Category: Appreciations

The rise of newspapers, crime, corruption and the virtues of a free press: An Appreciation of Terry Pratchett’s The Truth, the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

The Prometheus Blog continues its Appreciation series with an essay-review describing how Terry Pratchett’s The Truth, the 2024 inductee into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, fits the focus of the Prometheus Award.

By Michael Grossberg

The truth shall make you free.

And The Truth shall make you laugh, while sparking a better appreciation of freedom – especially freedom of the press.

Terry Pratchett’s comic fantasy, winner of the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction, tells a smart, sly and ultimately inspirational tale of underdogs seeking the truth against formidable opposition.

Continue reading The rise of newspapers, crime, corruption and the virtues of a free press: An Appreciation of Terry Pratchett’s The Truth, the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Free-market industrialization of our solar system: An appreciation of Daniel Suarez’s Critical Mass, the 2024 Prometheus Best Novel winner

By Charlie Morrison and Michael Grossberg

A deep understanding and passion for commercial space development informs and enlivens Critical Mass, the 2024 Prometheus winner for Best Novel.

A courageous band of astronaut-entrepreneurs strive to alleviate Earth-based problems through commercial space projects in Daniel Suarez’s grippingly realistic SF thriller.

Set mostly off the Earth and around the solar system, the suspenseful, fast-paced drama follows the resourceful heroes as they strive to achieve their ambitious, unprecedented goals amid Cold War tensions, shifting global political alliances and shortsighted opposition from Earth governments.

Continue reading Free-market industrialization of our solar system: An appreciation of Daniel Suarez’s Critical Mass, the 2024 Prometheus Best Novel winner

2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame acceptance speech: Stoddard quoting the late great Terry Pratchett on libertarianism and a key passage from The Truth

Editor’s note: As part of our coverage of the 44th Prometheus Awards ceremony, the Prometheus Blog is posting a variety of reports and the full texts of all the speeches.

Terry Pratchett (Creative Commons license)

Here are the remarks of LFS President William H. Stoddard, a long-time Terry Pratchett fan. Stoddard stepped in to accept the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame for the late great Pratchett (1948-2015), whose Discworld comic-fantasy novel The Truth was inducted into the 2024 Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Before his death, Pratchett was able to attend and speak at the 2003 Prometheus ceremony at the Worldcon, when he won his first Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Night Watch. 

By William H. Stoddard

Regrettably, Terry Pratchett cannot be with us to accept his award. But rather than talk about him, I’d like to quote some relevant words of his own.

Continue reading 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame acceptance speech: Stoddard quoting the late great Terry Pratchett on libertarianism and a key passage from The Truth

Best Novel finalist review: Wil McCarthy’s Beggar’s Sky offers psychedelic first-contact story exploring economic vs. political power on the frontiers of science

By Rick Triplett

Wil McCarthy’s novel Beggar’s Sky is a first-contact story.

The actual contact, though, is more picturesque than philosophical in this sequel to Poor Man’s Sky, itself the sequel to Rich Man’s Sky, McCarthy’s 2022 Prometheus winner for Best Novel.

The 2024 sequel – which has been nominated for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel – takes place within the larger context of an ongoing space race sparked by four Earth billionaires pushing to expand space industry and humanity to new frontiers beyond our solar system.

Continue reading Best Novel finalist review: Wil McCarthy’s Beggar’s Sky offers psychedelic first-contact story exploring economic vs. political power on the frontiers of science

Hall of Fame finalist review: Terry Pratchett’s The Truth offers hilarious but serious comedy about the rise of newspapers and the value of a free press

By Michael Grossberg

The truth shall make you fret.

Er, that’s not quite right. I meant: “The truth shall make you free.”

And The Truth shall make you laugh, too, while sparking insights about freedom – especially freedom of the press.

Often, while recently rereading Terry Pratchett’s satirical Discworld novel, I laughed out loud. (What a pleasure in troubled times, especially for journalists like me coping with declining newspapers.)

THE POWER OF THE PRESS

The Truth, a 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame finalist, tells a smart, sly and ultimately inspirational tale of underdogs seeking the truth against formidable opposition.

Continue reading Hall of Fame finalist review: Terry Pratchett’s The Truth offers hilarious but serious comedy about the rise of newspapers and the value of a free press

Did you know that fantasy is just as eligible as science fiction for Prometheus Awards recognition? (And that shouldn’t be news!)

