Alongside Night

by J. Neil Schulman and L.N. Schulman

Book Overview

"A cautionary tale with a disturbing resemblance to past history and future possibilities" (Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate), "Alongside Night" portrays the last two weeks of the world's greatest superpower and ends on a triumphant note of hope.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517539233
• ISBN13: 9780517539231
• Release Date: October 1979
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing
• Length: 181 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Flying Alongside Night

I bought a paperback of "Alongside Night" about twenty years ago. When I learned it was the Freedom Book Club book of the month for May 2009, I got it out and re-read it. The author, J. Neil Schulman, is amazingly prescient. One of the things that struck me as unlikely in 1989 was the telecommunications system. Wall-size screens. Interactive tools for getting information. Today, these are common. And to think the book was conceived in 1977 or so. Amazing. General Motors plaza, in the book, is boarded up. The company is now being restructured, with the United Auto Workers pension to hold about 39% of the company. Chrysler has declared bankruptcy. The economy is not yet in the dire straits described in "Alongside Night," but it is very close. And, as in the book, Americans are responding with verve and elan. I was delighted to be invited to a Facebook group celebrating this novel, and to learn that it is being adapted to a graphic novel and a feature film. It is high time that someone created a community for practicing agorists where we can meet, discuss, and exchange not only ideas but products and services. Perhaps the online game being planned will feature "underground" mercantile centers like Aurora as described in the book. The technologies for dropping off the identity-controlled grid are well along. It's going to be fun!

Pretty far alongside....

Back in 1987, a friend gave me a copy of the Avon paperback of "Alongside Night." I read it with great interest. This novel reminded me a great deal of Robert Heinlein "juveniles" such as "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel." It is a bildungsroman following young Elliot Vreeland as he comes of age in New York City. In the thirty years since J. Neil Schulman wrote the book, the dollar has been inflated more and more. The government has become larger, more corrupt, and much more like the government portrayed in the book. So, coming of age has gotten more and more difficult. The great appeal for me in this book was its deliberate depiction of parts of society where government interference is not only gone, but actively prevented from getting involved. Free markets as part of an underground culture where people behaved without coercion had always appealed to me. In this book these markets were shown as real, vibrant, and substantial. Nor is the future depicted any sort of utopia. There are problems in the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre with abuse of power and authority. There are problems with the government, too, which are far more pernicious. Yet, people manage their affairs and get by. Some thrive. Others suffer and die. Life's rich tapestry. A decade ago, few would have believed that the monetisation of the government debt was threatening a hyperinflation of the dollar. Today it seems much more likely than ever. Who could have believed General Motors would be nationalised? Or Lehman Brothers and dozens of other companies would go under? Yet, today these are facts. Alongside Night does an excellent job of showing a troubled world as a place to grow up. It also showcases agorism and individualism in ways never before or since.

A ripping good tale.

J. Neil Schulman was known to me as the best interviewer of my hero, Robert A. Heinlein. I'd recently re-read his "The Heinlein Interview (and other Heinleinalia)", and decided it was time to read some of Neil's fiction, and get a better sense of what he has to say in his own voice. But it was with some trepidation that I approached his work. I'm a fan of RAH, and, like many Heinlein fans, I've run out of new material to discover for the first time. So, my feelings were about equal parts of "Gee, I hope his writing is a lot like Heinlein's," and "Gee, I hope his writing isn't _exactly_ like Heinlein's." But, about sixty pages into Alongside Night, I realized two things; first, that I wasn't thinking about whether it was too much or too little like a Heinlein story, and second, that I was well and truly hooked into a ripping good tale, and enjoying it immensely. Though it is possible to recognize the mark Heinlein's writing has left upon him, Neil's voice and style are all his own. If you, like me, reached the end of Heinlein's work and are searching for more like it, you will not be disappointed in Alongside Night. If you want a sci-fi thriller which will keep you guessing to the end, this is for you. If you just want something to keep your mind occupied for a few hours, then by all means, read this book. Some of the ideas in it might just make an impression. Thanks Neil. See you at the TANSTAAFL Café. ~Rick Berry

A Free Society Imagined

I first read this novel in 1983, and I now re-read it periodically because (1) it gives me hope for a better, freer society, and (2) it's so damn much fun. Without being preachy, Schulman's great libertarian sci-fi novel is like one of the terrific, old Heinlein juveniles -- simple, to the point, and fast-moving. Read it yourself, hand it off to friends (I keep a stock of tattered paperback copies just for that purpose), then re-read it yourself when you get in the dumps from too much statist TV exposure.

A winner then, a winner NOW!

I first read Alongside Night not long after it came out in 1979. I could surely see then the conditions that Mr. Schulman describes so elequently, and today we have extremely similar circumstances, minus only the double-digit inflation. Mr. Schulman wrote a book that captures most capably the essence of what a FREE society could be like, and does so without preaching. His story is well-written and INTERESTING. Give a copy to your statist friends and watch their reactions to it! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!