Libertarian Futurist Society president William H. Stoddard emceed the 45th Prometheus Awards and introduced the Prometheus Hall of Fame category for Best Classic Fiction, which was presented by libertarian luminary and Prometheus-nominated fantasy novelist David Friedman.
The August 30, 2025 awards ceremony, presented live via Zoom on August 30, 2025, was recorded and later posted on Youtube. Here is the text of Stoddard’s speech:
The Prometheus Hall of Fame award was established in 1983.
Initially we gave it to two classic works of libertarian science fiction each year. Our first two winners were virtually inevitable choices: Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the book that established libertarian science fiction as a recognized genre, and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the fictional treatment of libertarian ideas that brought large numbers of people into what became the libertarian movement.
The next year’s award went to two classic dystopias, George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
Since then we’ve settled down to one winner a year, and opened the award not merely to novels but to work in any narrative or dramatic form. Such works become eligible 20 years after their original publication.
To present this year’s award, we have the honor of having David Friedman as a guest speaker.
