J. Neil Schulman

J. Neil Schulman should not be confused with fellow Prometheus Award winner, L. Neil Smith

J. Neil Schulman
J. Neil Schulman
Born	Joseph Neil Schulman (1953-04-16) April 16, 1953 Forest Hills, New York
Occupation	Novelist, filmmaker, actor, journalist, composer, publisher.
Nationality	American
Period	20th-century, 21st-century.
Genre	Libertarian science fiction, comedy.
Website
www.jneilschulman.com

Joseph Neil Schulman (/ˈʃuːlmən/; born April 16, 1953)^[1] is an American novelist who wrote Alongside Night (published 1979) and The Rainbow Cadenza (published 1983) which both received the Prometheus Award, a libertarian science fiction award. His third novel, Escape from Heaven, was also a finalist for the 2002 Prometheus Award.

Biography

Schulman was born in Forest Hills, Queens. He is the author of nine other books currently in print, including a short story collection, Nasty, Brutish, and Short Stories, Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns, and The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana.^[2]

He is writer of the Twilight Zone episode "Profile in Silver", first broadcast on CBS March 7, 1986.

From "About J. Neil Schulman" in The Fractal Man:

J. Neil Schulman is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, journalist, and entrepreneur whom the Wall Street Journal called a pioneer of electronic publishing in 1989.

His 1979 Prometheus-Hall-of-Fame novel Alongside Night—endorsed by Milton Friedman, Anthony Burgess, and Ron Paul—projected the economic meltdown and was Freedom Book of the Month for May, 2009.

Alongside Night was his second feature film as writer/producer/director/actor, and starred Kevin Sorbo, Jake Busey, Gary Graham, Tim Russ, Garrett Wang, Mara Marini, and Said Faraj. After a red-carpet Beverly Hills premiere it released in a limited theatrical run in 2014, and is now available on Amazon Video & Prime along with his award-winning 2008 comic thriller, Lady Magdalene's, starring Nichelle Nichols.

His latest novel is the science-fiction alternate-timeline romp, The Fractal Man, released by Steve Heller Publishing in May 2018 as a $0.99 Amazon Kindle.

Schulman is currently at work on his fifth novel, The Metronome Misnomer. The title comes from a fractal version of the author in The Fractal Man, who wrote a book of that title in an alternate timeline.

His 1983 novel, The Rainbow Cadenza, won the Prometheus Award, was adapted into a Laserium show, and Robert A. Heinlein told the 1983 L-5 Society, "Every libertarian should read it!" His 2002 novel Escape from Heaven has been compared to Mark Twain.

His short story “Day of Atonement” appeared in the Prometheus-award-winning Tor book Free Space, and his short story “The Repossessed” led off Carol Serling’s anthology Adventures in the Twilight Zone. Both are reprinted in his short-story collection, Nasty, Brutish, and Short Stories.

Schulman scripted the CBS revived Twilight Zone episode, "Profile in Silver," about a future historian who creates a disastrous alternate timeline when he time travels back to November 22, 1963 and prevents JFK’s assassination.

He taught a graduate course on electronic publishing for The New School, has written for popular magazines and newspapers including New Libertarian, Mondo Cult, National Review, Reason, the Los Angeles Times, and Reader's Digest, and monographs ranging from animal rights, informational property rights, and medicalization of criminology have been widely anthologized by academic presses.

His other books include Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns, endorsed by Charlton Heston and Dennis Prager, Self Control Not Gun Control endorsed by Walter Williams, and The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana, which Virginia Heinlein said "should be on the shelves of everyone interested in science fiction."

His latest printed book is The Heartmost Desire which includes two other of his books available as Amazon Kindles: Unchaining the Human Heart – A Revolutionary Manifesto (his answer to Mao’s “Little Red Book”) and I Met God – God Without Religion, Scripture or Faith (his answer both to atheists like he used to be and to dogmatic religious zealots).

His Kindle book J. Neil Schulman’s The Book of Words collects much of his humorous and controversial writings.

He's recipient of the James Madison Award from the Second Amendment Foundation, the Samuel Edward Konkin III Memorial Chauntecleer by the Karl Hess Club, and the Sovereign Award from the Libertopia convention.

Full bio at http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/jnsbio.html

^[3]

Books

Schulman is author of:^[4]

• Self Control Not Gun Control (Synapse-Centurion, 1995; Pulpless.Com 1999)
• Profile in Silver and Other Screenwritings (Pulpless.Com, 1999)
• The Frame of the Century? (Pulpless.Com, 1999)
• The Heartmost Desire (Pulpless.Com, 2013)
• Unchaining the Human Heart -- A Revolutionary Manifesto (Pulpless.Com, 2017)
• I Met God -- God without Religion, Scripture, or Faith (Pulpless.Com, 2017)
• Atheist to Believer (Pulpless.Com, 2017)
• J. Neil Schulman's The Book of Words (Pulpless.Com, 2017)
• The Fractal Man (Steve Heller Publishing, 2018)^[5]
• Origitent: Why Original Content Is Property (Steve Heller Publishing, 2018)^[6]

Literary Status

On Alongside Night

"I received Alongside Night at noon today. It is now eight in the evening and I just finished it. I think I am entitled to some dinner now as I had no lunch. The unputdownability of the book ensured that. It is a remarkable and original story, and the picture it presents of an inflation- crippled America on the verge of revolution is all too acceptable. I wish, and so will many novelists, that I, or they, had thought of the idea first. A thrilling novel, crisply written, that fires the imagination as effectively as it stimulates the feelings." -- Anthony Burgess ^[7]

"An absorbing novel--science fiction, yet also a cautionary tale with a disturbing resemblance to past history and future possibilities." --Milton Friedman

On The Rainbow Cadenza

"I found it absolutely fascinating ... A splendid book." --Colin Wilson

"An original and thoughtful book which raises questions that have not appeared in fiction before." --Gregory Benford

"Every libertarian should read it. It should win the Prometheus Award." --Robert A. Heinlein, at the 1983 L-5 Society Conference, to Libertarian Futurist Society Chairman Michael Grossberg

On Escape from Heaven

"Wild, irreverent, a hoot. Any other civilization would have burned Schulman at the stake. Did they know something we don't?" -- David Brin

On Self Control Not Gun Control

"Schulman interestingly and insightfully raises a number of liberty-related issues that we ignore at the nation's peril. His ideas are precisely those that helped make our country the destination of those seeking liberty. The book's title says it all: personal responsibility, not laws and prohibitions, is the mark of a civil society." --Walter E. Williams

Filmmaking

Schulman was the writer, director, executive producer (along with Nichelle Nichols) of the movie, Lady Magdalene's^[8] which was produced by Schulman's own company Jesulu Productions. The movie won three film-festival awards: "Best Cutting Edge Film" at the 2008 San Diego Black Film Festival,^[8] "Audience Choice – Feature-Length Narrative Film" at the 2008 Cinema City International Film Festival held on the Universal Hollywood Citywalk,^[9] and "Special Jury Prize for Libertarian Ideals" at the 2011 Anthem Film Festival/FreedomFest held at Bally's Las Vegas.^[10]

In 2013 Schulman completed production on a feature-film of Alongside Night,^[11] starring Kevin Sorbo, Jake Busey, Tim Russ, Garrett Wang, Mara Marini, and Gary Graham.^[12] The movie premiered in 2014^[13] and had a limited theatrical release.^[14] It was released for streaming on iTunes, Amazon Video and Amazon Prime and as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.^[15] The film is rated 2.7 out of 5 on Amazon.^[16]

See also

• Agorism

References

External links

• Official Website
• J. Neil Schulman on IMDb