Essays – Prometheus Blog

The 46th Prometheus Awards: LFS co-founder Grossberg on the value of fiction dramatizing voluntarism and cooperation as the ethical and practical alternative to coercion

Editor’s note: LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg, who chairs the Prometheus Best Novel Judging Committee, presented the 2026 Prometheus Award for Best Novel to J. Kenton Pierce for A Kiss for Damocles. This is the first in a series of posts celebrating the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, with separate articles devoted to each Aug. 16 speech by winners and presenters.

By Michael Grossberg

Since the Prometheus Award was first presented in 1979, 47 books have won Best Novel. Today, we will honor a 48th.

One of the oldest fan-based sf/fantasy awards after the Hugos and Nebulas, the Prometheus Awards are distinctive in their dual focus on both liberty and literary quality. While quite a few Prometheus-winning works have also won Hugo and Nebula awards, only the Libertarian Futurist Society annually recognizes fantastical fiction that consistently champions respect for human rights – even for that smallest oppressed minority, the individual.

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Orwell’s Animal Farm and Anderson’s naked Emperor: The enduring power of parable and fable in contemporary discourse

By Michael Grossberg

George Orwell is one of only a handful of Prometheus-winning writers to remain world famous and widely read for more than one work of fiction.

Author Hans Christian Andersen (Creative Commons license)

Meanwhile, the Prometheus Hall of Fame classic that is perhaps best known around the world is Hans Christian Anderson’s fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

George Orwell. (Creative Commons license)

Perhaps still most widely acclaimed for his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell is also frequently referenced and quoted for his satirical parable Animal Farm. (Forget the poorly reviewed 2026 animated film version, which substitutes a trendy and misguided anti-corporate ideology for Orwell’s explicit anti-communist theme.)

Of the 50 works of fantastic fiction that have now been inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, Orwell’s classics and Andersen’s evocative fable rank high among the most notable and enduring.

And that’s why they are frequently referenced in contemporary intellectual debates and commentary – and will continue to be relevant for generations.

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You never know what you’ll find at your local bookstore (A hint: Some Prometheus-winning classics, prominently displayed)

By Michael Grossberg

The Book Loft in Columbus’ German Village (Creative Commons license)

A visit to a local bookstore brought home to me something that too many lovers of liberty tend to forget, take for granted or deny: Support for freedom, and an almost instinctive distrust of coercive and abusive authority, is deeply rooted within American society and history.

Such attitudes – while certainly not the same thing as consistent support for individual rights, non-aggression, free minds and free markets – show up nearly everywhere, including within many precincts of popular and commercial culture.

I was reminded of this truth anew the other day, when my husband and I visited The Book Loft, a famous and highly unusual bookstore in Columbus, for the first time in several years.

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The fire this time: Ray Bradbury’s imagination endures, and marks a milestone 

By Michael Grossberg

Today, Aug. 5, 2026, is a key day in the enduring fiction of Ray Bradbury.

Ray Bradbury in 1959 (Creative Commons license)

Although perhaps most widely remembered for his Prometheus-winning novel Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury was a master of the short story. “There Will Come Soft Rains,” one of his most haunting tales, imagines a distant future following a nuclear holocaust.

That future is now in the story, published in 1950 and imagining the then-far-distant year of 2026 in early August.

Bradbury’s story imagines an automated house – now a reality in millions of homes. Hauntingly, the house continues to operate even after its suburban family has been vaporized, going up in flames in Allendale, California.

“Finally, only one wall is left, protruding from the rubble. A fading voice echoes from inside the wall: “Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is . . .”

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The first Special Award for Young Adult Fiction isn’t actually the first Prometheus Award to recognize Young Adult works 

By Michael Grossberg

Dave Freer’s novel Storm-Dragon will be the first work to receive a Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction Aug. 16 at the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony. Yet, it’s far from the only example of Young Adult Fiction to be recognized in the awards’ history.

By my latest count – and including this year’s three winners – 111 works of fantastical fiction have been named as winners of a Prometheus Award since 1979. Of those works, 14 fall clearly into the Young Adult realm or are deemed accessible enough to appeal to younger readers.

Those works should be of great interest to younger readers, roughly anyone between the ages of eight and 18.

