Leviathan Falls, Fascism, and Winston Churchill

By Bobby Neal Winters

I just finished Leviathan Falls, the last book of the Expanse series. There are nine books in the series, and each one has a 20-hour audiobook version.  They are long books and it is a long series. (There is also a tv series on Amazon Prime.)

It is the best science fiction can be.

It follows the model of science fiction that I like the most. It takes known science and technology and extrapolates forward.  It then creates its world around that.  Then it goes one more step.  It adds something that we--and the people of the future human civilization it has created--can’t understand.  Something that might as well be magic.  And it extrapolates what the human race will do.

Within this framework, the Expanse explores several ways the human race can govern themselves.  Spoiler Alert: They are all bad.

In the Expanse series, there are three antagonists to the human race. The first of these are the builders of the “protomolecule,” a billions of years dead race whose advanced technology the human race has stumbled upon.  Then there are the mysterious entities who destroyed the protomolecule-builders.  And, add to those, our most constant enemy: the human race itself.

In the battle of Man versus Man, it explores fascism, and it does it in an un-cartoonish way.  This was interesting to me as someone who grew up on caricatures of Nazis from WWII movies.  

Before I write another sentence, let me state I have no sympathies with the Nazis or their latter-day wanna-bes.  I’ve seen the bones of their victims among the ashes of the bodies. But as I grew up and learned more, the Nazis became more mysterious.  The Germans are a people of high culture with a great value on education.  They’ve produced philosophers, scientists, theologians, and missionaries.  How could they also produce the Nazis?

Detailing the sins that led to this would undoubtedly take an encyclopedia.  To summarize, the Germans came into a time of disorder, and in the need for order, they let the Nazis in.

The Expanse series, within the framework of science fiction--which allows us to see something at a distance--puts fascism in a light where we can see it dispassionately.  We can move it to a distance from Auschwiz and Guernica; from Hitler, Mussilini, and Franco; remove the personalities; and see its basic flaws.

The fascists in the Expanse, as individuals, are presented as good people, by which I mean they are presented as people like you and me. Their leaders are just people who want the very best for humanity--as they see it.  Those words after the n-dash are very important.  The system of fascism puts too much power in the hands of too few human beings, and you all know about human beings and how rotten they can be.

The authors of the Expanse series, who together write under the pseudonym James S. A. Corey, don’t offer any answers.  They take nine long books in a series to say what Winston Churchill said: “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.” 

We may, understandably, become impatient with democracy.  We might want more efficient solutions to whatever the problem of the day might be.  A powerful government which acts in a unified, efficient manner, whether that government is fascist, communist, monarchist, or whatever, might be appealing...for a moment.

Democracy is inefficient, but inefficiency in genocide is not a bad thing.  If I want to improve a democracy, the beginning is easy: I can improve myself.  I can read more; I can listen more; I can try to see the other fellow’s side more.

In the meantime, if you like science fiction; if you like audiobooks; and if you have 180 hours of time to listen.  I recommend the Expanse series.  They are also available in print.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like'' the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube. )