Category: Comic works

Butter, eggs and the taste of freedom: An Appreciation of F. Paul Wilson’s “Lipidleggin’”, the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

To highlight the Prometheus Awards’ four-decade history and make clear why each winner deserves recognition as a notable pro-freedom and/or anti-authoritarian work, the Libertarian Futurist Society has been publishing since 2019 an Appreciation series of all past award-winners.

Here is a review essay about F. Paul Wilson’s story “Lipidleggin’,” the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction. With this appreciation for this year’s winner, our Appreciation series for the Hall of Fame category of the Prometheus Awards is now complete.

By Michael Grossberg

Once you taste freedom, it’s harder to live your life without it.

Once you learn to enjoy the taste of something good, you naturally tend to want more of it.

The mouth waters, remembering how wonderful some things taste… like liberty…. and frying eggs in butter. Mmmm… yummy.

(Also, wouldn’t it be nice if petty bureaucrats and aspiring tyrants could be seduced by the mere taste of freedom?)

Such are my immediate thoughts after rereading “Lipidleggin’,” the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.

Continue reading Butter, eggs and the taste of freedom: An Appreciation of F. Paul Wilson’s “Lipidleggin’”, the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Egalitarianism taken to coercive extremes in attacks on excellence: Kurt Vonnegut’s story “Harrison Bergeron,” the 2019 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

To highlight the Prometheus Awards’ four-decade history and make clear why each winner deserves recognition as anti-authoritarian or pro-freedom, the Libertarian Futurist Society is publishing an Appreciation series of all past award-winners.

Here is an Appreciation for Kurt Vonnegut’s story “Harrison Bergeron,” the 2019 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.

By Michael Grossberg
The government’s Handicapper General enforces new constitutional amendments mandating that no one can be stupider, uglier, weaker, slower – or in any way better – than anyone else.

To enforce this authoritarian and radical egalitarian edict, perfectly capable people are forced to accept and wear various disabling devices that handicap their capabilities and basic humanity.

Leave it to the great American novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to come up with such a classic cautionary fable about a dystopian future in the United States in which coercive egalitarianism – a close cousin of progressivism – is taken to such radical and inhuman extremes in a perverse authoritarian revolt against personal excellence.

Continue reading Egalitarianism taken to coercive extremes in attacks on excellence: Kurt Vonnegut’s story “Harrison Bergeron,” the 2019 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Civil disobedience vs. repressive authority: Harlan Ellison’s subversive and satirical story “Repent Harlequin!’, Said the Ticktockman,” the 2015 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Here is the Prometheus Blog Appreciation of Harlan Ellison’s “Repent Harlequin!’, Said the Ticktockman,” the 2015 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.

By Michael Grossberg

The ticking of a clock and a tight schedule controls the future world in “Repent Harlequin!’, Said the Ticktockman,” one of Harlan Ellison’s best and most iconic stories.

The satirical and dystopian tale, which opens with quotes from Henry David Thoreau’s classic work on Civil Disobedience, lampoons the excesses and absurdities of regimentation.

Continue reading Civil disobedience vs. repressive authority: Harlan Ellison’s subversive and satirical story “Repent Harlequin!’, Said the Ticktockman,” the 2015 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Allegorical fable about “beastly” communism, coercive egalitarianism: George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the 2011 Prometheus Hall of Fame co-winner for Best Classic Fiction.

 

Here is the Prometheus Blog Appreciation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the 2011 Prometheus Hall of Fame co-winner for Best Classic Fiction.

By Michael Grossberg

The title of the allegorical work may make Animal Farm sound like a children’s fable, but it isn’t.

Oh, the short novel certainly can – and probably should – be read by teenagers and more mature younger readers, who likely will enjoy it and also grasp its perennial theme about the corruptions of power and the absolute corruption of absolute power.

Yet, the cautionary themes of George Orwell’s enduring 1945 work truly are aimed at adults.
Continue reading Allegorical fable about “beastly” communism, coercive egalitarianism: George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the 2011 Prometheus Hall of Fame co-winner for Best Classic Fiction.

Freedom and free will in the welfare state: Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, the 2008 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Here’s the Prometheus Blog’s Appreciation for Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, the 2008 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.:

“When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.” – Anthony Burgess

By Michael Grossberg

A Clockwork Orange may not be remembered or read as widely today as some other dystopian novels, but it arguably ranks among the best-written, most shocking and most plausible works of that seminal 20th century genre.

Today, British writer Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel is far better known from director Stanley Kubrick’s vivid 1971 film. Yet, the nightmarish novel rightly was included on Time magazine’s 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923.

Even if you’re a fan of the controversial film version (as I am), Burgess’ novel is well worth reading for its own sake – especially for its imaginative style, dark humor, inventive slang language, and insightful portrait of a disturbing future in a culture corrupted by a bloated and obtrusive welfare state.

Continue reading Freedom and free will in the welfare state: Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, the 2008 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Speaking truth to power: Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the 2000 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Here is the Prometheus Blog Appreciation for Hans Christian Andersen’s fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the 2000 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction:

By Michael Grossberg

It’s not just for kids.

