At the behest of Ron, I went and secured myself a copy of Michael Z. Williamson's Freehold, and have been hungrily paging through it... to the point of reading a hundred pages in my first hour.  When I like a book, I really like a book.  I had to literally force myself to put it down, otherwise I would have finished reading it in a single sitting, and then be left with nothing further to do. 

However, I did come across a rather interesting quote in the heading of one of the chapters, which I will now share with you, my adoring audience: 

I would say that my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand's: that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces - with the other matters handled otherwise.  I'm sick of the way government sticks its nose into everything now. 

From reading the books of the person who made the above quote, I had all but come to the conclusion that he felt this particular way about government, but never before had I found such a concise, to the point, and easily attributable quote as this, perfectly illucidating his viewpoint on the matter.  To be precise, these are the words of none other than the illustrious Robert A. Heinlein himself. 

My only thought upon reading them were, "Where do I sign up?"  Suffice it to say that my interest/respect/admiriation for this man has increased a few more notches, if that were at all possible.  At this point, I only regret that he died when I was not even six...  At the risk of sounding completely fanboyish, it would have been remarkably nifty to simply shake the man's hand. 

As for Freehold itself, as I mentioned, I have only read the first hundred pages or so, but definitely enjoy it so far...  The core concept seems to be the ultimate extrapolation of "An armed society is a polite society," with more than a liberal (irony intended) dose of personal accountability, Darwinism, and capitalism thrown in for good measure... and I cannot find any faults with any of that.  I have never read anything of Williamson's before, but something tells me I will be searching out more of his titles in the future... thanks, Ron! 

And speaking of Heinlein, I recently completed reading Variable Star, something of a unique book of his.  He had originally started writing it over 50 years ago, but never really got past the extensive-notes phase, and set it aside in the pursuit of books.  Unfortunately, he went and croaked before he could actually finish the story, so the Heinlein Trust picked out another author to complete the work...  I confess I have never before heard of this individual, but considering that the New York Times (granted, not the most authoritative source on the topic) called him the "new Robert Heinlein", I guess I cannot complain about the choice of Spider Robinson.  And, after reading the book itself, I definitely cannot complain about the choice...  This book had everything that makes Heinlein books great - irony, humor, irony, quirky personal relationships, irony, space travel, irony, nifty-tech... oh, and did I mention irony?  I was honestly disappointed when I finished it off, and will probably be hunting down more writings of this Robinson character next time I need something to read...  If he can successfully take Heinlein's notes and parlay it into something that is so close to Heinlein's actual writings that it is more than a little eerie... yeah, that guy is worth reading again. 

Oh, and if anyone ever feels the need to get me anything for any reason, I would not, at all, complain about this.  Drop me a comment and we will work out where to ship it.