# good anarchist and left-wing fiction writers?



## strung out (Feb 9, 2011)

preferably ones who use their political perspectives to inform their creative ideas.

i know china mieville is a trot, and makes his leanings fairly obvious in his books. not actually read anything of his yet, though got a couple on the list. then there's most of brecht's theatre where he often wrote from his marxist perspective.

any more worth checking out? ideally sci-fi/fantasy, but don't let that stop you contributing to the thread with any other suggestions.


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## Casually Red (Feb 9, 2011)

Isak, a science fiction one by Roslyn Fuller . She brought it to  a couple of anarchist bookfairs in Dublin and Belfast from what I remember .
_
Today’s discussion about the causes and effects of terrorism
– transferred to a world of the future.

The encounter of two very different characters, one a terrorist,
the other a bureaucrat - the one ruthless yet likeable, the other
distant yet thoughtful.

A fast-paced pursuit across the galaxy, which shall lead both to
the boundaries of their convictions. An impressionist journey
through one of the most controversial issues of all time which
leaves all questions open yet answers all of them. _

http://www.irishwritersexchange.com/books.html


Sub Commandante Marcos writes detecive novels as well . Bought one but someone nicked it so i dont know if its any good or not .


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## rekil (Feb 9, 2011)

Ken MacLeod, but too much nonsense about 'anarcho-capitalism' for my liking.


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## discokermit (Feb 9, 2011)

victor serge wrote fiction. the case of comrade tulayev is fantastic.


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## strung out (Feb 9, 2011)

i was browsing the bookshelves in the uni library the other day and found a big book on soviet era sci-fi actually. apprently it's a fairly large genre, though some of the most famous authors, such as zamyatin pretty much rejected communism. there's a short article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_science_fiction_and_fantasy#Soviet_science_fiction

has anyone read any of the Noon Universe novels by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky?


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## Captain Hurrah (Feb 9, 2011)

It's not great, a minor curiosity only, but you might be interested in _Aelita, or the Decline of Mars_ by  Alexei Tolstoy (who wrote that death ray book too).   It's about two men from the Soviet Union who travel to Mars on a rocket, and join a failed rebellion of slaves.  It's the one that was made into that famous silent film by Yakov  Protazanov (The Forty-First), the sets and designs of which inspired the Flash Gordon series in the US, but the ending is changed and they succeed in creating a Martian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.


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## imposs1904 (Feb 9, 2011)

discokermit said:


> victor serge wrote fiction. the case of comrade tulayev is fantastic.



+1

His best novel.


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## chazegee (Feb 9, 2011)

I'll say Kurt, and also DJ, at lest their onions were (in)formed by real war. And Jawell while we at it.


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## chazegee (Feb 9, 2011)

JD I should say.


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## DotCommunist (Feb 9, 2011)

copliker said:


> Ken MacLeod, but too much nonsense about 'anarcho-capitalism' for my liking.


 
yes and yes

Ursula Le Guin as well. weird buddhist-anarchist but writes very well. TYhe ones who walk away from Omelas is a great shrt.

But I loves the Wizard of Earthsea


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## DotCommunist (Feb 9, 2011)

chazegee said:


> I'll say Kurt, and also DJ, at lest their onions were (in)formed by real war. And Jawell while we at it.


 
vonnegut is a sci fi author it is OK for lit snobs to like.

Slaughterhouse 5 is still a good book though.


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## stupid dogbot (Feb 9, 2011)

copliker said:


> Ken MacLeod, but too much nonsense about 'anarcho-capitalism' for my liking.


 
And whilst some of the books are decent, several of them are dull as fuck.


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## krtek a houby (Feb 9, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> vonnegut is a sci fi author it is OK for lit snobs to like.
> 
> Slaughterhouse 5 is still a good book though.


 
Led me to read Theodore Sturgeon's More than Human; awesome.

Is it left leaning/anarcho cobblers? Haven't a clue. I just enjoy a good yarn...


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## fogbat (Feb 9, 2011)

Casually Red said:


> Isak, a science fiction one by Roslyn Fuller . She brought it to  a couple of anarchist bookfairs in Dublin and Belfast from what I remember .
> _
> Today’s discussion about the causes and effects of terrorism
> – transferred to a world of the future.
> ...


 That's a superb domain name.


