Not all literary award-winners stand the test of time.
Most works of arts and entertainment fade – even winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the Oscars, Tonys, Grammys, Emmys, Hugo and Nebula awards. Yet when they last and take on the patina of a classic, they should be remembered and recognized.
For only the third time in the 45-year history of the Prometheus Awards, a former Best Novel finalist is being inducted into the Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
Not all literary award-winners stand the test of time.
Most works of arts and entertainment fade. Yet when they last and take on the patina of a classic, they should be recognized.
For only the third time in the history of the Prometheus Awards, a former Best Novel finalist has been inducted into the Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
Terry Pratchett’s novel The Truth, first recognized by the Libertarian Futurist Society as a 2001 Best Novel finalist, has won the 2024 award for Best Classic Fiction.
Before The Truth was inducted this year into our Hall of Fame, only two other Best Novel finalists have received that rare honor: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Falling Free and Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.
Given the complexity and multiple variables in weighing works of speculative fiction for how well they fit the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Awards, many LFS members and Prometheus judges have found a set of questions useful to answer as they read different works and consider their eligibility and quality.
These questions also may help LFS members as they read and rank finalists before voting to choose each year’s Prometheus winners.
After outlining a set of basic eligibility questions in the previous Prometheus Blog post, this post will focus on further questions related to overall literary quality.
Continue reading Literary qualities: Questions to consider in judging the Prometheus Awards, part 2
Those Libertarian Futurist Society members who’ve served for some time as finalist-selection judges or Early Readers for different categories of the Prometheus Award have come to find a variety of questions helpful.
These questions also may help LFS members as they read and rank Best Novel and Hall of Fame finalists before voting to choose each year’s winners – including this year.
Whether LFS members are considering the eligibility of an sf/fantasy novel for the Best Novel category, suggesting a candidate for nomination for Best Novel or Best Classic Fiction (the Prometheus Hall of Fame) or volunteering to read and report on various candidates as Early Readers, such questions can prove useful.
Accordingly, the Prometheus Blog is posting a sample set of such questions.
Continue reading Eligibility questions to ask when considering sf/fantasy for the Prometheus Awards
Works of fantasy are eligible to consider for the Prometheus Awards, along with science fiction.
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.)
The Prometheus Awards are distinctive among literature-oriented awards, including within the sf/fantasy field, for having a dual focus – on both overall literary quality and on libertarian/anti-authoritarian ideas.
As LFS awards press releases summarize and define our award:
“The Prometheus Awards recognize outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between liberty and power and champion cooperation over coercion as the root of civility and social harmony.
Such works may critique or satirize authoritarian trends, expose abuses of power by the institutionalized coercion of the State, imagine what forms a fully free society might take, and/or uphold individual rights and freedom for all as the only moral and practical foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, civility and civilization itself.
Here are capsule descriptions of the Best Novel finalists, explaining how each fits our awards’ distinctive focus:
“My experience as a writer helps me as a judge. And, my experience as a judge helps me as a writer.” – John Christmas
LFS member John Christmas, a published novelist, has served as a Prometheus Best Novel judge for about a decade now.
Christmas co-wrote KGB Banker, a contemporary political thriller recently recognized by Best Thrillers as the “Best Conspiracy Thriller of 2022.”
Christmas’s first novel was Democracy Society, a futuristic libertarian novel about fighting a corrupt government.
In this interview, Christmas discusses some of his favorite Prometheus-winning novels, how his creative writing has helped him be a better awards judge, and how serving as a Best Novel judge has benefited him as a writer.
The Christmas interview also seems timely in how it sheds light on the awards-judging process, since the Best Novel finalist judging committee is currently reading and discussing more than a dozen nominees and candidates for nomination in the final month or two before voting to select the annual slate of finalists.
In his apt introduction and presentation of the Prometheus Hall of Fame category at the recent 2022 Prometheus Awards ceremony, LFS President William H. Stoddard explains why this annual awards category is such an important part of the Libertarian Futurist Society’s awards program – and why this year’s inductee by Robert Heinlein is so deserving of recognition.
Libertarianism and science fiction have been closely connected since their early history, a rich topic often explored here on the Prometheus Blog.
Libertarian sf fan Tom Jackson explores their connections anew in his recently published essay “Heinlein’s Children: Libertarians in fandom.”
Published in “Portable Storage,” William Brieding’s sf fanzine, Jackson’s interesting and historically knowledgeable article offers a very readable introduction to the subject for the fanzine’s “The Great Sercon Issue Part One.”
Continue reading Heinlein’s Children: Tom Jackson’s fanzine essay on libertarians in sf fandom
By Michael Grossberg
Libertarian futurists dream of unleashing the potential of every person to flourish, cooperate, innovate, progress, profit and pursue their happiness in peace and freedom – both here on earth, and perhaps eventually, beyond.
Yet, the politicization of society and increasingly, of our culture and arts, threatens that goal – and in the long run, undermines civility and could destroy civilization itself if this disturbing trend approaches authoritarian extremes.
In a thought-provoking article “Enslaving Art to Politics,” published recently in American Purpose magazine, writer Daniel Ross Goodman argues persuasively against the “politicization of literature.”
His essay should interest Libertarian Futurist Society members, even when Goodman makes some points about particular works and artists that we might respectfully disagree with.
“The best novelists, like all great artists, are not narrow-minded agenda-driven partisans but adventurers in the unbounded universe of the human imagination, who, through their fictions, help us better perceive vital truths about ourselves and our reality,” Goodman wrote in late September in the online magazine.