By Michael Grossberg

Works of fantasy are eligible to consider for the Prometheus Awards, along with science fiction.

The Lord of the Rings, inducted in 2009 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame

Fantasy has always been eligible for nomination – which might be news to some.

Many falsely assume that the Prometheus Awards are exclusively focused on “libertarian science fiction.”

And many continue to do so, even though several notable works of fantasy have been selected this year as finalists in both annual categories for Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (the Prometheus Hall of Fame.)

Continue reading Did you know that fantasy is just as eligible as science fiction for Prometheus Awards recognition? (And that shouldn’t be news!)

Hall of Fame finalist review: Harry Turtledove’s fantasy Between the Rivers imagines Bronze Age beginnings of a freer society

By William H. Stoddard

Over the years, most nominees for the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus awards have been science fiction, and set in the present or the near or far future. Harry Turtledove’s Between the Rivers is an exception: A work of fantasy, and set in an invented world that parallels the Bronze Age of 3000 years ago or more.

As its title suggests, its setting is based on Mesopotamia. It’s a realm of contending city-states, and seems to be the first place in its larger world to develop them; at any rate, there’s no indication of comparably civilized realms elsewhere.

Continue reading Hall of Fame finalist review: Harry Turtledove’s fantasy Between the Rivers imagines Bronze Age beginnings of a freer society

Hall of Fame finalist review: “The Trees,” a fantasy-themed rock song by Rush, resonates as cautionary tale

By Michael Grossberg

Even though they’re eligible for nomination, no songs have ever been inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.

Neal Peart, Rush drummer and songwriter of “The Trees.” Credit: Creative Commons

I can’t imagine a good song more deserving of that honor, and that fits the distinctive focus of the Prometheus Awards better, than “The Trees,” a 1978 song by the Canadian rock group Rush.

Continue reading Hall of Fame finalist review: “The Trees,” a fantasy-themed rock song by Rush, resonates as cautionary tale

Best Novel finalist review: Gordon Hanka’s provocative God’s Girlfriend explores coercion, consent, masculinity, femininity and basic instincts

By Eric S. Raymond and Michael Grossberg

Subversive and satirical, God’s Girlfriend challenges some of the deepest assumptions of today’s politics and culture.

One of five 2024 Prometheus Best Novel finalists, Gordon Hanka’s provocative sci-fi novel raises thorny questions about ethics, religion, coercion and consent, the nature of masculinity and femininity and the use of weapons of mass destruction.

The 540-page novel offers a taboo-shattering mixture of unorthodox libertarian provocations and Christian eschatology amid a life-or-death clash of two cultures: Earth humans and Wyrms, human refugees from another planet.

Subtitled “Sci-Fi that should not be published,” the novel blends SF and fantasy tropes from spaceships and advanced weaponry to the apparently supernatural, including Jesus’ Second Coming.

The story revolves around the rising tensions, conflicts and increasing likelihood of nuclear war between Earth governments, desperate to preserve their power, and the Wyrms, genetically modified to resist disease and political-psychological control.

As the failing nation-states of Earth threaten nuclear apocalypse to wipe out the Outback-style beachhead of the Wyrms in Australia, all hell breaks loose. So does heaven, with the Second Coming of God in the unexpectedly modern form of Joshua, who has his own notions of good and evil and shifting ideas about which side should survive.

Continue reading Best Novel finalist review: Gordon Hanka’s provocative God’s Girlfriend explores coercion, consent, masculinity, femininity and basic instincts

Best Novel finalist review: Karl K. Gallagher’s Swim Among the People dramatizes heroic planetary resistance to an insidious totalitarian interstellar empire

By William H. Stoddard

Swim among the People, a 2024 Prometheus Best Novel finalist, is the fifth of six (so far) volumes in Karl K. Gallagher’s science fiction series The Fall of the Censorate.

The series as a whole begins when a merchant starship from a long isolated cluster of solar systems discovers a new route through hyperspace that leads to a much larger interstellar human civilization.

Continue reading Best Novel finalist review: Karl K. Gallagher’s Swim Among the People dramatizes heroic planetary resistance to an insidious totalitarian interstellar empire