Several Prometheus-recognized authors are included on New Scientist’s intriguing list of the 26 best science fiction/fantasy stories of all time.
E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” is the only story on the magazine’s list previously inducted into the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus Hall of Fame. Yet, several other enduring and Prometheus-winning authors have classic stories on the magazine’s list – just not the ones our award has recognized.
Among them: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin and Kurt Vonnegut.
It’s interesting to see which of their stories are recognized by the magazine, and why.
First, here’s an excerpt from the Prometheus Blog’s appreciation of Forster’s classic story, highlighting how it fits our award’s themes:
“This is a cautionary tale about the dangers of government and the possibilities for absolute control growing out of people’s demands. Early in the story we’re told that people’s distaste for contact with nature and each other drove the development of the technology. Eventually the technology is used to control people’s choices,” Prometheus Awards judge Chris Hibbert wrote in his review-essay.
RAY BRADBURY’S TWO STORIES
Perhaps most impressively, Bradbury is the only writer with more than one story selected by New Scientist.
The first is “The Pedestrian,” which actually is mentioned and part of the same fictional future in Bradbury’s classic novel Fahrenheit 451, inducted in 1984 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
Here’s an excerpt from the Appreciation review-essay of Fahrenheit 451:
“Bradbury’s 1953 novel makes an eloquent case (both libertarian and classical liberal) against censorship and book-burning as a blow not only to basic individual rights but as a devastating wound to history, memory and civilization itself.
“Bradbury’s best-known novel offers an exemplary cautionary fable about an illiberal future society in which books are outlawed and burned to destroy them and any remnant of literacy, memory, deep culture and independent thinking.”
That same dystopian future of conformity and thought control frames “The Pedestrian” (1951).
Set in a society most “people spend sedentary evenings gazing at screens,” according to the magazine’s mini-review, and AI-powered police robots are blind to human motivations, the story centers on a man “hauled away to an institution by a driverless police car” because he is strolling outdoors at night with no purpose.
Bradbury’s reframing of an everyday human experience – a post-dinner walk – as a rebellious act is aptly referenced in Fahrenheit 451.
Like Bradbury’s better-known novel, the story offers a clear libertarian theme that fits our Hall of Fame (which is why it was nominated for the first time several years ago for consideration for our annual Best Classic Fiction category.
Today, “The Pedestrian” may be even more relevant.
As New Scientist writer Matthew Sparkes writes in his description, “the story has valuable messages about the society we have since constructed that is increasingly difficult to navigate without technology and how we maintain humanity in the face of progress. And the unflinching AI that refuses to accept Mead’s explanation should give us all pause for thought as we entrench large language models into every aspect of our lives.”
By the way, the other Bradbury story included on the magazine’s list is “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950), a cautionary tale anticipating “smart homes” and exploring their isolating downside.
ROBERT HEINLEIN’S STORY
Heinlein, the author most recognized by the Prometheus Awards, may be best remembered for his novels – especially The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, Red Planet, Methuselah’s Children, Time Enough for Love and Citizen of the Galaxy, all inducted over the decades into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
Yet, many of his short stories continue to resonate, including “Requiem,” “Coventry” and “Free Men,” each inducted in more recent decades and since the turn of the century into our Hall of Fame.
The Heinlein story that New Scientist selected for its bests list, however, is “All You Zombies” (1958).
Despite its title, this isn’t a zombie horror story but a sly time-travel tale with some twists, beginning wit a bartender (actually a temporal agent) coaxing a customer into sharing their incredible life story.
“Before long,” the magazine’s Jeremy Hsu writes, “the conversation takes some unexpected but increasingly personal turns for both people. Heinlein supposedly wrote All You Zombies in a single day and you can read it within half an hour – but don’t be surprised if the story slithers into your subconscious and nests in its coils there for years to come.”
URSULA K. LE GUIN’S STORY
Le Guin’s dystopian/utopian novel “The Dispossessed” was inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in 1993. Check out the Prometheus Blog’s review-essay appreciation.
Meanwhile, the story New Scientist magazine selected for its best list is set within the same fictional future as Le Guin’s classic novel – the story is actually something of a prequel – and deals with some of the same ethical and sociopolitical themes.
Written by Le Guin in 1973 just a few years before finishing her novel, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” depicts a community where everyone is happy and fulfilled, and many authoritarian vestiges of history (from slavery to monarchy) have been abolished or long faded away.
With one seemingly small exception – a major and shocking twist that reveals the dark center of a seeming utopia and that raises uncomfortable questions about the price of progress.
“Speculative fiction writers speak often about our need to dream up better worlds,” New Scientist’s Christie Taylor writes.
“But you are reminded, with Omelas, to question your imagination even as you nurture it. To find in every utopia someone’s dystopia. And to ask about those centred by this story’s title: what exactly happens to those who walk away?”
KURT VONNEGUT’S STORY
“Harrison Bergeron,” Vonnegut’s satirical 1961 cautionary tale about a future society in which radical egalitarianism has gone to authoritarian extremes, was inducted in 2019 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
That would have been the Vonnegut story I’d select for a bests list, for sure, but New Scientist chose to recognize another.
Set in a future 2000 with strict population controls and where old age has been “conquered,” “2 B R 0 2 B” follows a soon-to-be-father of triplets faced with a horrific choice: If his babies are to survive, he must line up three deaths by calling the title’s telephone number for the municipal gas chambers of the FBT (the Federal Bureau of Termination.”
Yikes.
Come to think of it, the ethics and theme of Vonnegut’s story is similar to those of Le Guin’s tale.
OTHER AUTHORS AND STORIES ON THE LIST
Among the other authors and stories on the bests list include H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895), Isaac Asimov’s “Nightfall” (1941), Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (1948), Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Nine Billion Names of God” (1953), and Daniel Keyes’ “Flowers for Algernon” (1959).
Plus, Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” (inspiration for the two Total Recall films), Joanna Russ’s “When It Changed” (1972), Raccoona Sheldon’s “The Screwfly Solution” (1977), and George R.R. Martin’s “Sandkings” (1979).
Also, Connie Willis’ “Fire Watch” (1982), William Gibson’s “Burning Chrome” (1982), Bruce Sterling’s “Swarm” (1982), Octavia E. Butler’s “Bloodchild” (1984), Jacqueline Harpman’s “I Who Have Never Known Men” (1995), Cixin Liu’s “Cloud of Poems” (1997). (Liu’s novel Three-Body Problem became a 2015 Prometheus Best Novel finalist.)
Also, Ken Liu’s “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” (2011), Rebecca Roanhorse’s “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience” (2017); “N.K. Jemisin’s “The Ones Who Stay and Fight” (2020), whose title and story are inspired by Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” and qntm’s “Lena” (2021).
Also included is Martha Wells’ “All Systems Red” (2018), which launched her popular Murderbot series. Grouped with her three other linked novellas Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy,” it became a Prometheus Best Novel finalist in 2019.
Check out the full list of review-descriptions of each of the 26 stories on the New Scientist list.
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 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, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.
Through recognizing the literature of liberty and the many different but possible and complementary visions of a free future via the Prometheus Awards, the LFS hopes to help spread ideas, humane ideals 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.
