By Michael Grossberg
An intercontinental friendship between two prolific science-fiction writers will add an extra measure of celebrity to the 43rd annual Prometheus Awards ceremony.
Sarah Hoyt, who won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel in 2011 for Darkship Thieves, will present the Best Novel category to Dave Freer during the live-Zoom ceremony, now scheduled for 2-2:30 p.m. Saturday Aug. 19 (Eastern U.S. time).
Australian writer Dave Freer had some interesting thoughts about the Greek God Prometheus and Robert Heinlein after learning that his novel Cloud-Castles has won the 2023 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
“According to Aeschylus, (Prometheus) caused blind hope to live in the hearts of men (a goal of my writing if ever had one),” Freer wrote in “Prometheus Bound,” his latest post on the Mad Genius Club blog.
“A trickster who stole fire from the gods for man and pushed them towards science and technology, as well deceiving the powers-that-be (Zeus) of the day, into choosing the rubbish which looks good on the outside, instead of the good that looks rubbish on the outside… he’s my sort of guy,” Freer said.
Quite a few writers have won more than one Prometheus award since the awards were launched in the 1970s, but nobody has won more than the late great Robert Heinlein.
Libertarian Futurist Society members proved anew how much they remain ardent fans of Heinlein (1907-1988) by voting his 1966 novelette “Free Men” the 2023 Best Classic Fiction winner and thereby inducting it into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
That marks the ninth novel, novelette or story by Heinlein to be recognized with a Prometheus Award – a record.
Science fiction and fantasy is written all over the world – and LFS members have nominated fiction from several continents and many countries over the decades.
More than ever, the Prometheus Awards have become truly international.
For the first time, the Libertarian Futurist Society has recognized an Australian writer as winner of the Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Dave Freer, an Australian who lives in Tasmania, has won the 2023 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for novels published in 2022.
Some are calling it a “Netflix for books.”
Arc Manor is venture testing a new approach to sf publishing in cooperation with a number of publishers and authors – including several recognized via the Prometheus Awards.
Arc Manor, best known to LFS members as the sf publisher of Prometheus winners Robert Heinlein and L. Neil Smith, is gearing up for Book Bale, its new download-books subscription program, with a special July discount.
If you’ve seen an ad like this online, you’re probably a freedom-loving sf/fantasy fan!
In recent months, the Libertarian Futurist Society has been experimenting more with online advertising to raise our visibility and attract new members.
The evolving ad campaign takes advantage of Google targeting techniques to reach that relatively small pool of people in the population who overlap in two key categories: science-fiction/fantasy fans and libertarians.
Some LFS members have already noticed such ads online at Reason magazine or its blog and other libertarian websites; a few also have spotted such ads at various conservative and liberal sites that attract sf/fantasy fans.
If you do see an LFS like this pop up anywhere, please help us out!
Continue reading Have you seen LFS ads online? If so, you’re part of our Google ad campaign
Rush, the Canadian art-rock group, stopped touring in 2015 and retired three years later, but still has legions of admirers around the world.
Many are science fiction fans, who appreciate their sf- or fantasy-themed songs (“The Trees”) and albums (2112). And quite a few are libertarians, who appreciate their themes affirming individualism and individual liberty (such as “Free Will” and “Tom Sawyer.”)
Those and other Rush fans should appreciate a recent Law and Liberty article paying tribute to Neil Peart, Rush’s late great drummer.
“Early on, Peart’s lyrics reflected a devotion to individualism, and his protagonists in songs such as “2112,” “Red Barchetta,” and “Tom Sawyer,” are driven primarily by their desire for free expression,” Jordan T. Cash writes in his essay.
Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation.”
—Alasdair Gray.
“If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.”
—Graydon Saunders
Ken MacLeod’s blog, “The Early Days of a Better Nation,” takes its title from a quotation from Alasdair Gray. Obligingly, he provides that quotation, followed immediately by another quotation from Graydon Saunders that comments on the idea.
Who is Graydon Saunders? Eventually, I became curious, and found that he was, among other things, the author of a series of strikingly original fantasy novels, the Commonweal series.
“Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight…”
— Lyrics from the opening song in Stephen Sondheim’s musical farce A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum
Of all the works recognized with Prometheus Awards, one of the funniest is rather unusual, even unique.
It’s not a novel, a novella or a story – the types of fiction that by far most commonly have won one of the two annual Prometheus awards for Best Novel or Best Classic Fiction.
Nor is it a movie or TV series, although several have won.
It’s a “webcomic” – and so far, the only one that’s ever received a Prometheus: Freefall (Chapter 1), created by Mark Stanley.
Continue reading Liberty and laughter: Which Special Award winners benefit from a sense of humor?
Everyone has their favorites among the fiction works that have won the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
And by everyone, I mean virtually everyone – since at least some of the 46 winning works are enjoyed by libertarians and non-libertarians alike, and by both science fiction/fantasy fans and those who don’t often read that genre.
But how many rank the comedies that high?
Continue reading Making ‘em laugh: Which Hall of Fame winners best incorporate comedy?
