Fiction in the news – Prometheus Blog

Forster, Bradbury, Heinlein, Le Guin, Vonnegut stories ranked among the 26 best SF stories by New Scientist 

Several Prometheus-recognized authors are included on New Scientist’s intriguing list of the 26 best science fiction/fantasy stories of all time.

E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” is the only story on the magazine’s list previously inducted into the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus Hall of Fame. Yet, several other enduring and Prometheus-winning authors have classic stories on the magazine’s list – just not the ones our award has recognized.

Among them: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin and Kurt Vonnegut.

It’s interesting to see which of their stories are recognized by the magazine, and why.

Continue reading Forster, Bradbury, Heinlein, Le Guin, Vonnegut stories ranked among the 26 best SF stories by New Scientist 

Another milestone of progress to celebrate: Prometheus-winning visions of free enterprise in space are now becoming more of a reality with private spacecraft landing on the moon 

Imagine of Blue Ghost lunar craft in front of the Earth (Creative Commons license)

By Michael Grossberg

If all goes as planned, a privately built spacecraft will land on the moon early Sunday March 2.

It’s the first in a series of exciting robotic missions to the moon in 2025, setting the stage for people to return to the moon for the first time since the first expeditions landed more than half a century ago.

The robotic lander, dubbed Blue Ghost, was created by Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based company, and has been in orbit around the moon for about two weeks, preparing for its daring descent.

If only Robert Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Ray Bradbury, L. Neil Smith, James Hogan, Michael Flynn, Vernor Vinge and other visionary Prometheus-winning authors could have lived to celebrate it!

Continue reading Another milestone of progress to celebrate: Prometheus-winning visions of free enterprise in space are now becoming more of a reality with private spacecraft landing on the moon 

File 770’s year-end best-novels recommended reading list includes four Prometheus Best Novel nominees 

By Michael Grossberg

File 770, a leading SF/fantasy publication that frequently posts reviews, has offered its annual list of outstanding novels.

Of the 35 novels on File 770’s “2024 Recommended SF/F List,” four have been nominated by LFS members for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

Meanwhile, four other novels on that list also have been under review on our unofficial “short list” of 2024 candidates to consider for nomination.

Continue reading File 770’s year-end best-novels recommended reading list includes four Prometheus Best Novel nominees 

SF2 Concatenation: Year-end SF/fantasy “bests” list overlaps with Prometheus Awards candidates, nominees

By Michael Grossberg

Each year, SF/fantasy publications, critics and readers compile annual lists of the past year’s best fiction.

Such lists can be helpful to examine for general readers and Prometheus Awards judges, because they bring to our attention or remind us of significant works worth checking out and that might otherwise be overlooked.

Consider, for example, the “Best SF books of 2024” list by SF2 Concatenation (Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation), a digital zine website and online archive focused on reviewing SF books, news and related media.

Of the eight 2024 novels recognized on the Concatenation “bests” list, half have figured in some way in the current cycle of Prometheus Awards judging for Best Novel – a relatively high degree of overlap.

Continue reading SF2 Concatenation: Year-end SF/fantasy “bests” list overlaps with Prometheus Awards candidates, nominees

Why accurate language, objectivity (and Orwell) matter: Libertarian economist David Henderson aptly references 1984 in explaining common misperceptions about “privilege” 

By Michael Grossberg

George Orwell’s emphasis on clarity of language and objective definitions, exemplified in his seminal essay on “Politics and the English Language,” remains worth emulating in 2025 and beyond.

When so many so-called public intellectuals, columnists, opinion leaders and even professional economists embrace popular fallacies and use misleading language, it’s harmful both to literacy and liberty.

How pleasing it is, then, when a nationally known economist not only uses words accurately, in opposition to common misconceptions, misinformation and ideological bias, but also demonstrates how well he understands and appreciates Orwell’s classic fiction.

Continue reading Why accurate language, objectivity (and Orwell) matter: Libertarian economist David Henderson aptly references 1984 in explaining common misperceptions about “privilege” 

What might have more lasting impact than a Prometheus award? (Or, what happened when I googled Rudyard Kipling’s “As Easy as A.B.C.”) 

