 6 stories. When I did a text comparison I saw the scenes that were added, which surprisingly weren't to better connect the stories together. There wasn't as much reworking of what already existed as I hoped for, as it was mostly word choice and sentence level changes. Two examples are that the seastead's population went from 22,000 to 80,000 and one minor character's name was changed from Kat to Jen. What I had in mind would've made it an easy 5 stars for me, and probably significantly better for others reading it here for the first time. I'm strongly biased towards liking this because it's the sort of near future daily life adventures in a speculative society that I especially enjoy.

What I found most interesting in reading these stories again was how much the context had changed in only ten years or so. Interest in seasteading seems to have vanished relative to charter cities, the covid pandemic happened and changed how I viewed mass outbreaks in illness and how people react to them. Part of this book probably comes off as much more conspiratorial than it was at the time if only because Kritzer wrote what some of the paranoid and reasonable fears were ahead of their manifestation.

Rating: 4.5/5

[Celeste Haehnel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a rather simple, YA story that could essentially be treated as a set of short and interconnected stories. The four stars are because I enjoyed it immensely, not because I thought it was particularly unique or wondrous.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Liberty’s Daughter” is the newly released novel by Naomi Kritzer, who is probably best known for her excellent short stories. Many of these have been collected into her noteworthy anthology, “Cat Pictures Please.” She’s also written a duo of young adult books.

“Liberty’s Daughter” takes the reader to a gritty near future world where libertarians and others have established a sea stead in the Pacific Ocean. This community consists of a number of decommissioned ships, platforms, and other structures all gathered together. These have differing levels of rules of law, from none to few. This loose confederation of inhabited structures was founded by rich individuals who wanted to escape from the heavy hand of governments, and live as they wished. Others come here to escape the law, or to start over where their past doesn’t matter. The only thing that does matter is wealth, which more or less equals power.

Beck (short for Rebecca) is the titular daughter of the sea stead, she’s lived here with her father since she was four. She’s now 16, and works as a finder. She seeks out items or services that people want or need in the limited environment of the ‘stead. She has just been commissioned to find a person, a sister of a bond-worker who has vanished. This journey leads her into the grim reality of the lower-class laborers who are exploited by some of the more powerful residents of the stead. These workers are beginning to organize, and this is a terrible thing to many in power.

Overall, I found the novel compelling. It’s an exploration of the darker underside of a libertarian society. Beck seems pivotally involved in the events of a transformative time in the history of her society, and this is a point at which I sometimes was taken slightly out of the story. However, with a little suspension of disbelief, I was able to continue my enjoyment of the novel. The vision of this near-future society isn’t utopian, and tends to the darker aspects of human nature. However, the overall narrative is positive, and Beck’s story turns out well in the end. I’d recommend this novel as a very different and interesting read, that explores a novel setting. Good science fiction explores the “what if” questions in settings that are logical extensions of the ramifications of possibilities. This is exactly that, and it does a good job of exploring its questions.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is about half social experiment, half biological thriller. Beck, our 16-year-old narrator, is the daughter of one of the powerful men on the seastead located 230 nautical miles off the California coast (so it's in international waters). There are half a dozen separate parts of the seastead, each with its different rules, from the libertarian Lib to the unconnected-to-the-others Sal, where there are mysterious labs.

With a 16-year-old narrator who is in the custody of her domineering father, this could be read as a YA book although its not being marketed that way. But it follows the arc of a young person who exerts her independence and agency where she never did before, to foil nefarious plans of the adults.

This is a fast-paced book that nevertheless has interesting social elements on how people build community in the absence of an overweening government. It deals with issues of security and protection, where the social safety net is not really existent. It's quite well done.

My only real objection is that the bad guys tend to be manipulative, abusive and possibly murderous fathers. This also occurred in Kritzer's previous book “Catfishing on Catnet”, which was more obviously YA but had similar perils for youngsters. I know horrible and abusive fathers are out there, but it would be nice to see a counterpoint in a loving and supportive father who is believable.

