I've always thought -- even when I was fourteen and reading it for the first time -- that Atlas Shrugged would have been a better book along every conceivable dimension if Dagny and Rearden had told Galt where to stuff it when they got the chance. Never mind what would have happened later. The guy had all the personality of a wind-up pocketwatch; more importantly, though, (allegedly) charismatic figures brandishing totalizing economic ideologies and apocalyptic predictions tend to get a lot of people killed, and Rand as a child of the Soviets should have known that. Bright engineers and executives that actually struggle and solve problems on-page and appear to feel empathy are a lot more fun to read about.

Of course, then it wouldn't have been a Rand book. You wouldn't be too far wrong if you said -- of any of her books -- that all the economic and political content was window dressing for her depiction of her ideal man, and not the other way around.