“As Easy as A.B.C.,” a novelette by Rudyard Kipling, was published in 1912.
That Hideous Strength, a novel by C.S. Lewis, was published in 1945.
Of the 10 classic works of fiction nominated for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame, these Kipling and Lewis works are the oldest.
Thus, perhaps these two classic works are a good place to begin our Prometheus Blog series offering capsule reviews of each nominee.
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.
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.
Our Early Readers program seeks more LFS members as volunteers to help enhance our annual Prometheus Awards and the nominating and judging process for the Best Novel category.
As described in the previous Prometheus Blog post, we’re looking for freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans who enjoy reading speculative fiction (broadly defined to include sci-fi, fantasy, alternate-history, dystopian literature, mythic fables, “social” sf, near-future politicial thrillers, etc.).
Our ideal Early Reader participants also should be knowledgeable about libertarian and free-market sociopolitical and economic analysis to discern whether such genre novels are good fits for the Prometheus Awards – or not.
Consistent with our nonprofit, all-volunteer libertarian organization of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans, we’ve structured our Early Readers program to maximize individual choice in several ways.
Over the most-recent Prometheus Awards nomination and judging cycles, more Libertarian Futurist Society members have made a genuine difference by volunteering to read and report on various novels to help us determine whether any deserved Best Novel nominations.
This post aims to introduce and explain the goals of our Early Readers program – with sincere hopes that more LFS members will decide to join our efforts over this next awards cycle.
Now’s an excellent time to volunteer, since we’ve just recently begun compiling potential candidates from sf/fantasy novels already published (or to be published) during 2024.
What we’re always striving to identify, within the much larger field of sf/fantasy and speculative fiction, are the relative few novels that seem relevant to the Prometheus Awards and its distinctive dual focus, at once literary and thematic.
Science fiction in recent decades has included an extensive exploration of an economic idea, or at least an economic term: The concept of scarcity. In a peculiarly science-fictional dialectical move, this exploration takes place by assuming the absence of scarcity and asking what follows from it.
The late Iain M. Banks is well known for making “post-scarcity” a premise of his Culture series, for example. In effect, this idea makes advanced technology a kind of djinn that can grant human wishes.
Similar ideas actually have a long history in science fiction.
Continue reading Economics in science fiction: Aladdin’s Lamps, technocracy and “post-scarcity”
Today, Oct. 2, is Vernor Vinge’s birthday.
If he had lived, Vinge would have been 80 years old.
Born Oct. 2, 1944, Vinge died in March, 2024 after struggling for several years with progressive Parkinsons disease.
Yet, Vinge is worth remembering (and likely to be well-remembered) for his consistently brilliant and often prescient science fiction – several works of which have been recognized with Prometheus Awards over the decades.
Perhaps the most commonly referenced Prometheus-winning author over the past decade or two in sociopolitical discourse is George Orwell.
Yet, virtually all the commentary, editorial columns and essays mentioning Orwell tend to focus exclusively on Nineteen Eighty-Four, his classic dystopian novel inducted early on into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
Far fewer articles reference Orwell’s evocative fable Animal Farm – yet that deceptively simple animal fable explores profound themes and deeper truths that are just as relevant to today’s dismal authoritarian trends on the extreme Left and Right.
The Prometheus Blog continues its Appreciation series with an essay-review describing how Terry Pratchett’s The Truth, the 2024 inductee into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, fits the focus of the Prometheus Award.
The truth shall make you free.
And The Truth shall make you laugh, while sparking a better appreciation of freedom – especially freedom of the press.
Terry Pratchett’s comic fantasy, winner of the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction, tells a smart, sly and ultimately inspirational tale of underdogs seeking the truth against formidable opposition.
Editor’s note: As part of our coverage of the 44th Prometheus Awards ceremony, the Prometheus Blog is posting a variety of reports and the full texts of all speeches – including LFS President William H. Stoddard’s overview of the history and focus of the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
The Libertarian Futurist Society began giving Hall of Fame Awards in 1982, with awards to two libertarian classics: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a key work for the emergence of the modern day libertarian movement, and Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the foundational work of libertarian science fiction and still one of its best.
In recent years, as earlier Prometheus Award nominees have become old enough to be regarded as classics, we’ve adopted a requirement that Hall of Fame nominees must have been published at least twenty years ago, and must not have won the Best Novel award.