They also should spark the curiosity of parents, grandparents, teachers and other adults seeking good pro-freedom SF/fantasy to share or gift.

So which Prometheus Award winners do fit the parameters of Young Adult Fiction?

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A Pulitzer-winning writer and Aldous Huxley’s two grandchildren to accept Hall of Fame award Aug. 16 for Brave New World

By Michael Grossberg

Brave New World, the classic dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) warning about a future “soft tyranny” under a seemingly benevolent State, will be the 50th work to be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.

The Libertarian Futurist Society is pleased to announce that Huxley’s two grandchildren Tessa and Trevenan Huxley and Pulitzer-winning author Jack Miles will accept the posthumous award following the keynote speech by Ilya Somin, guest presenter of the Hall of Fame category.

The Huxleys and Miles, co-trustee of the Aldous and Laura Huxley Literary Trust, will deliver acceptance speeches at the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, roughly an hourlong live Zoom event beginning at 1 p.m. Sunday (Eastern time) Aug. 16 and open to the public.

Tessa Huxley, Aldous Huxley’s granddaughter (Photo courtesy of Tessa Huxley)

“I was delighted to learn of the honor being bestowed upon my grandfather,” Tessa Huxley said in an email.

“I am pleased that others find Brave New World as important and relevant as I do. I re-read Brave New World early this year and was really struck by the seductive nature of his imaginary world and that of the USA… In particular, in 2026 where Americans seem endlessly obsessed by consumerism and pleasure seeking and apparently rather proud of it.”

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“Sixteen fun facts” about Cato scholar and SF fan Ilya Somin, our keynote speaker Aug. 16 at the 46th annual Prometheus Awards ceremony 

By Michael Grossberg

Who is Ilya Somin?

Somin, our keynote speaker at the upcoming 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony is one of today’s most interesting and impactful libertarian thinkers and authors. That should become evident at the roughly hourlong ceremony, which will begin at 1 p.m. Sunday Aug. 16, 2026 (Eastern time) and will be open to the public on Zoom.

A lifelong science-fiction fan who’s written for the former Prometheus quarterly, Somin is perhaps most widely known as a Cato Institute scholar and George Mason University law professor.

But Somin has many fascinating facets to his life and career – and recently shared “16 fun facts” about himself on Reason magazine’s legal- and individual-rights-issues blog, The Volokh Conspiracy.

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Brave New World: Huxley’s 1932 dystopian classic ranks among the oldest works to win the Prometheus Hall of Fame award 

By Michael Grossberg

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is one of the oldest works to win the Prometheus Award for Best Classic Fiction.

Published in 1932 by Chatto & Windus, Aldous Huxley’s pioneering dystopian novel has become so well-known around the world that its title has become an emblematic catchphrase signaling the dangers of authoritarianism.

Brave New World is the third-oldest work and the second-oldest novel to be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame. (The roughly hourlong Zoom ceremony, open to the public, is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Sunday Aug. 16 (Eastern time), with the Zoom link posted a week or so ahead on the Prometheus Blog.)

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Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in Aug. 16 ceremony

By Michael Grossberg

Brave New World will be inducted this year into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, based on a vote by LFS members.

With its induction Sunday Aug. 16 during the 46th Prometheus awards ceremony, Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel will be the 50th work to win this annual awards category, first presented in 1983.

Brave New World, ranked in fifth place by Modern Library on its list of the 100 Best Novels in English of the 20th century, continues to be considered among the most influential works of dystopian literature.

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Review: The bulletproof philosophy of the double-Prometheus-winning V for Vendetta, and why the graphic novel is more insightful and pro-liberty than the vivid film

By John C.A. Manley

The V for Vendetta graphic novel – inducted in 2006 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame – has been on my “Why haven’t I read this yet?” reading list for many years.

Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd in 1989, its fame doubled with James McTeigue’s 2005 film adaptation, written and produced by the Wachowkis and starring Hugo Weaving.

For the last two decades, V’s smiling mask has been haunting me, asking why I have not yet read this classic of pro-liberty fiction. Well, last month, I finally read it while narrating the artwork to my blind son, Jonah (forcing me to translate every sneer, smile and shadow into words). Despite the story’s numerous flaws — which oddly enough almost enhance its philosophical flair — I feel it’s a five-star work of art.

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