Editor’s note: To kick off a new year of judging and for the sake of greater transparency about the Prometheus Awards, the Prometheus Blog is posting an occasional series of essays by LFS awards judges about how they view our distinctive award standards and how they apply them to weigh candidates and nominees.
I am, and have been for many years, one of the 12 judges who screens LFS membership suggestions about novels deserving of the Prometheus Award.
This past year we had a record number of Best Novel nominations for the 2024 award – 17 – and trying to evaluate all of them in the time we have available was a real strain. In the future I think all the judges would prefer to see fewer but higher-quality submissions.
So I’m going to talk about what I consider a high-quality submission. Other judges have slightly different criteria and I’m not claiming to speak for them; but I will try to focus on the criteria I think we have in common, and towards the end of this post I’ll describe some axes of controversy within the committee’s emailing-list discussions and comparative reports.
I have a strict input filter. To be eligible for a Prometheus at all, a book must have positive libertarian content. That can mean that:
1. It is a conscious exploration of libertarian ideas.
2. It is set in a libertarian future and, even if there is no
explicit libertarian theory, the background stimulates one to think
about libertarian ideas or the challenges of sustaining a libertarian
order.
3. Cautionary tales like 1984 and Brave New World can be eligible, novels that examine the anti-libertarian mechanisms of psychological control. But my bar for these is pretty high – to be eligible at all they have to be *novel*, illuminating a problem that has not been analyzed or depicted before.
4. It’s libertarian genre criticism. That is, a reply to some classic work of SF proposing some plan for the betterment of humankind that falls apart or even turns into a nightmare when examined more closely.
A significant class of submissions that fails to pass is what I have excoriated on the committee list as YABD – Yet Another Boring Dystopia.
It is not sufficient to be writing about a repressive
society and viewpoint characters who want to overthrow it. Plucky resistance vs. jackbooted thugs is pro-liberty, but it’s not
*libertarian*. To be libertarian the resistance has to exhibit some actual commitment to libertarian ideas (such as: free-market economics, anti-statism, and the centrality of the armed and autonomous individual).
Once a novel has passed this filter I grade it as a weighted sum of the following factors. I’m going to list these roughly in order of decreasing weight.
* Is it good SF? Does it deliver idea content, sound worldbuilding,
and sense of wonder? There are analogous criteria for fantasy which
I won’t unpack here as they are less often relevant.
* How original in it? I will forgive other defects in a book that
challenges me and makes me think new thoughts, especially new thoughts
about the expansion of liberty.
* Is it effective pro-libertarian advocacy? Is it understandable
and persuasive? Books that are anti-libertarian will have a negative
coefficient on this term.
* Is it good writing in a conventional sense? That is, in terms of prose
quality and plotting and characterization and style?
* Finally, I’m going to admit to awarding extra points to novels that are stalwart for the Campbellian tradition in SF – fun and optimistic and with rivets on, and containing due homages to the classics of the Golden Age.
Editor’s note: For more about how John Campbell and Robert Heinlein basically “invented modern science fiction,” along with a critique and overview of other revolutionary and enriching epochs in the evolution of speculative fiction, read Raymond’s “Freedom in the Future Tense: A Political History of SF,” His far-reaching and seminal, far-reaching and illuminating article was one of the earliest essays posted on the Prometheus Blog in 2017, and remains highly relevant – both to this column and more broadly, to the Prometheus Awards.
NOT YOUR AVERAGE PROMETHEUS JUDGE
If there’s such a thing as an average Prometheus judge, I’m not quite it. I’m pickier about the minimum acceptable level of libertarian content than most. YABDs are a frequent topic of dispute, and I am usually the one saying reject them when others are more willing for them to be finalists. (This is more
likely in a year with few strong candidates).
Other judges may weight goodness as genre SF versus originality versus libertarian advocacy versus conventionally good writing differently than I do. I think we all consider all of these axes, but I’m probably more than averagely tolerant of amateurish writing if the work’s quality as SF and originality and libertarian persuasion seems good to me. I’m especially tolerant of literary defects if the work is challenging and original.
I’m probably a bit more indulgent than average of candidates that are love letters to Golden Age SF.
A subtle point about libertarian advocacy is that I’m not a big fan of authors who think it’s persuasive to lecture the reader. I like a book to advocate libertarianism by showing, not telling.
Note: Also read LFS President William H. Stoddard’s essay, the first in this series, addressing our awards standards and Prometheus judging.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS:
* Prometheus winners: For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies (including the recent 2023 ceremony with inspiring and amusing speeches by Prometheus-winning authors Dave Freer and Sarah Hoyt), Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters. We understand that the arts and literature can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future – and in some ways can be even more powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, individuality, and human dignity.
Through recognizing the literature of liberty and the many different but complementary visions of a free future via the Prometheus Awards, the LFS hopes to help spread ideas and ethical principles that help humanity overcome tyranny, end slavery, reduce the threat of war, repeal or constrain other abuses of coercive power and achieve universal liberty, respect for human rights and a better world (perhaps ultimately, worlds) for all.
Bravo! I am truly excited about this series from the judges, because it not only gives us an insight into the spirited state of discourse on the committee, but it also gives us thrilling acronyms, such as YABDs.
It also lets me know which judges are most likely to YEET me into a bonfire. Well done, ESR!