Though the book was written several years before the world knew of Satoshi Nakamoto, ‘Wayfaring Men’ has since become a legendary text for libertarians, freedom lovers, and bitcoin enthusiasts.

Paul Rosenberg has contributed to dozens of books and hundreds of blogs and articles in the freedom space. However, it doesn’t seem like Rosenberg has published many other fiction titles. Therein lies both the strength and weakness of the book: it is a powerful message delivered in the form of fiction, rather than rhetoric.

‘Wayfaring Men’ is a tale of two brilliant men and their quest to open free markets via the Internet in the early 2000s. James Farber, economist, and Philipp Donson, deep thinker and philosopher, battle the FBI and NSA to bring freedom to the world via the ‘New World’ of the Internet.

The two men aim to spread a completely private and encrypted online free market contained within a computer game. This will result in a global network of markets able to operate in a system outside of government regulation and forced taxation.

This story was produced during the era of digi-cash, e-gold and Liberty Reserve, currencies and Internet markets that failed or were shut down. What makes it resonate so much with bitcoiners is that the success of Project Gamma (the free market in the book) rests upon unbreakable encryption and decentralization.

The most exciting portions of the book document the heroes’ intelligent maneuvers and high-risk plots to throw the FBI off the scent. As the markets spread, the US and world governments employ more and more desperate means to stop the outflow of tax dollars and control of productivity. For example, Farber, Donson, and their teams of engineers have broken no laws, which leads the FBI to seek treason charges (in addition to spying on a host of law-abiding citizens).

It’s difficult to put this book into a genre. It’s part thriller, part life story of the main characters, and part Utopian manifesto. The elements of the story include romance, religion, loss, and geopolitical change. Yet most of these are not fully developed or explored, rendering the story itself ‘wayfaring’.

The villains of the piece are not entirely clear either. Two young FBI agents begin the hunt for those behind Gamma, dealing with the moral dilemmas of legality in different ways. The array of characters involved in the project seem crafted solely to deliver the project to its conclusion rather than giving the reader the ability to connect with their struggles and flaws. Perhaps the real hero is the concept of free trade.

The structure of the novel wanders too. The story sprawls across character backstories, years of progress on the project, truncated scenes, and unclear jumps in the time and location. Essays and opinion pieces which did not fit into the story are adjoined in a pair of appendices.

If you are a fan of flowing descriptions, deep character explorations, and literary craft, this is not the novel for you. Wayfaring Men delivers clear and functional prose to meet its lofty ambition — outlining our path to freedom.

But for all its faults, you keep reading. You root for the protagonists to succeed because you want the same thing as they do. Essentially, packaging this idea as fiction opens up a whole new audience — those who neglect reading heavy non-fiction manifestos.

Overall, I would describe this as a poor novel, but a powerful book. I found myself recommending it to a fellow freedom enthusiast straight after reading it. Those who are wired to more functional and utilitarian thinking will appreciate the story of how we wrestled freedom from the jaws of enslavement.