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## Santino (Feb 9, 2011)

Surely the Culture is a communist utopia?


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## Captain Hurrah (Feb 9, 2011)

fogbat said:


> That's a superb domain name.


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## yield (Feb 9, 2011)

Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction



DotCommunist said:


> vonnegut is a sci fi author it is OK for lit snobs to like.
> 
> Slaughterhouse 5 is still a good book though.


 
Have you read Sirens of Titan? </lit snob>


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## strung out (Feb 9, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> vonnegut is a sci fi author it is OK for lit snobs to like.
> 
> Slaughterhouse 5 is still a good book though.


 
i read slaughterhouse 5 for the first time a couple of weeks back. really enjoyed it, but part of me was thinking at the end whether it's even sci-fi really. i thought it was certainly left open to interpretation as to whether the main character was just bonkers. anyway, yeah, vonnegut is a good shout.


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## strung out (Feb 9, 2011)

Santino said:


> Surely the Culture is a communist utopia?


 
you got any idea what banks' own politics are? curious to see how far the culture books are informed by his own political viewpoints.


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## stupid dogbot (Feb 9, 2011)

There's a fair bit of left(ish) theorising in Richard Morgan. Less anarchist, more made-up, but in Market Forces there's a lot of discussion of corporate policy versus the people and so on.


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## DotCommunist (Feb 9, 2011)

yield said:


> Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction
> 
> 
> 
> Have you read Sirens of Titan? </lit snob>



I've not, and I've been awaiting the online text of that linked book for ages

e2a get in!


http://www.tangledwilderness.org/?p=301


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## gsv (Feb 9, 2011)

Attack! Books were certainly anti-authoritarian. Won't comment whether they were any "good" but I read Vatican Bloodbath and it was definitely good fun.





Their original "anti-mission statement" is utterly 

GS(v)


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 9, 2011)

Does it have to be sci-fi?


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## jannerboyuk (Feb 9, 2011)

strung out said:


> you got any idea what banks' own politics are? curious to see how far the culture books are informed by his own political viewpoints.


 
Out and out lefty i think. There is one culture book where the main character comes to earth and although it reflects on the issue of individualism in a socialist future he has his hero say how he couldn't wait for the earth to realise the future was the deepest red they could posibly imagine. Think it was an early one though so he might have shifted since then.


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## fiannanahalba (Feb 9, 2011)

If you are looking for excellent left wing writers of fiction try any writer for Socialist Worker and not just China M or Michael Rosen either.. Ex WRP members tend to have the Science Fiction market cornered.


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## Fedayn (Feb 9, 2011)

strung out said:


> you got any idea what banks' own politics are? curious to see how far the culture books are informed by his own political viewpoints.


 
Banks was a member/supporter of the SSP. He also said he'd rather live in a socialist Britain than a simply independent Scotland.


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## fiannanahalba (Feb 9, 2011)

Tight cunt Banks, never gave the SSP a cent. Brit unionist as well.


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## Fedayn (Feb 9, 2011)

fiannanahalba said:


> Tight cunt Banks, never gave the SSP a cent. Brit unionist as well.


 
He did, just quietly. He wasn't a 'brit unionist', he wasn't opposed to independence as is rather clear.


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## fiannanahalba (Feb 9, 2011)

Who told you that, the treasurer? He wasnt even a member according to the Edinburgh SSP i know. SSP is a Brit party.


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## fiannanahalba (Feb 9, 2011)

SSP treasurer was excellent at fiction as well,probably more than Banks.


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## Fedayn (Feb 9, 2011)

fiannanahalba said:


> Who told you that, the treasurer? He wasnt even a member according to the Edinburgh SSP i know. SSP is a Brit party.


 
No, the person who interviewed him many years ago. He certainly didn't give anything like he could that is certainly true. He didn't and doesn't live in Edinburgh, he lives on the other side of the bridge. He also signed the Declaration of Calton Hill which is quite avowedly pro-independence.


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## fiannanahalba (Feb 9, 2011)

Fair play to Banks for signing the Declaration of Calton Hill, like most of the artists associated with the SSP, however - not  too much money was forthcoming. Edgar Prais QC, millionaire brief and SSP member in Edinburgh paid derisory subs. Anyway thats enough about this shit - this thread is about fiction writers of the left.


