Science fiction has long served as a kind of mad scientist’s basement lab for testing out different political,economic, and social arrangements. Tor’s success suggests that science fiction’s commitment to meditations on the importance of human freedom remains strong, as mainstream writers borrow more freely from the once-ghettoized genre, indulging in science fiction–style hypotheticals that probe both the outer limits of and existential threats to liberty.

Reason considers science fiction and libertarianism. Because to a hammer, everything looks like a nail...

Sunday morning time travel stories from Robert Heinlein, "By His Bootstraps" and "All You Zombies."