The Aristillus Series is a pair of science fiction novels about anarchocapitalism, economics, open source software, corporate finance, social media, antigravity, lunar colonization, genetically modified dogs, strong AI…and really, really big guns.

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 making sure that no new technologies disrupt the planned economy. Ten years ago a band of malcontents, dreamers, and libertarian radicals used a privately developed anti-gravity drive to equip obsolete and rusting sea-going cargo ships – and flew them to the moon.

There, using real world tunnel-boring-machines and earth-moving equipment, they’ve built their own retreat. If Ayn Rand’s ‘Galt’s Gulch’ had American capitalists, Chinese refugees, Mexican hydroponic farmers, Nigerian restaurant owners and Vietnamese space suit mechanics and was located in the underground tunnels of a lunar border-town, you’d have something like 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 slap down the lunar expats and seize the gold they’re mining. The conflicts start small, but rapidly escalate.

There are zero-gravity gun fights in rusted ocean going 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, and an astoundingly visual climax where -in the midst of all out warfare…well, you’ll have to read the novels.