Reason Magazine has started a weekly crossword. The second puzzle starts with this clue for 1 across:
1. With 19-across, sci-fi author beloved of the Libertarian Futurist Society
Before clicking on the link above, take a moment to have fun and guess which author is being referred to in Reason’s latest libertarian-themed crossword puzzle.
You can’t get away from it these days, for good or ill.
Just about anywhere you look, from mainstream newspapers and magazines to Substack blogs and social-media references, writers, columnists and commentators frequently are referencing classic novels, stories and fables to forge timely metaphors about today’s trends.
All too many prove to be cautionary warnings about the importance of telling the truth, in the midst of so many public falsehoods… and draw upon some of the most enduring Prometheus-winning works of fiction, from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four to Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
“When we started our writing career we never dreamt of winning the Prometheus Award. … Of all the awards in Science Fiction, … The Prometheus Award, above all others, became the one we truly wanted. [because] liberty must be championed and valued — of the myriad awards out there, only the Prometheus recognizes this essential fact. And the authors we respect the most have all won it.”
– Eytan and Dani Kollin, co-authors of The Unincorporated Man, the 2010 Prometheus Awardwinner for Best Novel, from their Prometheus acceptance speech
Following up on a recent Prometheus blog post, here are more classic Prometheus Award acceptance speeches to savor.
These speeches, all since 2000, offer insightful quotes that still resonate today.
Continue reading Enduring quotes from more classic Prometheus Award acceptance speeches (since 2000)
By Michael Grossberg
An intercontinental friendship between two prolific science-fiction writers will add an extra measure of celebrity to the 43rd annual Prometheus Awards ceremony.
Sarah Hoyt, who won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel in 2011 for Darkship Thieves, will present the Best Novel category to Dave Freer during the live-Zoom ceremony, now scheduled for 2-2:30 p.m. Saturday Aug. 19 (Eastern U.S. time).
One of the things I do in my spare time is bring old issues of Prometheus onto the web. Prometheus, the LFS’ former print quarterly, was published from 1982 to 2015, and there are lots of articles of lasting value in this collection. Well more than half the issues are now available on the web.
One thing I noticed a little while ago is that we have transcripts of many of the Prometheus Award acceptance speeches that have been given over the years, and they are worth reading again. We also have recordings of several of the ceremonies, but uploading those will be a separate project.
Here’s a quick guide to all the speeches that appeared in Prometheus:
Australian writer Dave Freer had some interesting thoughts about the Greek God Prometheus and Robert Heinlein after learning that his novel Cloud-Castles has won the 2023 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
“According to Aeschylus, (Prometheus) caused blind hope to live in the hearts of men (a goal of my writing if ever had one),” Freer wrote in “Prometheus Bound,” his latest post on the Mad Genius Club blog.
“A trickster who stole fire from the gods for man and pushed them towards science and technology, as well deceiving the powers-that-be (Zeus) of the day, into choosing the rubbish which looks good on the outside, instead of the good that looks rubbish on the outside… he’s my sort of guy,” Freer said.
Quite a few writers have won more than one Prometheus award since the awards were launched in the 1970s, but nobody has won more than the late great Robert Heinlein.
Libertarian Futurist Society members proved anew how much they remain ardent fans of Heinlein (1907-1988) by voting his 1966 novelette “Free Men” the 2023 Best Classic Fiction winner and thereby inducting it into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
That marks the ninth novel, novelette or story by Heinlein to be recognized with a Prometheus Award – a record.
Science fiction and fantasy is written all over the world – and LFS members have nominated fiction from several continents and many countries over the decades.
More than ever, the Prometheus Awards have become truly international.
For the first time, the Libertarian Futurist Society has recognized an Australian writer as winner of the Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Dave Freer, an Australian who lives in Tasmania, has won the 2023 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for novels published in 2022.
Some are calling it a “Netflix for books.”
Arc Manor is venture testing a new approach to sf publishing in cooperation with a number of publishers and authors – including several recognized via the Prometheus Awards.
Arc Manor, best known to LFS members as the sf publisher of Prometheus winners Robert Heinlein and L. Neil Smith, is gearing up for Book Bale, its new download-books subscription program, with a special July discount.
If you’ve seen an ad like this online, you’re probably a freedom-loving sf/fantasy fan!
In recent months, the Libertarian Futurist Society has been experimenting more with online advertising to raise our visibility and attract new members.
The evolving ad campaign takes advantage of Google targeting techniques to reach that relatively small pool of people in the population who overlap in two key categories: science-fiction/fantasy fans and libertarians.
Some LFS members have already noticed such ads online at Reason magazine or its blog and other libertarian websites; a few also have spotted such ads at various conservative and liberal sites that attract sf/fantasy fans.
If you do see an LFS like this pop up anywhere, please help us out!
Continue reading Have you seen LFS ads online? If so, you’re part of our Google ad campaign