[Maryanne]

Not a wasted word which seems to a rare commodity in most books I’ve picked up lately.

[Firstname Lastname · Rating 5 out of 5]

So very satisfying

This is very well written. Foreshadowing done skilfully, extra twist completely unexpected, 3-d characters, believable mid-teen POV. Kritzer always spins a good tale, this one is particularly fine.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recent Reads: Liberty's Daughter. Naomi Kritzer's seastead novel explores the downside of unregulated living in a libertarian exclave in the Pacific. Teenager Beck Garrison makes a living finding things for people, only to uncover the dark underneath. The ones who built Omelas.

[Penn Hackney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought for $6.35 on 11/19/23 to read for the Second Foundation Group discussion on 4/28/24, after reading Kritzer’s delightful catnet stories, one of which won an the 2020 Edgar Award for best YA novel. Gonna read her first novel, Fires of the Faithful, next.

Parts:
1. Missing
2. High Stakes
3. Solidarity
4. Outbreak
5. Jubilee
6. Behind the Silicon Curtain
7. California Dreaming

Forty-nine years after founding the seasteads. Great world-building: clever, imaginative, and elaborate. Includes political intrigue and sweet-boiled detective genres. Maybe too much, though, with labor activism, a nanotech virus (contagious, of course), pandemic quarantine, and even a suggestion of romance. Plus contemporary issues of the pandemic, like contagion, vaccines, anti-vaxxers,

Sweet characters and delicious warm humor with some dark themes, like colonialism, debt-slavery, genetic engineering, bio-terrorism / mind control / evil science, and unregulated capitalism. A nice YA vibe withal, as Beck is a smart, plucky, likable 16-year-old, who helps everyone around her.

So many interesting, surprising, silly, weird things in the world- building of the different seastead communities, including what Beck’s entrepreneurial work is to negotiate for. E.g., for turquoise-blue cashmere sweaters or vanilla-scented bath bubbles or potting soil, p. 68.

Narrator (Beck) talks to us readers (e.g. “You’re probably wondering” p. 80; “Cholera, in case you’re not familiar with it—“ p. 198) and tells some of her story in letters to her mom, together works as a pretty clever exposition. But if she’s not addressing someone in particular, it’s a bit disconcerting.

“Beck is an expert at finding people,” Zach said. “And even more an expert at talking them into shit that was not on their to-do list that day.” p. 202. Cf. “Finder” by Suzanne Palmer. Also there’s a Heinlein juvenile vibe of the competent plucky youth learning self-reliance and making ethical decisions correctly, and the Heinleinian thought experiment of what libertarian and quasi-libertarian societies might look like, a la the “rational anarchy” of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Written contracts and handshake deals.

Disease causing repetitive conpulsions, cf. Severance (2018), by Ling Ma.

It’s wonderful how Beck develops independence and the ability to ignore what her parents tell her to do. E.g., “I ignored my mother’s scowl, just as I’d gotten used to ignoring what my father wanted me to do,” p. 196. A Bildungsroman of sorts: Beck learns self-reliance (ch. 7) and how to make her own decisions, take risks, and employ (for the good of others - she starts with an innate altruism that doesn’t need to grow) her connection to dad and the power that comes with that (passim).

The wealthy and powerful can leave. Cf. “the richer sort of people, especially the nobility and gentry from the west part of the city, thronged out of town with their families and servants in an unusual manner;” ~ Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, p. 950 of my Kindle complete works.

The breakdown of society in Lib due to cholera reminded my of the Black Plague of 1348 in Tuscany: In this extremity of our city’s suffering and tribulation the venerable authority of laws, human and divine, was abased and all but totally dissolved, for lack of those who should have administered and enforced them, most of whom, like the rest of the citizens, were either dead or sick, or so hard bested for servants that they were unable to execute any office; whereby every man was free to do what was right in his own eyes. ~ Boccaccio, Decameron, proem (p. 26 of my Kindle copy)

A very literate Zach, p. 209, quoting from Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year: “[The watchman] continued knocking, and the bellman called out several times, ‘Bring out your dead’; but nobody answered, till the man that drove the cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, and drove away.” ~ Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, p. 996 of my Kindle complete works.

