Schulman, J Neil
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1953-2019) US author whose books were very influential in the Libertarian-SF movement. Alongside Night (1979), which is set in a ruinously Decadent New York, describes the salvation of a future America – whose economy has been destroyed by government intervention in the free market: a singularly bad guess in post-2008 hindsight – by a hard-cash underground economy evolved from today's black market (see Economics; Politics). The political message is conveyed in a reasonably unobtrusive fashion, which lends an air of convincingness to the ongoing arguments. The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Logosata Form (1983), which won the Prometheus Award, interestingly portrays a distant Near Future Solar System whose economy includes Space Habitats, and whose light-touch government is modelled ostensibly on uniformitarian libertarian values, though in fact does not forestall the creation of a Dystopia whose state Religion effectively enslaves women (see Feminism; Women in SF); inter alia, laser-generated visuals (see Arts) are described as a means of artistic expression. Schulman also scripted the "Profile in Silver" (7 March 1986) segment of the revived The Twilight Zone, in which a historian who Time Travels from the future prevents the assassination of President John F Kennedy (1917-1963), with disastrous consequences. Time travel, multiple timelines and various seemingly personal wish-fulfilments feature in The Fractal Man (2018 ebook).
Like many libertarian authors, Schulman often resorted – in his case very effectively – to thriller tropes in his attempts to articulate conviction politics readably; a reader not versed in those politics might reasonably think of his work as fundamentally motivated by a combination of moral outrage and a fascination with the hardware of politics and economics. [NT/JC/DRL]
Joseph Neil Schulman
born Forest Hills, New York: 16 April 1953
died Colorado Springs, Colorado: 10 August 2019
works
- Alongside Night (New York: Crown Publishers, 1979) [hb/Lydia Rozier]
- Alongside Night (Mill Valley, California: Pulpless.com, 1999) [exp of the above as coll with added pieces: pb/Christine Tuccille Merry]
- The Rainbow Cadenza: A Novel in Logosata Form (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983) [hb/Paul Gamarello]
- Nasty, Brutish and Short Stories (Mill Valley, California: Pulpless.com, 1999) [coll: pb/Billy Tackett]
- Escape from Heaven (Pahrump, Nevada: Pulpless.com, 2002) [hb/Billy Tackett]
- The Fractal Man (Dike, Texas: Steve Heller Publishing, 2018) [ebook: na/photographic]
nonfiction (selected)
- The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana (Wilmington, Delaware: Softserv Publishing Services Inc, 1990) [nonfiction: coll: ebook: introduction by Brad Linaweaver: Robert A Heinlein: na/]
- Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns (Santa Monica, California: Synapse-Centurion, 1994) [nonfiction: pb/]
- Self Control, Not Gun Control (Santa Monica, California: Synapse-Centurion, 1995) [nonfiction: pb/]
links
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