This was an excellent year for interesting and informative interviews with a variety of authors, all worth reading (or rereading.)
The Prometheus Blog boasted more posted interviews in 2023 than ever before – most notably, with Australian sf writer Dave Freer, the first individual from the Southern Hemisphere to win a Prometheus award; and with the late great James Hogan, a two-time Prometheus winner for Best Novel.
Hogan’s wide-ranging six-part interview, most recently posted on the blog, was based on a lengthy, long-lost and never-before-published interview about his life and career that he gave in 2001 before appearing as a major guest of honor at Marcon and LFScon in Columbus, Ohio.
Hogan wrote 26 novels, many of which were nominated for Prometheus awards and two of which won for Best Novel – Voyage from Yesteryear (in 1983) and The Multiplex Man (in 1993).
Freer, meanwhile, won the 2023 Prometheus for Best Novel for Cloud-Castles, which he discussed among many other subjects in his four-part interview.
The past year also saw multi-part interviews with frequent Prometheus-finalist Karl K. Gallagher and Europe-based political-thriller author John Christmas, a long-time Prometheus judge.
Gallagher, in the midst of writing his projected nine-volume Censor series (including Trouble in My Day, Book 6 of the series), discussed his current series and previous works in his three-part interview.
Christmas, meanwhile, offered a distinctive perspective in his three-part interview, since he both writes fiction (most recently, the financial-political thriller KGB Banker) and serves as a longtime Best Novel finalist judge, the combination of which gives him a unique vantage point to discuss the Prometheus awards and what makes for good fiction.
In each of these interviews, the authors discuss not only the themes and inspiration for their own fiction, but also what novelists inspired and influenced them – and mention some of their favorite works, including some recognized in the Prometheus Awards given over the past four decades-plus for Best Novel or Best Classic Fiction (the Prometheus Hall of Fame.)
Thus, rereading or rereading the Prometheus blog interviews also can double as a good source for recommendations of what other authors and books to read.
Looking back before 2023, the Prometheus blog has published several other interesting interviews worth checking out.
Perhaps the most notable in 2022 was the Prometheus interview with our 2022 Best Novel winner Wil McCarthy (Rich Man’s Sky).
Also of interest in 2022, partly because of her special perspective as a frequent “filking” guest of honor at sf/fantasy and filking conventions across North America for the past several decades, was the Prometheus interview with author-songwriter Leslie Fish, who won the 2014 Special Prometheus Award for her novella “Tower of Horses” (published in the Music of Darkover anthology) and related filk-song “The Horseman’s Daughter.”
A question to LFS members: What authors (or other interesting people) would you like to see interviewed in 2024?
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE:
* Prometheus winners: For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – for 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 the full set of published appreciation-reviews of past winners.
* 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 elements 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.
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards, join the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), 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, and in some ways even more powerful than politics in the long run, by sparking innovation, better ideas, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, individuality and human dignity.