P.S. I love Father Tim’s books, ch. 7: Lord of the Rings, a shelf of books by Ursula K. Le Guin, and The Secret Garden. And this is priceless (and true in my experience): “Feel free to come by and talk anytime. About anything. Empiricists and rationalists are welcome here; I’m a Jesuit, after all.”

An unfinished feel - these characters and relationships are wonderfully drawn, but they don’t always feel organic:
> What happens to Janet (ch. 4) and her TV crew?
> How did Lynn end up on Sal (ch. 14)? Why isn’t she more respectful of Beck, who found her and essentially saved her life?
> What happens to dad? Why did he give Beck biometric access to Sal? He did leave her access - and boullion - and she still has feelings for him, ch. 15 p. 245. The relationship is complicated, “He’s not *always* awful, you know.” Ch. 8 p. 126.
> What happens to Thor (how old is he?j and the budding romance? (Cf. Beck’s relief at seeing Thor and his lovely simpatico response, ch. 7 pp. 109-10, with subsequent interactions evincing trust and reliance, not to mention a “date” and youthful anticipation along the way (“I can’t believe you didn’t think this was a romantic destination,” he said. “It’s dimly lit, mysterious, and our parents would never find us down here. What more could you ask for?” ch. 8 p. 132; “Have you ever slept on a concrete floor?” I asked. “It’s really uncomfortable.” “Who said anything about sleep?” ch. 8 p. 139; also p. 126), and ending with their long-distance chat in ch. 15 pp. 243-45.
> What happens to Zach and the AD rangers?
> Will Beck come to love California and Thor come to her, or vice versa? This at the end about mom is powerful: “…. fundamentally, Mom wasn’t wrong to be worried, and she wasn’t wrong to be afraid, I just didn’t like the answer being, ‘I did the best I could under the circumstances.’ I wanted to be able to judge her for how she’d failed. ‘The world is really big, Beck,’ she said.” Ch. 15 p. 257. Meaning, life choices - and motives - are complicated, sometimes self-contradictory, with lots of nuance and wrong turns, yet most of us *do* try our best, especially for those we love.

Despite some roughness at the edges, an easy 4 stars.

[Valerie Nadal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine if a teenage Leslie Knope set about trying to improve her community, but her community is a libertarian dystopia, and you have this book. The worldbuilding in Liberty's Daughter is outstanding- Kritzer does a great job of imagining what a society would look like if libertarian philosophy were taken to its logical conclusion (the answer is a much more malicious world than Ron Swanson would approve of), and the sea-stead is such a creative setting. I also really liked the character of Beck.

[Mhd]

[Bookmarks blurb sounds interesting; YA]

[Shaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun coming of age story involving lots of adventures in an interesting and novel setting.

[Charles McGonigal · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting world setup and I like the protagonist. Also energetically written for quick reading, but the stories got a bit repetitive by the end.

[Clyde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever wonder what life would be like in a for-real libertarian society? Naomi Kritzer has a good try at envisioning it in this book. It ain't all pretty. (*)
Kritzer also gives us gritty thriller with a tough, smart young protagonist trying to make her way in such an environment.
Good book. Solid 4 stars.

(* FWIW, I think a society based on Libertarianism would break down pretty quickly. Like other various '-isms' -- Objectivism, Marxism, etc. -- it would fail because people are perverse and wouldn't follow the assumed behavior rules. People always game the system, ya know.)

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

At its best, this reminded me of William Gibson-the sense of place on the seastead was very well done, and I’m surprised there aren’t more books set on them. The description of what would actually be like to live in a society without taxes or laws was really interesting.