By Michael Grossberg

Sometimes, a review of a good novel can have a lasting impact, even more than an award or award nomination – something to ponder as we begin a new year of the blog and of the Prometheus Awards.

Perhaps that might seem counterintuitive or even heretical, when it comes to the Prometheus Awards and its 45-year-old track record of more than 100 winners – 106 at last count, including 46 in the Best Novel category, 48 in the Best Classic Fiction category and 12 Special Awards.

Yet, that thought was sparked recently by what happened when I was rereading Rudyard Kipling’s 1912 story “As Easy as A.B.C.” – one of four classic works selected as finalists for the Prometheus Hall of Fame – and decided to research it further via Google.

When I googled the words “Rudyard Kipling and “As Easy as A.B.C.,” guess what popped up rather high on the Google web links?

Continue reading What might have more lasting impact than a Prometheus award? (Or, what happened when I googled Rudyard Kipling’s “As Easy as A.B.C.”) 

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” – Hans Christian Andersen’s Prometheus-winning fable continues to resonate and inform today’s culture and commentary

By Michael Grossberg

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” is in the news again, offering resonant metaphors that some find applicable to today’s sociopolitical culture.

Hans Christian Anderson statue in Copenhagen

Gerard Baker, a Wall Street Journal columnist, found intriguing parallels between the themes of Hans Christian Andersen’s Prometheus-winning fable and the surprising results of the recent 2024 U.S. presidential election.

“It’s an “Emperor’s New Clothes” event for America and perhaps for the rest of the West too, an overdue recognition and repudiation of the regime of oppressive insanities we have been subjected to for a decade or more,” Baker wrote in his Wall Street Journal column.

Continue reading “The Emperor’s New Clothes” – Hans Christian Andersen’s Prometheus-winning fable continues to resonate and inform today’s culture and commentary

Seattle’s upcoming Worldcon pays affectionate tribute to Poul Anderson  

The late great Poul Anderson has received unexpected and positive recognition from the 2025 Worldcon, set for Seattle.

Partly in honor of the previous Seattle Worldcon in 1961, the Worldcon blog has paid tribute to Anderson’s novel The High Crusade, a 1961 Hugo finalist.

Continue reading Seattle’s upcoming Worldcon pays affectionate tribute to Poul Anderson  

Orwell’s 1984, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and other Prometheus-recognized dystopian cautionary tales are popular again, post-election (but deserve a sober reading)

By Michael Grossberg

Two of the best-known Prometheus Hall of Fame winners are enjoying a surge in sales.

George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 shot up on Amazon’s best-seller list after the recent U.S. presidential election.

So did Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a 1987 Prometheus Best Novel finalist. (The Testaments, Atwood’s sequel to her classic dystopian novel, was recognized as a Best Novel finalist in 2020.)

Both Orwell’s classic and Bradbury’s classic dystopian novels were inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in 1984, only the second year of the Hall of Fame.

All three novels – well-worth reading (or rereading) – offer cautionary tales about the rise of various types of authoritarian or totalitarian governments that institutionalize massive violations of individual rights – from censorship to torture and mass murder.

Check out the Prometheus blog review-essay Appreciations of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Fahrenheit 451.

Continue reading Orwell’s 1984, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and other Prometheus-recognized dystopian cautionary tales are popular again, post-election (but deserve a sober reading)

Is Harlan Ellison due for a revival? J. Michael Straczynski is working to make it so

By Michael Grossberg

Harlan Ellison, the late great and rebellious “bad boy” of science fiction, may be due for a major revival of his works.

Ellison, whose Hugo-winning 1965 story “’Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” was inducted in 2015 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, certainly deserves the recognition and new readership.

File 770 reports that the renewed interest in Ellison and the plans for his “posthumous comeback” are largely due to the efforts of writer/producer J. Michael Straczynski. For starters, Straczynski has edited Greatest Hits, a recently published new Ellison story collection.

And later in 2024, Straczynski plans to publish The Last Dangerous Visions – according to a Los Angeles Times story, the “long-promised, long-controversial and never-delivered” third and final volume in Ellison’s landmark anthology series of provocative short fiction.

Continue reading Is Harlan Ellison due for a revival? J. Michael Straczynski is working to make it so