The Great Explosion, by Eric Frank Russel
Middling classic SF novel built around a classic novella
(Review posted 16 Aug 2005 03:17:05)

The heart of this novel is the novella And Then There Were None, a classic bit of libertarian idealistic fiction about how if everyone would just act sensibly and refuse to cooperate with the oppressive authorities, we'd all be much better off. This is a great idea, and the presentation is optimistic and fun to read. Unfortunately the great idea only works in societies where pretty much everyone is well-behaved and rational, and sadly that's not the hard part of the social problem.

This novel (which is available online) tacks on several chapters before And Then There Were None begins, based on some casual remarks that the characters in the novella make about other planets that they've been to. These earlier chapters are funny and fun to read also, but they lack any real message (aside from "officials are dumb" and "it's easy to charicature nudists") and so end up lacking the punch and/or uplift of the rest.

(As SF qua SF the novel's completely unremarkable; what little bit of science there is is just an excuse to get various groups separated for lots of years so Russell can show some odd things that human societies might do.)

Good to fill out one's Essential Pulp collection, but in terms of reading if you've read And Then There Were None there's no strong reason to read this. (And if you haven't read And Then There Were None, you should.)