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## Fedayn (Feb 9, 2011)

fiannanahalba said:


> Fair play to Banks for signing the Declaration of Calton Hill, like most of the artists associated with the SSP, *however - not  too much money was forthcoming. Edgar Prais QC, millionaire brief and SSP member in Edinburgh paid derisory subs*. Anyway thats enough about this shit - this thread is about fiction writers of the left.


 
Agree with the above wholeheartedly btw.


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## strung out (Feb 9, 2011)

Dillinger4 said:


> Does it have to be sci-fi?


 
nah, i just brought it up to begin with as that's what i'm mainly reading right now. would be good to hear about non sci-fi writers actually, as it seems almost every sci-fi author i read nowadays has some kind of radical viewpoint.


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 9, 2011)

strung out said:


> nah, i just brought it up to begin with as that's what i'm mainly reading right now. would be good to hear about non sci-fi writers actually, as it seems almost every sci-fi author i read nowadays has some kind of radical viewpoint.


 
OK cool, I will go and have a look for you. 

I don't really get sci-fi. I don't have a problem with it, I am sure a lot of it is great. I would really like to be more into it but it just doesn't work for me at all. 

Off the top of my head though, I would probably recommend Roberto Bolano. His shorter stories are good, _Distant Star_ and and _By Night in Chile_. _2666_ is his best, and it is probably one of the best things I have ever read. 

I wouldn't say he is explicitly left wing in his writing, but it is much better for that, and a sense of it does come through. Roberto Bolano himself was very left wing, of the very best kind (IMO).

Doris Lessing would be good as well. Again, I don't think she is explicitely left wing (for the most part). _The Golden Notebook_ is pretty great (except for something that would be a spoiler) and well worth a read.

Erm. 

Off the top of my head, that's it. I will go and have a look on my bookshelves for you because I know that I have loads more.


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 9, 2011)

_Vineland_ by Thomas Pynchon is also worth a mention, now that I come to think of it.


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## strung out (Feb 9, 2011)

ta, sounds great. will have to check some of those out and see if it's sounds like my kind of stuff!


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## Fedayn (Feb 9, 2011)

Dillinger4 said:


> Off the top of my head though, I would probably recommend Roberto Bolano. His shorter stories are good, _Distant Star_ and and _By Night in Chile_. _2666_ is his best, and it is probably one of the best things I have ever read.
> 
> *I wouldn't say he is explicitly left wing in his writing*, but it is much better for that, and a sense of it does come through. Roberto Bolano himself was very left wing, of the very best kind (IMO).



His book _Nazi Literature in the Americas_ sounds fascinating. Heard about it a good few years back and thought it sounded fantastic, then forgot about it. Got plenty time to read a book now, think i'll buy it....


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 9, 2011)

Fedayn said:


> His book _Nazi Literature in the Americas_ sounds fascinating. Heard about it a good few years back and thought it sounded fantastic, then forgot about it. Got plenty time to read a book now, think i'll buy it....


 
Oh yeh, definitely, that one is very very very good. No idea how it slipped my mind!


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## DotCommunist (Feb 10, 2011)

Dillinger4 said:


> _Vineland_ by Thomas Pynchon is also worth a mention, now that I come to think of it.


 
has a car stealthed to invisibility by being so high on the index of refraction (whatever that means). Sci Fi.

or at least, american fantasy. sooooort of.


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## chazegee (Feb 10, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> vonnegut is a sci fi author it is OK for lit snobs to like.
> 
> .



There's nothing snobby about liking a good artist! Only being rude about a bad one.


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## yield (Feb 10, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> I've not, and I've been awaiting the online text of that linked book for ages
> 
> e2a get in! http://www.tangledwilderness.org/?p=301



Thanks for the link DotCommunist! There's a list of Anarchist writers at the end of the book.

I really recommend Sirens of Titan.



Dillinger4 said:


> _Vineland_ by Thomas Pynchon is also worth a mention, now that I come to think of it.



Vineland is great. So much easier than Gravity's Rainbow which I never could finish or properly start. 

I'll see if I can get Roberto Bolano from the library.


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## Blagsta (Feb 10, 2011)

discokermit said:


> victor serge wrote fiction. the case of comrade tulayev is fantastic.


 
Seconded. I love Victor Serge books.