This felt more like a series of (good) vignettes than a novel, though. I enjoyed how much 15-year-old Beck’s insistence on her own autonomy as she navigates her changing fortunes on the stead turned out to be correct time and time again, but there wasn’t much actual closure to the narrative. I want to read more about life and politics on the seastead. 3.5, rounded up.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

That this book was inspired by, and a reaction to, Robert A. Heinlein, is patently obvious even if there are no overt call-outs or references. I haven't read anything by Naomi Kritzer before and don't know what her feelings about Heinlein are, but this book could not be more Heinleinesque if it added a few spankings and some Bugs.

I love Heinlein, skeevy spanking fetish and all. But Liberty's Daughter has the feel of a classic Heinlein juvenile — its protagonist is a smarty, spunky, capable girl whose father "runs" things in a vague, behind-the-scenes kind of way on their seastead home. Beck Garrison is an independent gal just trying to earn some pocket money, like most teenagers, but her part-time job as "finder" of miscellenry leads her to the dark underside of the seastead home where she has spent her entire life.

Which is where Liberty's Daughter is clearly also a response to some of Heinlein's other books, especially The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Many of Heinlein's books depicted societies, on the moon or in near-future Earth enclaves, that run on anarcho-libertarian principles. There was a lot of philosophizing, and there was always present the uber-competent Heinleinian Male, a stern, wise, yet loving patriarchal figure, and the equally uber-competent Heinleinian Female, as brilliant and capable as her man but always ready to do the dishes and then throw off her clothes for some proper servicing.

I'm being a little cheeky, and a little unfair to the old man here. Talking about Heinlein always invites the Great Heinlein Debate. The man has passionate fans and passionate haters, and after reading this book, I honestly don't know which one Naomi Kritzer is. Maybe both.

The seastead is a collection of separatist anarcho-libertarian communes in the Pacific Ocean, made of floating platforms and spare ships all tied together and turned into a collection of micro-states, not really recognized as governments by the rest of the world, but allowed to exist more or less autonomously. The United States and some other countries have "outreach offices" there, but since the seasteaders exist in international waters, as long as they don't give the U.S. or anyone else a reason to send in the Navy, they are mostly left alone.

Rebecca Garrison's father is a rich guy who brought her to the 'stead when she was four, after her mother died. We never learn exactly what he does or where his money came from, but he's a Big Deal on the seastead, which means Beck has grown up living a fairly privileged life. Through her eyes, we learn how life in this libertarian utopia works. People can "buy in" with a full stake on the stead and an apartment if they have enough money, but many people arrive as "bond workers" — basically, they sell themselves into indentured servitude, hoping to eventually earn their way to freedom and enough money to buy a stake of their own. Technically, there is no "slavery" on the 'stead, only because countries like the U.S. probably would get involved if their citizens were literally being enslaved. But as we (and Beck) learn, "technically" has a lot of wiggle room. While conditions on the 'stead have clearly become normalized for her, even she is shocked to discover that where the "laws" are basically that anything you can get away with is legal, people can and will get away with a lot.

After trying to find a bond worker who disappeared, Beck is recruited to help a producer who's arrived from Hollywood to run a reality show on the 'stead. This leads to Beck discovering even more of the stead's dark side, and running into direct opposition with her father, who wants to maintain the status quo and doesn't want his daughter stirring up trouble. Unfortunately, he learns that when you raise a Heinleinian juvenile on an anarcho-libertarian commune, you get an independent-minded troublemaker.

Her father, Paul Garrison, is an archetypal Heinleinian Male: brilliant, wealthy, and in Kritzer's version, completely amoral. The relationship between Beck and her father seems awkward and true to what growing up with this kind of a father would be: he appears to feel some affection for her, but it's hard to tell whether his "love" extends beyond seeing her as an extension of himself, and he doesn't take it well when his progeny turns defiant. He starts out just being kind of an aloof, authoritarian d-bag, but Beck learns more and more about the dark side of her father, and the seastead where they live. Beck, in turn, seems a pretty normal teenage girl, but whether with her father or with her boyfriend, she seems almost emotionally stunted and we never get any deep insights into how she feels about them.

