Five are novels, two are novelettes, one a novella, one a story and one a song, reflecting the wide range of fiction eligible for consideration in the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
The authors of these classic works range from the late great Rudyard Kipling, C.S. Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke to still-living authors, such as Harry Turtledove and Charles Stross.
Ten works of speculative fiction, first published or performed more than 20 years ago, have been nominated by LFS members for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
Here is part 4 of the Prometheus Blog interview with Rick Triplett, a lifelong science fiction fan, decades-long libertarian, a veteran Prometheus Awards judge and recently honored as the Libertarian Futurist Society’s first Emeritus member.
Q: You’ve practiced aikido for many years – and have even demonstrated the martial art at area festivals. What attracted you to aikido and does it have any relevance to your libertarian views?
A: Aikido is a non-aggressive martial art (virtually the only one).
Its strategy is to de-escalate rather than resort to fighting; its tactics are to avoid and restrain, rather than to damage the opponent. Although its techniques can damage or kill, they are applied in a measured way that at least attempts allowing an attacker to shift from domination to negotiation.
It respects human agency including one’s own right to self-defense.
Introduction: Poul Anderson (1926-2001) was a major American science fiction writer. He won the Hugo Award seven times and won the Nebula Award three times. He also won the Prometheus Award once (for The Stars Are Also Fire), the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award four times and also received our Special Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Anderson delivered this speech March 19, 1978, at the banquet of Leprecon, a science fiction convention in Phoenix. The speech was then printed in the May 1978 issue of New Libertarian, Volume Four, Number Three. It is reprinted here with the permission of Astrid Bear, Poul Anderson’s daughter, and is copyright The Trigonier Trust.
The Prometheus Blog is reprinting his speech here because Anderson, one of the most recognized sf/fantasy authors in the history of science fiction and of the Prometheus Awards, had something important to say then about freedom and science fiction – something still valuable to ponder today.
One of the things Poul Anderson was known for throughout his literary career was world-building. Much of this was planetary design, based on the natural sciences, in which he started out with stellar type, planetary mass, orbital radius, and elemental abundances and worked out the geology, meteorology, and biology of a world.
Anderson was certainly one of the masters of this, up there with Hal Clement and Vernor Vinge. But he put equal effort into social scientific worldbuilding, creating economies, polities, and cultures, and developing plots for his stories from the conflicts they gave rise to.
Orion Shall Rise, a 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame finalist for Best Classic Fiction, is a nearly pure example of social scientific world-building, set not in a distant solar system but on a future Earth.
Almost four dozen classic works of science fiction and fantasy have been inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, first presented four decades ago in 1983.
Libertarian Futurist Society members will select the next Best Classic Fiction inductee from four finalists, all first published or released more than 20 years ago.
The 2024 Hall of Fame finalists – just announced to the media in an LFS press release that’s already been reported on in full by File 770, a leading sf-industry trade publication – is varied in artistic form (including three novels and one song) and in its balance of the old and the new.
The current finalist slate, selected from 10 works of fiction (novels, stories and song) nominated by LFS members, recognizes both a first-time nominee and several stalwart candidates that have found favor with judges and voters in recent years.
Who are the most popular authors in Prometheus Awards history?
One could answer that question in several different ways, such as looking at a bestselling writer’s number of books sold or in print – or more narrowly, in terms of our award, comparing the number of Prometheus Awards different writers have won over the decades in different categories. (The Prometheus Blog will explore the latter perspective in later postings.)
But let’s focus first on one parameter that roughly reflects the ongoing popularity and relevance of different sf/fantasy authors among LFS members over more than four decades: How many times an author has simply been nominated by LFS members for a Prometheus Award.
Without peeking at the next page or examining the track record of past winners on the LFS website’s Prometheus Awards page, how many of the Top Ten most popular authors can you guess?
The Prometheus Award for Best Novel has been won over the decades by writers from the United States, England, Scotland and Finland – with Best Novel finalists from China, Japan, Canada and many other countries.
But Dave Freer is the first writer from the Southern Hemisphere to win a Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Here is the fourth and final part of the Prometheus Interview with the Australian/Tasmanian author, the 2023 winner of the Prometheus for Best Novel for Cloud-Castles.
Q: Do you have any favorites among Prometheus Award winners?
A: It’s a good reading list, isn’t it? I think I have just about everything in the Hall of Fame.
So far, in the first two parts of his Prometheus-blog interview, SF writer Karl K. Gallagher has answered questions about his own novels. Now, in the wide-ranging conclusion, the focus shifts to other authors and his favorite works – including the “sense of wonder” and “sense of freedom” that he gets from his favorite pro-liberty sf novels.
Q: Which authors in particular have influenced you most as a writer – whether in terms of their style, themes or spirit?
Prolific SF/fantasy author Greg Bear has died at 71.
Bear, who died in November after suffering several strokes during heart surgery, was widely acclaimed for his wide-ranging and epic science fiction and fantasy.
An international bestseller and Heinlein Award-winner, Bear wrote more than 50 novels and almost as many works of short fiction, and edited an important Poul Anderson anthology.
Even though Bear never won a Prometheus Award, much of his life and work were “Prometheus-adjacent.”