Nor is Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” merely another children’s fable.

Few stories have resonated so deeply with all ages for so many generations that they become an integral part of international culture.

This sly libertarian fable has become so emblematic in folk wisdom that it’s inspired a common catchphrase: “The emperor has no clothes.”

Continue reading Speaking truth to power: Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the 2000 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Discordian conspiracies & post-modernist satire: Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus!, a 1986 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

To highlight the Prometheus Awards’ four-decade history, the Libertarian Futurist Society is publishing Appreciations of all past award-winners that make clear why each winner deserves recognition as pro-freedom and/or anti-authoritarian in theme.
Here’s an Appreciation of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! trilogy, a 1986 Prometheus Hall of Fame inductee for Best Classic Fiction.


By Tom Jackson

I recently came across convincing evidence that Alice Walker, the famous American novelist and author of The Color Purple, believes that we are ruled by a “lizard Illuminati.”

An article at Vox.com helpfully explained that Walker is a fan of David Icke, and “Icke is best known for arguing that the world is run by a secret cabal of alien lizard people, many of whom are Jewish.”

Which brings me to Illuminatus!, and my attempt to explain a rather unusual literary work, one that won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 1986, in a tie with Cyril Kornbluth’s The Syndic.

Continue reading Discordian conspiracies & post-modernist satire: Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus!, a 1986 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Alternate history, progress, markets, and how fantasy can illuminate reality: An Appreciation of Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch, the 2003 Prometheus Best Novel winner

The Libertarian Futurist Society’s ongoing Appreciation series of review-essays strives to make  clear what libertarian futurists see in each of our past winners and how they fit the libertarian focus of the Prometheus Awards. Here’s an Appreciation for Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch, the 2003 Prometheus winner for Best Novel:

By William H. Stoddard and Michael Grossberg

Night Watch, the 29th book in Terry Pratchett’s bestselling Discworld series and widely hailed as one of the best, focuses in his usual tongue-in-cheek style on what it takes to build a more-modern police force that eventually will be able to keep the peace and fight violent crime in one of the most unruly cities in fiction.

Filled with individualistic, anti-authoritarian and pragmatically libertarian themes that resonate with the actual history of our own planet and how market economies and modern civilization developed, this ingenious 2002 satirical fantasy blends political intrigue and police drama in a plot that also involves time travel back to the start of a legendary street rebellion.

Continue reading Alternate history, progress, markets, and how fantasy can illuminate reality: An Appreciation of Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch, the 2003 Prometheus Best Novel winner

Picaresque comedy, anti-authoritarian spirit and roguish individualism in an interstellar future: An Appreciation of John Varley’s The Golden Globe, the 1999 Prometheus Best Novel winner

Introduction: To highlight the four-decade history of the Prometheus Awards, which the Libertarian Futurist Society began celebrating in 2019, and make clear what makes past winners deserve recognition as pro-freedom sf/fantasy, we’re continuing in 2020 to present a series of weekly Appreciations of Prometheus Award-winners, starting with our first category for Best Novel.

Here’s the latest Appreciation for John Varley’s The Golden Globe:

A rare picaresque sf comedy among Best Novel winners, John Varley’s The Golden Globe follows the episodic adventures of a resilient itinerant actor living by his wits and thespian skills in the outer solar system.

Varley, clearly a fan of Shakespeare, updates the Bard in his 1998 novel to illustrate the theme that “if all the worlds (are) a stage – not world’s, but plural – then all the men and women in this are merely players… strutting, fretting and conniving through their exits and their entrances. And one man in his time plays many parts….”

That everyman man is Kenneth “Sparky” Valentine, the fugitive central character and an interstellar con man, who’s been on the run for decades from planet to planet. successfully evading the State authorities. Resourceful and scrappy, Sparky survives through con jobs and his high-tech ability to transform his age, his body type/size and his gender by altering skin-deep magnetic implants.

Continue reading Picaresque comedy, anti-authoritarian spirit and roguish individualism in an interstellar future: An Appreciation of John Varley’s The Golden Globe, the 1999 Prometheus Best Novel winner

Rambunctious adventure in an alternate-history multiverse: An Appreciation of L. Neil Smith’s The Probability Broach, the 1982 Best Novel winner

The Libertarian Futurist Society’s ongoing Appreciation series strives to make clear what libertarian futurists see in each of our past winners and how each fits the Prometheus award’s distinctive focus on Liberty vs. Power. Here’s our appreciation for L. Neil Smith’s The Probability Broach, the 1982 Prometheus Award winner for Best Novel:

By Michael Grossberg

Rollicking and fun-loving, L. Neil Smith’s The Probability Broach was one of the most influential books of the Libertarian movement as its ideas were spreading in the early 1980s.

Smith’s imaginative sci-fi multiverse adventure imagines alternate time lines accessible through the probability broach, a portal to many worlds.

Continue reading Rambunctious adventure in an alternate-history multiverse: An Appreciation of L. Neil Smith’s The Probability Broach, the 1982 Best Novel winner