There was a lot to like in Liberty's Daughter, whether you love Heinlein or hate him (or have never read him). As a near-future SF novel, it's barely science fiction, and presents teens doing things in an almost-today setting. Beck is smart and likeable, and gets her way by being clever and having a lot of moxy, and while sometimes her ability to get away with things seemed a little too easy, she does run up against the limits of being a teenage girl in a world run by adults. As social commentary, it's both a critique of the Heinleinian archetype of competence and individualism, and of libertarianism.

There were also things that annoyed me. Beck is a bit flat as a character, and the ending — really, the last third of the book — seemed to be a series of escalating consequences and abrupt transitions that Beck continues to react to in a rather muted way. The end just sort of trails off, though in a way that would certainly allow for a sequel.

I also have to say that I was appalled by the editing. I've heard that publishers have been cheaping out on editing lately, and this showed it; I spotted typos and grammatical errors every few pages. Not entirely fair to judge a book by its editing, but I do, dammit, so this 3.5 star book gets knocked down to 3 stars for not having had competent proofreading.

[Bonnie McDaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is both a near-future thriller and a commentary on the politics of today, particularly an examination of and tearing apart the philosophy of libertarianism. The author sets up her world and follows through the implications to the end, and shows that a libertarian society is not one most people would like to live in.

Rebecca Garrison, or Beck, is sixteen years old and living on the "seastead," a somewhat ramshackle cobbled-together outpost of retired cruise ships/aircraft carriers/cargo haulers/artificial islands built and maintained by people who want to live away from the rules and taxes of most countries (and/or run away from the charges levied by said countries after breaking their laws). Since there is no public school system (or public anything, including basic services and health care--everything is paid for through fees, subscriptions and selling one's self into debt slavery), Beck has a job as a "Finder." That means she is hired to find the odd little luxuries not readily available on a isolated seastead. During her search for a pair of shoes, she is asked to discover what happened to one woman's sister, and this search and what Beck finds out not only upends seastead society but pretty much brings it down at the end.

This book is a bit depressing though, because even though the book's ending is hopeful, I cannot believe how supposedly intelligent people can be caught up in such a toxic idea as libertarianism. In this future, anyone can come to the seastead, but only those who have money really thrive there, creating a rigid system of haves and have-nots. The rich buy a stake to get in, and the poor are "bonded," having to work off their debt to live there. If a bonded person gets sick, their bond can be sold (without the person's consent) to anyone willing to pay for their treatment. (Obviously if you don't have money and no one will buy your bond, you just die, which is the natural outcome for a society that doesn't believe in any form of taxation for the public good.) This is what happened to the woman Beck is looking for: she fell ill and needed a kidney regeneration, and her bond was sold to a "skin farm," which uses dangerous caustic methods to create brand-new young skin for (again) rich people who can pay for it. This woman, Lynn Miller, ended up in literal debt slavery, chained to her station in the skin farm until Beck shows up to free her.

Our protagonist, Beck Garrison, is a well-written and interesting character. She's a sensible, down-to-earth teenager who was brought to the seastead by her father at the age of four (who is, as we find out, a domestic abuser/mob boss who tried to kill her mother and kidnapped her child, fleeing to the seastead with Beck). She's smart, practical, stubborn and persistent, and her great strength in this story is knowing how the seastead works and how its inhabitants think. This enables her not only to find and free Lynn, but when she gets involved with a "Survivor"-type reality show filming on the seastead, to find participants for the show who are secret union organizers, thus setting in motion the events that bring the seastead's leaders down.

