FeedSpot, a website aggregator, has released its updated list of the “60 Best Libertarian Blogs and Websites in 2025.”
The Libertarian Futurist Society and its Prometheus Awards blog, launched just six years ago, is ranked 39th on the FeedSpot list, which ranks 399 libertarian websites.
That’s relatively high up on the list, one of many ranked by Feedspot, an online platform that aggregates and organizes content from a wide variety of websites on many different subjects and themes.
By Michael Grossberg
As we look back at what was published on the Prometheus Blog over the past year, it’s hard to pick the very best articles and reports to highlight.
Among our more sustained efforts, we launched an awards-standards series, with essays by William Stoddard and Eric Raymond exploring the criteria for Prometheus nominations, and devoted an 11-part series to analyzing the pros and cons of the increasing popularity of sequels in pop culture and in our awards.
Yet in this final of three “Best of the Blog” posts highlighting some of our best work of 2025, reporting on our 45th awards ceremony may rank highest.
For the first time in the history of the Prometheus Awards, the Best Novel winner was recognized posthumously. While we continue to mourn the passing of Michael Flynn, who died in 2023 at 75, this year’s well-deserved award for his final novel In the Belly of the Whale paved the way for one of our most emotional and inspirational acceptance speeches.
Some of the most important, impactful and lasting articles posted on the Prometheus Blog this year were reviews.
Of the 120 posts published here in 2025, more than 10 percent were reviews – perhaps most notably, the latest review-essays in our ongoing Appreciation series devoted to honoring each year’s Prometheus Awards winners for Best Novel and the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
That may seem like a relatively small percentage of our posts, but it actually represents a major sustained effort – in terms of both time and thought – by Prometheus judges and other Libertarian Futurist Society members.
Certainly, it takes time and careful attention to write, edit, illustrate and publish the many posts focusing on awards news, LFS progress reports, author’s updates, essays, features and trend pieces about the influence of Prometheus-winning works and their authors on today’s culture and politics.
Yet it generally takes substantially more effort, insight and creativity to write thoughtful reviews of the most significant fiction nominated each year for a Prometheus Award.
Here are the most noteworthy reviews we published in 2025, along with convenient links allowing you to read or reread any that spark your curiosity or interest:
Continue reading The best of the blog: Our 2025 reviews of Prometheus winners, finalists and more
By Michael Grossberg
Once again, the Prometheus Blog has posted a record annual number of articles, reviews, essays, trend pieces, interviews, author updates, progress reports and awards news. For the eighth consecutive year since the blog replaced our former printed quarterly newsletter in 2017, the Libertarian Futurist Society has increased the number of articles on our blog – a long-term goal.
By the last day of 2025, we anticipate having posted 120 articles, many quite substantive. That’s roughly double the number we posted in 2021 – raising the visibility of the Prometheus Awards, educating the public about libertarian sf/fantasy and enriching discussions and debate among LFS members about the relative merits of Prometheus Award nominees and finalists, and enhancing our awards process as we choose the winners each year. But which articles ranked among the most notable of the year?
Sadly, some of the most timely and poignant stories we wrote in 2025 were obits – marking the passing of several notable writers who demonstrated a passionate love of liberty – including Tom Stoppard, Barry Longyear, Howard Andrew Jones and Leslie Fish.
Continue reading Best of the blog: A record year for posts, but also a sad one, in memoriam
Fresh titles dominate this year’s slate of just-announced finalists for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for Best Classic Fiction.
This year’s five finalists – first published between 1932 and 2003 – include novels by James Blish (The Star Dwellers), C.S. Lewis (That Hideous Strength), Aldous Huxley (Brave New World), Adam Roberts (Salt) and Charles Stross (Singularity Sky).
Blish and Roberts are first-time Hall of Fame nominees, while this is the first time that Huxley’s classic dystopian novel has been recognized as a finalist.
Blish, a Hugo-winning author widely admired in the 1950s and 1960s during the peak of the so-called Golden Age of modern sf, has never before been nominated for the Prometheus Award – perhaps in retrospect a major omission that at last has been corrected.
Although Huxley’s classic dystopian novel was nominated during the first decade of our awards in the 1980s, this is the first nomination for Brave New World in roughly four decades.
Many publishers and authors may not be aware of the newest category of Special Prometheus Awards, set up to recognize Young Adult (YA) fiction. Even some Libertarian Futurist Society members may be unaware of the award, only added as a possibility a few years ago.
Yet, that could be about to change, with the recent nomination of Dave Freer’s YA novel Storm-Dragon for a Special Award.
Did you know that Young Adult novels are eligible for a Special Prometheus Award?
In the broad realm of fantastical fiction, Young-Adult or YA novels have had and continue to have a special and honored place.
Just recall how much of the Golden Age of modern SF was YA books for teenagers or so-called “juvenile fiction” for children or middle-grade readers, including many of Robert Heinlein’s early bestsellers, such as Citizen of the Galaxy or Red Planet, both inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
That’s a key reason why the Libertarian Futurist Society decided several years ago to set up a process to begin recognizing eligible and worthy YA novels with a Special Prometheus Award – and why we invite our members, as well as publishers and authors, to bring eligible YA works to our attention.
By Michael Grossberg
Works by James Blish, Philip K. Dick, Aldous Huxley, C.S. Lewis, Frederik Pohl, Adam Roberts, J. Michael Straczynski, Charles Stross and Harry Turtledove have been nominated for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for Best Classic Fiction.
A majority of this year’s Hall of Fame nominees are appearing on the short list for the first time – a promising sign that this category for time-honored classic fiction remains full of notable and lasting works worth recognizing.
The oldest nominee on the list is Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel Brave New World, with the second-oldest C.S. Lewis’ 1945 novel That Hideous Strength.
While Lewis’ cautionary sf novel has been nominated before and previously has ranked as a Best Classic Fiction finalist, Huxley’s dystopian classic has never before been nominated for the Prometheus Award – and is arguably overdue.
How did Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress give leading libertarian thinker David Friedman the radical idea that society can develop just laws and functional legal systems without government?
What life events, travels, famous scientists and space projects helped shape the late Poul Anderson’s 1983 novel Orion Shall Rise, the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner?
How did the late Michael Flynn’s childhood lead him to become an award-winning science fiction writer?
Why does Flynn’s CAEZIK SF & Fantasy publisher view him as one of the most underestimated sf writers of his generation?
What Prometheus-winning sf/fantasy authors rank high among Friedman’s favorites – and why?
To find out, watch the recorded YouTube video of the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony:
LFS President William H. Stoddard emceed the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony, presented live on Zoom on Aug. 30, 2025. Here are his opening and closing remarks.
Welcome to the Libertarian Futurist Society’s annual Prometheus Awards ceremony, in which we recognize outstanding works of libertarian science fiction. We’ve held these ceremonies every year since 1982, when L. Neil Smith’s The Probability Broach won Best Novel.
What is “libertarian science fiction”? We take both parts of that label in an inclusive spirit.
On one hand, we look for works that are pro-liberty — that explore the question of what a free society is, how we get there, or why the loss of freedom is a disaster.
On the other, we take “science fiction” to encompass all the fantastic genres: fantasy, many sorts of horror, alternative history, dystopia, utopia, and others.
