Autarchy by Grant Winston

Autarchy is a cross-genre work of soft science fiction and political fiction. The setting is a planetary-lunar nation state in the Laniakea Supercluster, formed by the planet Curmis, and its two orbiting moons, Ghelinis and Vorbishte. The three together form the Democratic Triumvirate, a free and open society that has been sinking into cultural despair, leading it into a crisis with an authoritarian dictator whose goal is to replace the democracy with an autarchy. The novel is told in the narrative of a young man, Hempstead Patrick, through his letters, as he describes the efforts of his heroic journalist sister, Boudicca, with additional comments from Hempstead's criminal defense advokat. The novel chronicles how democracy can tragically slip away easier than we care to think, even now, even here.