What do you think?
Rate this book
Visions of Liberty
In Visions Of Liberty, ten top science fiction writers, several of them Hugo or Nebula awardwinners, create ten very different futures in which Government does not exist and explore the possibilities of a truly free society. Among the roster: Hugo winner and Grand Master Jack Williamson; Michael Resnick, winner of four Hugos and a Nebula, and author of the international best seller, Santi-Ago; Michael A. Stackpole, author of eight New York Times best sellers; best-selling novelist Jane Undskold, New York Times best-selling author James P. Hogan, Robert J. Sawyer, winner of the Nebula Award for best novel of the year; and more. As threats to liberty arise in our own time, so it will be in the future. In this volume, a stellar cast of Science Fiction luminaries consider how the future might be different-and how freedom might truly triumph.
304 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
2 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 5, 2016
Review first posted on Fantasy Literature. Note: Baen makes the first few chapters of its books available as free online samples, which is handy in the case of short fiction anthologies, since you can read a few full stories. Currently this review is only for "Shackles of Freedom," one of the free sample stories, written by Mike Resnick and Tobias Buckell, which fit our Independence Day theme:
Visions of Liberty is an anthology of tales from different science fiction writers, who’ve written tales of societies where there is no formal government, so people are truly free ― or are they? In “The Shackles of Freedom,” Dr. William Hostetler has joined a group of Amish people who now live on their own planet, free to follow their beliefs, which include avoiding technology. Hostetler loves the people, especially the young woman Rebecca Yoder, but he is deeply frustrated with the limitations put on his medical practice by Amish beliefs, and the needless deaths that occur because of their adamant rejection of modern medical science. Eventually, of course, matters come to a head and the conflict becomes acute.
“The Shackles of Freedom” explores the price that is paid by those who remain are devoted to a system of belief, even when it costs them dearly. The personal and societal cost of abandoning belief due to outer circumstances, even extremely compelling ones, is a worthy theme. However, Mike Resnick did a better, more nuanced job developing this idea in his Kirinyaga tales, most notably in The Manamouki, in which a married couple immigrates to a planet where their modern values clash with the traditional Kenyan Kikuyu tribal beliefs and practices that are adhered to on Kirinyaga. This short story seems like a paler echo of that one, just with an Amish setting rather than an African one.
This story is free online at Baen.com.
Visions of Liberty is an anthology of tales from different science fiction writers, who’ve written tales of societies where there is no formal government, so people are truly free ― or are they? In “The Shackles of Freedom,” Dr. William Hostetler has joined a group of Amish people who now live on their own planet, free to follow their beliefs, which include avoiding technology. Hostetler loves the people, especially the young woman Rebecca Yoder, but he is deeply frustrated with the limitations put on his medical practice by Amish beliefs, and the needless deaths that occur because of their adamant rejection of modern medical science. Eventually, of course, matters come to a head and the conflict becomes acute.
“The Shackles of Freedom” explores the price that is paid by those who remain are devoted to a system of belief, even when it costs them dearly. The personal and societal cost of abandoning belief due to outer circumstances, even extremely compelling ones, is a worthy theme. However, Mike Resnick did a better, more nuanced job developing this idea in his Kirinyaga tales, most notably in The Manamouki, in which a married couple immigrates to a planet where their modern values clash with the traditional Kenyan Kikuyu tribal beliefs and practices that are adhered to on Kirinyaga. This short story seems like a paler echo of that one, just with an Amish setting rather than an African one.
This story is free online at Baen.com.
August 11, 2013
I guess it's because I'm not a Libertarian, but I found most of the stories a bit cliched and hokey.
Still better than Atlas Shrugged though, if only by virtue of being so much shorter.
Still better than Atlas Shrugged though, if only by virtue of being so much shorter.
Read
August 22, 2008Visions of Liberty by Martin Greenberg (2004)
Read
June 21, 2009Anthology,Science Fiction
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews