The Powers of the Earth

Aristillus, Book 1

By: T.J. Corcoran

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Winner of the 2018 Promethus Award for Best Novel

Earth in 2064 is politically corrupt and in economic decline. The Long Depression has dragged on for 56 years, and the Bureau of Sustainable Research is hard at work making sure no new technologies disrupt the planned economy. Ten years ago, a band of malcontents, dreamers, and libertarian radicals bolted privately developed antigravity drives onto rusty seagoing cargo ships, loaded them to the gills with 20th-century tunnel-boring machines and earthmoving equipment, and set sail—for the moon.

There, they built their retreat. A lunar underground border town fit to rival Ayn Rand's "Galt's Gulch", with American capitalists, Mexican hydroponic farmers, and Vietnamese space-suit mechanics—this is the city of Aristillus.

There's a problem, though: The economic decline of Earth under a command-and-control economy is causing trouble for the political powers-that-be in Washington, DC, and elsewhere. To shore up their positions, they need to slap down the lunar expats and seize the gold they've been mining. The conflicts start small but rapidly escalate.

The Powers of the Earth includes zero-gravity gun fights in rusted oceangoing ships flying through space, containers full of bulldozers hurtling through the vacuum, nuclear explosions, armies of tele-operated combat UAVs, guerrilla fighting in urban environments, an astoundingly visual climax...and really, really big guns.

©2018 T.J. Corcoran (P)2018 Podium Audio

101 GUIDE to how to be an idiot

They didn't do a single thing correctly, when you are breaking off from a country or a world and still have needs from that world you do NOT assume that they won't do anything.... it's like history fucking 101... so hard to listen to

Great story that's far to relevant.

Great story is the struggle for freedom against insurmountable odds. I love ther characters, especially Gamma and the Texan.

I wish I had discovered this sooner

Amazing story definitely a throwback to Robert Heinleins The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. This has everything from science to politics. The characters feel real in every sense. I'm going right to the second novel from this.

Engaging Read But Only Half a Story

The story was engaging enough and had some interesting characters and a decent world. All the characters were very clearly either "good" or "evil" based on their adherence to libertarian principles.

I would have given it four stars, but it felt like only half a story. It's fine to set the readers up for a sequel, but the book cut off in the middle of an action sequence with no sort of closure at all.

More believable

While the science remains fiction for now, between the first time I read the two books and now, the politics have become much more believable. I keep hoping for a third.