James Nicoll Reviews

Naomi Kritzer’s 2023 Liberty’s Daughter is a near-future fix-up novel.

Beck Garrison lives on a seastead community located comfortably outside the limits of American waters. Founded almost fifty years earlier, the cluster of seasteads is a glorious celebration of true liberty, which is to say the right of rich people to do whatever they want and for poor people to make that possible.

Beck’s father Paul is one of the local elites. That does not mean Beck is sitting on her hands, waiting for bondservants to feed her bonbons. The teenager has sought out gainful employment, eventually landing on the role of finder.

But first! A word about where the seasteads fit into the economy of the future.

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2021’s Chaos on Catnet is the second book in Naomi Kritzer’s Catnet series. 

The first book ended with Steph’s sociopath hacker father being held without bail on a charge of attempted murder. Steph and her mother no longer need to hide from him. No more false IDs and midnight moves from small town to small town. Now they can move to Minneapolis to build more conventional lives. 

Pity about the looming apocalypse. 

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2019’s Catfishing on CatNet is the first volume of Naomi Kritzer’s new YA series.

Fleeing Steph’s abusive father, Steph’s mother has spent the better part of a decade moving from town to town. Denied time to put down roots and forbidden to stay in contact with any friends she might make during her brief stays, Steph has turned to the internet for companionship. CatNet, an online forum whose denizens share pictures of cats (and other animals), is the closest thing she has to a social circle.

One of her online friends is not like the others.

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