The authors of this year’s Prometheus Award finalists for Best Novel recently gathered for an online chat, which has now been posted publicly on the Eigenrobot podcast.
Sf writers Mackey Chandler, Karl K. Gallagher, Barry Longyear, Marc Stiegler, and Dennis E. Taylor discussed a wide variety of topics in their podcast – including the publishing industry, fandom, changes in science fiction, and the history of the Prometheus Award.
There’s a big sale of Heinlein books going on from the folks at Arc Manor.
You can pay anything you want for The Number of the Beast (even free), and the new alternative version of the novel, The Pursuit of the Pankera (preferred by many Heinlein fans) is offered at a sale price of $5.99, instead of the usual $9.99. (The paper versions of Pankera also are on sale for a big discount).
Sarah Hoyt, who won the Prometheus Award in 2011 for Darkship Thieves, has been hired to pen a new series of “Barbarella” comic books. Here is one of the articles (we were a little late in noticing):
“Barbarella is returning to comics with a new creative force.
“Dynamite Entertainment announced Friday that author Sarah Hoyt will write an upcoming Barbarella series with artist Madibek Musabekov, colorist Ivan Nunes and letterer Carlos Mangual. Hoyt is the writer of thirty-four novels ranging from science fiction, fantasy, mystery and more, including the fan-favorite Darkship Thieves.
Issue No. 1 is out July 14; you can preorder the Kindle on Amazon.
It isn’t every day that a work which has won one of our awards becomes the subject of a museum exhibition. But V for Vendetta, which won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 2006, is the subject of a new exhibition at the Cartoon Museum in London, in Britain.
The V for Vendetta: Behind the Mask exhibit will be available until Oct. 31;
“Presenting 36 original comic artworks alongside storyboards and costume designs from the hit Warner Bros movie, V for Vendetta: Behind the Mask charts the rise from comic to graphic novel, Hollywood film to iconic symbol of protest,” the museum says.
Continue reading London exhibit on Prometheus winner ‘V for Vendetta’
Here is the Prometheus Blog Appreciation of Vernor Vinge’s story “True Names,” a 2007 Prometheus Hall of Fame co-winner for Best Classic Fiction.
By Michael Grossberg and Chris Hibbert
“True Names” is a seminal work of the cyberpunk genre.
A landmark when it was published in 1981, Vernor Vinge’s now-classic story gave the public their first glimpse of cyberspace and showed how the struggle for control might penetrate the new medium.
One of the earliest works of fiction to present a fully detailed concept of cyberspace, the story also explores themes of anarchism and trans-humanism that are of great interest to libertarian futurists.
The story follows the progress of a group of computer hackers who keep their true identities secret while being among the first to adopt a new full-immersion virtual-reality technology. They do so out of curiosity or an entrepreneurial desire to profit – both respectable and even laudable motivations from the libertarian perspective that appreciates the crucial role of innovation and free markets in advancing human progress, prosperity, well-being and knowledge.
Here is the Prometheus Blog Appreciation of Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, the 2013 Prometheus Hall of Fame co-winner for Best Classic Fiction.
By Tom Jackson
One of Neal Stephenson’s most-memorable novels, Cryptonomicon, was inspired by developments in cryptography during World War Two.
Published in 1999, Cryptonomicon won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 2013. Given the novel’s focus on topics such as electronic money and cryptography, it seems prescient in anticipating the current moment’s obsession with cryptocurrencies.
Here is the Prometheus Blog Appreciation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the 2011 Prometheus Hall of Fame co-winner for Best Classic Fiction.
By Michael Grossberg
The title of the allegorical work may make Animal Farm sound like a children’s fable, but it isn’t.
Oh, the short novel certainly can – and probably should – be read by teenagers and more mature younger readers, who likely will enjoy it and also grasp its perennial theme about the corruptions of power and the absolute corruption of absolute power.
Yet, the cautionary themes of George Orwell’s enduring 1945 work truly are aimed at adults.
Continue reading Allegorical fable about “beastly” communism, coercive egalitarianism: George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the 2011 Prometheus Hall of Fame co-winner for Best Classic Fiction.
Here is the Prometheus Blog Appreciation for Poul Anderson’s story, “No Truce with Kings,” the 2010 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.
In David Friedman’s first book, the libertarian classic The Machinery of Freedom, the first entry in the bibliography describes Poul Anderson’s “No Truce with Kings”: “A libertarian novelette that plays fair. The bad guys are good guys too. But wrong.”
Here is the Prometheus Blog Appreciation for J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the 2009 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction:
“Power tends to corrupt; and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – Lord Acton (1834-1902)
“One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all,
and in the darkness bind them.”
– The Ring inscription in The Lord of the Rings
By Michael Grossberg and William H. Stoddard
The Lord of the Rings is not only one of the greatest works of fantasy but also a cautionary libertarian fable about the inevitable temptations of power.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic trilogy – a three-part novel (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King) published in 1954-1955 – charts a social, political, personal and supernatural struggle between freedom and absolute tyranny.
The 2021 Prometheus Awards slate of Best Novel finalists, just announced, reflects an interesting first in the four-decade-plus history of the award.
See if you can identify this first – hint: a reflection of a long-term trend in modern publishing – from scanning this list of the finalist novels, their authors and publishers:
* Who Can Own the Stars? by Mackey Chandler (Amazon Kindle)
* Storm between the Stars, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press)
* The War Whisperer, Book 5: The Hook, by Barry B. Longyear (Enchanteds)
* Braintrust: Requiem, by Marc Stiegler (LMBPN Publishing)
* Heaven’s River, by Dennis E. Taylor (An Audible Original, print and ebook editions The Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency)