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## Santino (Feb 10, 2011)

Has anyone said Luther Blisset/Wu Ming yet?


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 10, 2011)

Santino said:


> Has anyone said Luther Blisset/Wu Ming yet?


 
No, but that is a very good recommendation.


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 10, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> has a car stealthed to invisibility by being so high on the index of refraction (whatever that means). Sci Fi.
> 
> or at least, american fantasy. sooooort of.


 
All his other writing contains a lot fantastical stuff, but I wouldn't say it is sci-fi. Fantasy at a long stretch, but Thomas Pynchon is pretty undefinable really.


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 10, 2011)

Almost anything from the La Comédie humaine by Honore de Balzac. Balzac wasn't really 'left wing', but his insights into the conditions of life in France at that time has had a lot of influence over Marxists. There a a lot of subtle references to Balzac in Marx, for example, and I think he was one of the favourite writers of both Marx and Engels. Engels himself said:



> "I have learned more [from Balzac] than from all the professional historians, economists and statisticians put together."


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## krtek a houby (Feb 10, 2011)

Philip Roth's *The Plot Against America *is pretty damn fine. It's an alternate US where FDR is defeated by Lindbergh, who appoints fellow anti-semite Henry Ford as Vice President.


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## Santino (Feb 10, 2011)

Dillinger4 said:


> No, but that is a very good recommendation.


 
Your mum is a very good recommendation.


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 10, 2011)

Here is another one: _The Uncomfortable Dead_ by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcomandante Marcos of the EZLN.

It is wrote in wrote in a 'four hand' method, where one of them would write a chapter, and hand it over and then the second writer would write a chapter, and so on. 

Its a crime story told through two different detectives trying to solve a crime and find out much more. It deals with mexican politics and the effects of neo-liberalism.


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## strung out (Feb 10, 2011)

Dillinger4 said:


> Here is another one: _The Uncomfortable Dead_ by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcomandante Marcos of the EZLN.
> 
> It is wrote in wrote in a 'four hand' method, where one of them would write a chapter, and hand it over and then the second writer would write a chapter, and so on.
> 
> Its a crime story told through two different detectives trying to solve a crime and find out much more. It deals with mexican politics and the effects of neo-liberalism.


 
that sounds pretty cool actually. will definitely try and check that one out.


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 10, 2011)

I think crime/detective stories are an excellent genre for left-wing radical politics. Murder, political and economic corruption, sleaze, etc. Follow the money.


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## Fedayn (Feb 10, 2011)

Emile Zola's Germinal is well worth a read. As are the works of Dashiell Hammett.


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 10, 2011)

_The Man Who Was Thursday_ by GK Chesterton.


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## DotCommunist (Feb 10, 2011)

This site from the Mythmakers & Lawbreakers interview with Lewis Shriner has all his work for free:

http://www.fictionliberationfront.net/

Am starting _Deserted Cities of The Heart_


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## Fedayn (Feb 11, 2011)

Fedayn said:


> His book _Nazi Literature in the Americas_ sounds fascinating. Heard about it a good few years back and thought it sounded fantastic, then forgot about it. Got plenty time to read a book now, think i'll buy it....


 
Arrived today from Amazon.


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## jakethesnake (Feb 11, 2011)

News From Nowhere by William Morris. Technically science fiction, written by the great wall paper designer himself, about a man who falls asleep after arguing with some anarchos and wakes up in utopian London. Fab!


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## krtek a houby (Feb 11, 2011)

Dillinger4 said:


> _The Man Who Was Thursday_ by GK Chesterton.


 
Good call - there's a surreal air to that, reminds me of Flann O'Brien...


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## Dillinger4 (Feb 11, 2011)

Fedayn said:


> Arrived today from Amazon.


 
Let me know what you think


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## Fedayn (Feb 11, 2011)

Dillinger4 said:


> Let me know what you think


 
Will do.


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## Idris2002 (Feb 11, 2011)

_Resurrections from the Dustbin of History_

Alternate history in which Rosa Luxemburg led a successful German revolution in 1923. . . while Adolf H. and his cronies fled to the USA, where his son Rudolph Hitler ran for president on a 'keep America white and Aryan' ticket.

Meanwhile, Rosa has a falling out with Trotsky (who has had Stalin shot by this point), and the colonial empires are hanging on by the skin of their teeth in Africa, where some very angry people have hired an Argentinian named Guevara to help them out.