This storyline pits the seastead's rich and ruthless bosses against the ordinary people who actually make it run, who want to live and work there without selling themselves into debt slavery. The bosses go so far to engineer a tailor-made "worker bee" nanotech virus that will force the bonded people to cooperate and be happy in their work, but it backfires into a plague that sweeps the entire seastead (and also sets off a cholera outbreak on one of the ships, the community of Lib, which is another result of having no taxation or regulatory apparatus for public safety). Beck helps solve this problem as well, working with one of the seastead's mercenary companies to get aid to Lib and discover the source of the "worker bee" plague.

Beck is able to do all this because as the daughter of Paul Garrison, one of the seastead's higher-up movers and shakers, she has a great deal of privilege. The story doesn't shy away from that, but in this case Beck has enough of a conscience to use her privilege for good. (It's also interesting, and telling, that most of the seastead's inhabitants are white. There's not a white-supremacy plot thread as such, but the uncomfortable implications are there, if a bit under-explored.) At the story's end, with most of the rich bondholders fleeing, Beck voids the bonded people's contracts and turns over the running and ownership of the seastead to them. She also reunites with her mother, who has come to the seastead aboard the aid ship, and goes to California to live with her. (Her father, the union-busting sociopath who was involved in the tailoring of the worker bee virus, escapes at the end for parts unknown, and good riddance.) Beck is going to live on the mainland at least until she turns eighteen, but she still views the seastead as her home (and has a bit of a budding romance with a boy there as well) and intends to return later on.

This is an interesting story because of Beck and her world, and the implications thereof. I have heard libertarianism defined as the "ultimate ode to selfishness," and this book shows that is pretty much the case. If you don't like political-tinged SF, you won't like this, but I think it has some cogent commentary on certain elements of our world today.

[Holly]

Really enjoyed this until the last 10%. Ending was strange and unconvincing.

[Christoph Knoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first picked up this novel, I was immediately drawn in by the cover. When looking at a science fiction/fantasy novel, the setting and the world building is just as important as the story itself, and the cover provides plenty of intrigue to push into the novel with. With that in mind, I was asking myself “why would humanity push out to sea and live, like displayed on the novel cover?” This was in the forefront of my mind as I opened the story, ready to unravel the secret.

I’m not sure if it was disappointment or my own over-ambition towards the answer to why humans were living at sea, but the story does not revolve around an apocalyptic-necessity for humans to be at sea. After cracking through the first fifty pages or so, the true reason was far more interesting, and was a far more plausible outcome. It was a very relatable reason, and as the reader, I could envision myself being on the described platforms and ships. That is always a concern when reading science-fiction/fantasy: that the world will be too distant to entertain as the reader. This novel does not fall within that category, as I could very easily see myself in the story. The decisions that the characters make early on are all decisions that are not only justifiable, but also ones that I could see myself making in that circumstance.

On the topic of relatability, the protagonist that moves throughout this dystopian world is in her teenage years, and she has far more maturity and guile than a typical teenager. This took me by surprise, and I found myself distancing myself from the character because of it. Once the story progressed, and intricate details of not just the protagonist but also the hidden details of her family came to light, the character began to be far more understandable. With that in mind, either introducing some character details earlier on or changing her behaviors and mannerisms would have resulted in a more efficient character arc. That’s not to say a complex character is a poor choice, it is just that the delivery of the character’s personal arc could have been accelerated or changed to allow for an effective reader experience.

The protagonist’s job, which is a mysterious and dangerous position, results in her having both inside knowledge of areas of the society that not everyone would have access to, but also a level of trust that the other characters show her. She winds up obtaining a new job that is even more dangerous and comes with its own set of worries and problems. This becomes the integral push of the story, as the protagonist has to navigate her job, the unraveling secrets of her family, and the uber-libertarian society that the story takes place in.

