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Horned Humons: In a Strange Utopia

by Barbara Louise

241 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1080; ISBN 1-4120-3253-9; US$25.00, C$29.00, EUR20.50, £14.50

A feminist science fiction novel about a planet with no central coercive government, and the difficulties of one teenaged woman - who longs for notoriety and a unique possession - in coming to terms with her egalitarian, anarchist society.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

The author writes:

I am an anarchist. I wrote Horned Humons as a way of suggesting how an anarkhist society -- a society without either power-tripping or money -- might actually function, and I made it a novel so that I, and other readers, could have the vicarious experience of living in such an incredibly free society.

At the time I decided to write the book, I could see no way to get from here (most of the world's workers enslaved to capitalism and even more of the world's population believing in the prevailing Dominance idea of Patriarchy that "someone must always be in charge") to there, (a world where no one has coercive power over anyone else, and where we, the ordinary people, the workers, in order to survive, do not have to either fight like wild animals in the marketplace where there is no "virtue" except money, or submit to a life of toil enslaved to the "winners" in the vicious game of capitalist competition, a world where we all peacefully cooperate to feed and shelter and clothe everyone, and care for (not exploit for profit) our living planet.)

For me -- and, I'm sure, for thousands of other readers -- reading a good science-fiction book is like taking a trip to a foreign land where I don't have to struggle with a strange language, where I don't have to leave my comfortable arm-chair and be uncomfortable in strange surroundings, where I don't have to eat funny-tasting exotic food or worry about the questionable cleanliness of foreign toilet facilities, where I can meet people of other species and converse with them, where I can breathe the air and walk upon the ground of alien planets, and where I can fly among the stars and be someone I could never be on Earth.

The part I like best in any science-fiction novel is the travel-log part, where I can go to another planet circling a distant star. There, I can meet interesting people of different species, entertain my soul with unusual scenery, and attend happy community occasions, only a few actual steps from my own refrigerator.

Many of the aliens in Horned Humons have never seen or met a humon being. This gave me the chance to write a First Contact story -- always a favorite of science-fiction fans --near the beginning of Chapter Eleven.

Anarkhism was called the "noble ideal " by the great anarkhist, Emma Goldman, whom the FBI labeled "the most dangerous woman in America." I believe the civil liberties exemplified in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Association, Freedom to Protest, and Freedom of -and from Religion -- are one of the most important results of that thread of anarkhist feeling which pervades American culture to this day.

So, read Horned Humons, and travel to a planet where there are other problems besides defending your civil liberties and personal freedoms against a would-be tyrannical government spearheaded by a never-elected president. (You will note that the author is a citizen of the U.S.A.) And please let me know through my publisher, Trafford On-Demand Publishing, how you liked the book.

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About the Author

Barabara Louise is a sixty-year-old anarchist lesbian who spent the 1970's working in the feminist and gay liberation movements. She is white and "middle class". Recently disabled, she has learned first-hand how classism hurts people.

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Excerpts

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Catalogue Information

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