I know some of the people reading this have read Atlas Shrugged [1]; even fewer have read Anthem [2] (and fewer still are actually fans of Ms. Rand, but I digress), but this is something I never realized about the two books:
I don't know how many of you realize that Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's science fiction classic, is actually only book 1 of a trilogy? Hardly anybody knows this, because she never got around to writing the missing middle volume. She wrote book 1 in the series. She wrote book 3 in the series, but didn't explicitly label it a sequel to Atlas Shrugged, she and her agent marketed it as a stand-alone volume. She never got around to writing the middle volume that bridges the two. It's probably because she found it too depressing, the way that Heinlein never got around to writing The Stone Pillow, the missing volume in the Future History series that comes between “All You Zombies” and “If This Goes On.”
“The Infamous Brad—Atlas Shrugged 2: Shrug Harder [3]”
Interesting. And it makes sense (then again, so does this [4], but again, I'm digressing).
If only [DELETED-it were true-DELETED] Atlas Shrugged 2: Shrug Harder really existed … [sorry if that last sentance wasn't clear — Editor]
[1] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0452011876/conmanlaborat-
[2] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0452281253/conmanlaborat-
[3] http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/393124.html
![[4] http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif](http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif){kind=link}