This is definitely a read for a younger audience, as the protagonist’s age is relatable to those in their teenage years. The story telling, which is best described as episodic and at times forced, would be aggravating to the more experienced reader. There are some aspects of this novel that certainly could mesh well with an older audience, but as a whole, this book is best served in front of an audience. Keep that in mind if you purchase this book.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have slightly mixed feelings about this book. I absolutely love Naomi Kritzer and this is a very Naomi Kritzer book (complimentary). Her prose is on point as always, there are some wonderful elements, and overall I had a great time reading it. But I also found it a bit frustrating, because with just a little tweaking I think this could have been truly phenomenal instead of solidly good.

It's a great setup with excellent worldbuilding. I loved the idea of the sea steaders and the exploration of the types of social issues that would arise. As always, Kritzer's ability to write thoughtfully about community is on full display. And the lead character is *fantastic* - she's like a combination of Veronica Mars and Kritzer's "highly competent practical person" narrative voice; I'd read more stories featuring her in a heartbeat. Some sections of this book were really wonderful, especially in the first half.

On the less successful side, this novel is partially based on several previously published short stories, and for me the "seams" between the original stories and the newer material were visible and sometimes quite jarring. In some cases it was just thinking that the narrative had suddenly lost focus, or noticing a slightly awkward transition from one episodic storyline to another, which I didn't mind. But a few times it was really noticeable, with strange references to the setting and earlier events that felt repetitive and made me think I had likely stumbled into one of the prior published stories. I think this book would have been stronger if those transitions had been smoothed out more. This also factored into the pacing not feeling quite right. And unfortunately I also thought the ending was quite weak. This might be because it didn't seem to build on or arise naturally from the earlier events of the book.

There were also a truly astonishing number of weird typos. This isn't Kritzer's fault, obviously, but it was very distracting. While I do usually notice typos, they rarely bother me. In this case, though, they were so widespread that I started wondering if they were intentional, and meant to reflect some type of language evolution within the sea steader culture. But no, they were just annoying typos.

I think Kritzer's editors really let her down on this one! I still liked it a lot, but with a stronger editorial pass I think this could have been a 5 star book. I had a great time, though, and I'd be thrilled to read more stories featuring this character. My initial rating was 3.75 stars, but I'm bumping it up to 4 for the Kritzer of it all, and because I think I'm grading on an especially harsh curve, because I'm such a fan of hers.

r/Fantasy Bingo Squares: Under the Surface, Indie Publisher, maybe Survival

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

When someone's locked away for doing the right thing, that makes them a prisoner of conscience. Not merely a grounded teenager. [p. 62]

Beck Garrison lives on a seastead off the west coast of the USA: her father is an influential member of the community, and Beck's mother died in a car crash before they left California. Beck is sixteen and earns pocket money by working as a seeker: she takes requests for things that people want, and sources them from other inhabitants of the seastead. One day, trying to locate a pair of sparkly sandals, size eight, she's asked instead to discover what happened to a bond worker's missing sister. Beck's investigations bring her into conflict with the leaders of the seastead, and -- not quite coincidentally -- into the surreal and influential world of reality TV. She finds much more than she set out to find, and is instrumental in instigating sweeping changes that affect every inhabitant (bonded worker, guest worker or stakeholder) of the seastead.

Beck is a tough-minded and courageous narrator, with considerable chutzpah (at least in part because of her father's status) and determination. Kritzer shows us Beck exploring the hidden underside of the libertarian seastead, and discovering some uncomfortable truths about the privilege which she has enjoyed since childhood. The seastead -- actually six 'nations', assembled from a motley collection of cruise ships, artifical islands and oil rigs -- is an experiment in utopian living, with an ambiguous relationship to the USA, from where many of the inhabitants have migrated. The draconian laws of the US contrast with the lawlessness of the seastead, and especially of Liberty, a nation known for having no law at all.

I greatly enjoyed Catfishing on CatNet, so had high hopes of this novel: I was not disappointed. Though the setting was, in some ways, comparable to Brightly Burning, the world-building here felt more solid, and the social aspects more foregrounded than the romance.

Shortlisted for the Lodestar Award for Best YA Book, 2024: read as part of the Hugo Voters' Pack.