Victor Koman
Agorist science fiction
Liberty through the back door.
Reformist AgoristOne of 729 ideologies · enter the Agorist hall →- Role
- Novelist
- Era
- b. 1954
- Region
- United States
- Social band
- Reformist
- Placement
- +9 · −90 · +45
§ Where Victor Koman stands
3 axesKoman sits just right of the economic centre. His fiction celebrates entrepreneurs, inventors and black-market traders, most fully in Kings of the High Frontier, which won the Prometheus Award in 1997 and imagines private efforts to reach orbit in defiance of government. Like other agorists, though, he distinguishes free exchange from the state-backed corporate economy, which keeps him near the middle.
His politics are stateless: in the agorist tradition, freedom is achieved by evading and outgrowing the state rather than voting it away. His novels repeatedly cast rule-breakers and counter-economic actors as heroes, and The Jehovah Contract, a Prometheus winner in 1988, turns that defiance against the ultimate authority figure itself.
Koman's social outlook is individualist and provocative rather than programmatic. Solomon's Knife, which won the Prometheus Award in 1990, uses speculative medicine to explore the abortion debate, and his irreverent treatment of religion in The Jehovah Contract reflects a secular, anti-authoritarian temper that places him moderately on the progressive side.
How close are you to Victor Koman?
Three statements, one per axis. Answer them and we’ll drop you on the compass next to them.
§ The story
HistoricalVictor Koman (born 1954) is an American science-fiction novelist whose work belongs to the libertarian and agorist tradition associated with Samuel Edward Konkin III. He is best known for three novels that each won the Prometheus Award, the prize given by the Libertarian Futurist Society for fiction that explores liberty: The Jehovah Contract, Solomon's Knife and Kings of the High Frontier.
Koman's fiction uses provocative premises to test authority. The Jehovah Contract follows a man hired to kill God, Solomon's Knife takes on the abortion debate through medical technology, and Kings of the High Frontier imagines private, unlicensed efforts to reach space outside government control. Together they dramatise the agorist conviction that freedom is won by individuals acting outside the state rather than through politics, and they place him alongside J. Neil Schulman as one of agorism's leading novelists.
Notable for
- 01'Kings of the High Frontier'
- 02Agorist-themed fiction
- 03Prometheus Award winner
Key works & moments
- 1980sPublishes The Jehovah Contract, a hard-boiled novel about a man hired to kill God.
- 1988The Jehovah Contract wins the Prometheus Award for best libertarian novel.
- 1990Solomon's Knife, a novel about the abortion debate, wins the Prometheus Award.
- 1997Kings of the High Frontier, about private spaceflight, wins his third Prometheus Award.
§ Minds closest to Victor Koman
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§ Also in the Agorist hall
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§ Common questions
4 answersWhat is Victor Koman's political ideology?
Victor Koman is a libertarian novelist in the agorist tradition: on the 99ideologies three-axis compass, a Reformist Agorist. Economically he sits just right of centre (+9), celebrating entrepreneurs and free exchange while distinguishing them from state-backed corporate power. On governance he is strongly libertarian (−90), favouring freedom won by evading the state rather than through politics, and socially he is moderately progressive (+45), a secular and provocative individualist.
Is Victor Koman left-wing or right-wing?
Neither label fits well; he is a libertarian anarchist. Koman's fiction celebrates markets, entrepreneurs and private enterprise, themes usually associated with the right, but it is hostile to the state and to state-backed business, irreverent about religion and willing to explore contested questions such as abortion, which sets it apart from social conservatism. Like other agorists, he treats the important divide as the one between voluntary exchange and state coercion, not between left and right.
How does Victor Koman's fiction reflect agorism?
Through heroes who build freedom outside the state instead of seeking power within it. Agorism, developed by Samuel Edward Konkin III, holds that peaceful but unlicensed or forbidden trade, the counter-economy, can gradually displace the state. Koman's novels turn that idea into stories: Kings of the High Frontier imagines private, unauthorised efforts to reach space, while The Jehovah Contract makes defiance of authority its premise. The Libertarian Futurist Society has honoured three of his novels with its Prometheus Award.
Which minds are closest to Victor Koman?
On the 99ideologies three-axis compass, the minds closest to Victor Koman are Karl Hess (97% alike), The Crypto-Trader (archetype) (97% alike) and J. Neil Schulman (96% alike). The furthest is Adam Sutler (3% alike).