The Probability Broach
Story by L. Neil Smith
Art by Scott Bieser
Colors by –3–
Big Head Press
Cover Price: $19.95; Available Now

Or as I like to call this book, “Libertarianism, Yay!” This was a weird one, not really knowing anything about it till I started reading, which is not normal for me these days as I usually try to find out lots of info about things before I buy them. However, I was sent this book and after reading it, I’m left scratching my head a bit. There are several different questions to ask myself while reviewing this: does it work as an adaptation of a novel? Does it work as an explanation of Libertarian ideas and philosophies? Does it work as a piece of fiction on its own? Is it exciting? Does it have interesting characters? Does it have anything to say? I guess those last ones are questions I ask when reviewing anything, but they come up more in relation to the first two questions. I have answers to all those questions, but first, plot synopsis, ho!!

The Probability Broach was originally a novel released in 1980 by writer L. Neil Smith, if Wikipedia is to be believed it was his first novel, and if Wikipedia is wrong, I don’t want to be right. It deals with the adventures of Detective Win Bear and his adventures through a quantum looking glass in an alternate dimension where the United States became a Libertarian utopia very early in it’s history. Win is investigating the murder of a university professor in his version of 1987 which is a pretty nasty place, with secret police taking out dissenters and basically everything having been outlawed by the government. While investigating he gets shot through a probability broach (just like the name of this book) and winds up in a utopia where everyone is basically rich, there’s no pollution, monkeys, gorillas, and dolphins can talk and are valued members of society, and everyone does their own thing because there’s hardly any centralized government. Unfortunately, Win is followed by one of the secret police from his world and ends up embroiled in a plot by a group of Federalists to ruin this utopia.

So, does it this comic work as an adaptation of the original novel? Kind of, since for most of it, if you didn’t know it was based on a book you wouldn’t be able to tell. However, there are a few times where I could really tell that certain captions were just copied straight from the book and violated one of the first rules of comic book writing, “show, and don’t tell.” And unfortunately, the art isn’t really good enough to warrant an adaptation. If the art was really good or really interesting or added anything, I might enjoy it more, but to be honest, the art is fairly boring. The colors are fairly flat, the character design is pretty boring, and for crying out loud, he even managed to make talking monkeys boring.

Does it work as an explanation of Libertarian ideas? Does it make me want to explore their philosophy any more? Not really. The writer presents the libertarian world as a pretty much perfect utopia, which as a pessimist, I can’t really accept. Utopias don’t exist because people are flawed. The world presented here could only exist in the absence of greed, insanity, prejudice, paranoia — you know, human behavior. There’s no discussion of actual history of the ideas, just a made up history, which gives the whole thing a ring of falseness. I wish there was more actual information here, because that would interest me. It’s just not.

Finally, does it work by itself as an exciting story with interesting characters? No, not really. A large reason for this is that there’s a big chuck of pages in the middle spent explaining the world the story takes place in, which is kind of interesting, but throws off the pacing of the book because it’s all talk and no plot. The main villain is not introduced until pretty late in the story and by that point it’s too late to build them up as a viable threat. It doesn’t really help that the villain’s goals are never explained that well. There are a few interesting characters through out, but not really enough to improve the story.

So would I recommend this? Again, I have to say not really. The pedestrian art and boring story didn’t really impress me. If you’re a fan of politics and a fan of comics, you might find something of interest here, but most people will just want to take a pass on this. My final score, a 2 out of 5.

Available at Amazon.com.