All good fun, in other words. . .


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## rekil (Feb 11, 2011)

James Kelman. The Guardian was described by the protagonist of 1987's A Disaffection as 'a load of right wing tollie.'  He also said in an interview that no artist can be a fascist, or words to that effect.

Brecht, Ibsen, O'Casey, Tolstoy, loads of soviet agitprop blokes, GB Shaw I suppose. I thought this was sci-fi only.


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## William of Walworth (Feb 11, 2011)

Did you see this thread, strung out?


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## strung out (Feb 11, 2011)

copliker said:


> James Kelman. The Guardian was described by the protagonist of 1987's A Disaffection as 'a load of right wing tollie.'  He also said in an interview that no artist can be a fascist, or words to that effect.
> 
> Brecht, Ibsen, O'Casey, Tolstoy, loads of soviet agitprop blokes, GB Shaw I suppose. I thought this was sci-fi only.


 
nah, i just started off with sci-fi as that's generally what i read. also, i could be wrong about this, but it seems like a larger percentage of sci-fi authors are of a leftie persuasion. ta for the suggestions!


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## strung out (Feb 11, 2011)

William of Walworth said:


> Did you see this thread, strung out?


 
i didn't, but i will take a look at that, cheers!


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## DkBuntovnik (Jul 26, 2015)

Forgive me for resurrecting this thread, but some of you may still be looking for such works as requested by the OP.

I am a writer currently publishing an explicitly left-wing novel online which I characterize as a 21st century proletarian novel, but which also contains in its essence elements of sci-fi and fantasy. The work, _Raving Radicals Bathed in Blax_ is available here on my blog: https://danielkbuntovnik.wordpress.com/

The text could aptly be described as a satirical geopolitical thriller which combines elements of science fiction, indigenous folklore, young adult fiction, and the picaresque.

Though rooted in the antiquated tradition of the proletarian novel, _Raving Radicals Bathed in Blax _is more than a simple plea for revolution–it is a fantastic social vision.  In the present period of disenchantment and disillusion with revolutionary politics, working class-generated radical systemic change is oft-perceived to be at, if not beyond, the frontier of the realm of the possible. Envisioning it thus necessitates a fogging of the boundary between feasible and infeasible. Bolstered by the quasi-magic realism of afrofuturist ‘myth-science’ and an omnipresent postcolonial ethnological lens, _Raving Radicals_ exhibits the infusion of proletarian literature with new elements.

The core story follows Paty, Tisha, Franky, Pedrocco, Izzy, and Witherslapt: six twenty-somethings who share an interest in raves and radical literature. Together, they are the Radical Book Club: An informal faction operating within an activist group called Socialist Alliance, whose leader suspects the club of being little more than a cover for recreational drug use and partying. In short, a serious liability. When a deadly stampede breaks out at a warehouse rave, those concerns seem vindicated. It doesn’t take long for the Homeland Intelligence Agency to connect the dots and seize the incident as a pretext to quash social movements. After losing one of their own to the H.I.A.’s domestic rendition program, it’s clear peaceful protest just won’t cut it. But it isn’t until Marxists are designated terrorists and the Radical Book Club is forced to team up with _Santa Muerte_-worshipping drug cartelists and Rromani clans, that they realize what it really means to go down the path of revolutionary armed struggle: a path that leads to strange sojourns in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa . . . and outer space.

Episodic chapters follow this core gang of quixotic anti-heroes, while stories of the other political activists, drug traffickers, cult leaders, and government agents and officials they cross paths with along the way emerge as well.

As a leftist riposte to the society that produced films and books like _The Turner Diaries _(1978), _Red Dawn _(1984, 2012), and those of Tom Clancy (1984-2003), _Raving Radicals_aims to reinvigorate the long dormant tradition of the proletarian novel and infiltrate this reactionary literary landscape.

Written between the summer of 2013 and the spring of 2015, and complete at 49 chapters, (circa 125k words, divided into 4 parts), the plan is for chapters to be posted on this website every 1-3 days.​


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## DaveCinzano (Jul 26, 2015)

Worth giving John Barker a spin (he was a "guilty man framed by the police on false evidence" in the Angry Brigade dragnet):

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/futures-by-john-barker.311727/


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