Category: LFS reports & updates

Have you seen LFS ads online? If so, you’re part of our Google ad campaign

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

Check out (and share!) the new LFS introductory flyer

The Libertarian Futurist Society has created an attractive new introductory flyer.

The new flyer, available to download and print out from the LFS website, incorporates updated wording to explain our mission and the distinctive focus of the Prometheus Awards.


The flyer also adds the names of several recent Prometheus-winning authors and some of their winning fiction titles as examples of the award’s track record and focus.

Perhaps most notable: the replacement of older “endorsement” quotes with excerpts from more-recent articles in publications that have taken a positive look at the LFS and our four-decade-old awards program.

The flyer also boasts a new illustration: the LFS/Prometheus logo of a hand cradling fire.

Continue reading Check out (and share!) the new LFS introductory flyer

A badge of honor: LFS logo/brand image added to Novel finalist book cover, raising visibility for the Prometheus Award

The LFS Prometheus Awards badge, created last year as an option for finalists and winners to use to further publicize their awards recognition, is starting to be used – and in a highly visible way.

When the awards badge was designed and approved last year, LFS leaders expected that it would be used occasionally but most often as art visually enhancing an author’s blog or publisher’s website on the same page announcing the good news that a particular author or work of fiction has been recognized as a finalist or winner.

Even better, though, was the way the badge has been used this year for the first time by a Best Novel finalist: Author Gordon Hanka has just added the LFS badge to the front cover of his novel A Beast Cannot Feign.

Continue reading A badge of honor: LFS logo/brand image added to Novel finalist book cover, raising visibility for the Prometheus Award

Fresh crop of Best Novel finalists spans genres, with most authors recognized for first time in Prometheus history

By Michael Grossberg

Reading a novel by an author you’ve never read before can be entertaining, stimulating and surprising.

Writers tend to develop their own distinctive style, even while taking pains to vary their approach to fit different types of subjects and genres – and most readers quickly come to identify the personality, spirit and style of authors from their stories.

That’s true even if such stories otherwise recognizably fall into broadly understood and familiar types of tales – from coming-of-age adventures and first-contact sci-fi dramas to satire and anti-authoritarian dystopian literature.

All of the above subcategories of science fiction are reflected in this year’s crop of just-announced finalists for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

Furthermore, of the five novels selected as finalists from 15 nominations by LFS members, four were written by authors who never before have been nominated for a Prometheus Award during its 43-year history.

Welcome to the Prometheus Awards competition, C.J. Carey, Dave Freer, Gordon Hanka and John Van Stry!

Continue reading Fresh crop of Best Novel finalists spans genres, with most authors recognized for first time in Prometheus history

Best of the blog, part 2: Six more 2022 reviews, interviews worth rereading about libertarian science fiction

By Michael Grossberg

What were the “best” Prometheus Blog articles of 2022?

Which were the most illuminating and/or the most surprising? (No surprise that I happen to have some favorites.)

Looking back and following a recent blog post recommending six favorites from last year, I picked six more favorites among the more-than-weekly 67 blog posts of 2022, which offered a wide range of reviews, essays, author interviews, awards updates and Prometheus-Award-winner appreciations

Second chances don’t always occur in life, but the first few weeks of 2023 offers a timely opportunity to look back at some of the best Prometheus blog articles of 2022.

Continue reading Best of the blog, part 2: Six more 2022 reviews, interviews worth rereading about libertarian science fiction

The best of the blog: Six posts to savor from 2022 (about Bujold, Heinlein, Longyear, McCarthy and more)

By Michael Grossberg

Happy new year! If you didn’t have a chance to catch up in 2022 with every post published last year on The Prometheus Blog, you missed some fascinating and illuminating reading.

On average, the LFS posted a fresh article on the blog about every five days – a little more often than our initial weekly publication goal, when establishing the Prometheus blog years ago.

Among the 67 blog posts of 2022 were a wide range of reviews, essays, author interviews and Prometheus-Award-winner appreciations – not to mention a variety of timely news updates and links to interesting international articles referencing past Prometheus winners.

Second chances don’t always occur in life, but the start of 2023 offers an opportunity to look back and enjoy some of the best Prometheus blog reviews, essays, interviews and appreciations of the past year.

Continue reading The best of the blog: Six posts to savor from 2022 (about Bujold, Heinlein, Longyear, McCarthy and more)

The Prometheus Awards reach a notable milestone: 100 works recognized!

Before 2022 ends, it’s worth noting that the Prometheus Awards reached a pretty big milestone this year.

It involves a nice round number, too: 100 – the total number of works recognized by the Prometheus Awards in all three categories since the award was established more than four decades ago.

From 1979, when the very first Prometheus Award was presented to F. Paul Wilson’s novel Wheels Within Wheels, through 2022, 90 works of fiction have been recognized in the Libertarian Futurist Society’s two annual categories for Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction.

That includes 44 novels that have won a Prometheus for Best Novel, including this year’s newest winner: Rich Man’s Sky by Wil McCarthy.

And it includes 46 works – novels, novellas, stories, a graphic novel, an anthology and a TV series – that have been inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Plus, 10 works have received Special Prometheus Awards – including three libertarian sf anthologies, two films, two graphic novels, a novella, a filk song and (most recently in 2017) a webcomic series.

Continue reading The Prometheus Awards reach a notable milestone: 100 works recognized!

Prometheus Blog progress: The LFS Appreciation series about past winners is now complete and accessible

If sci-fi fans or anyone else ever wants to know why the Libertarian Futurist Society presented a Prometheus Award to any work of fiction, and how that work reflects libertarian, classical liberal and anti-authoritarian themes, they now have an easy, quick and enjoyable way to find out.

Just visit the LFS website’s Prometheus Awards page, scroll down to any particular past winner of interest – for Best Novel, Best Classic Fiction or Special Awards – and click on the “Appreciation” link added next to its title.

To highlight and honor the four-decade history of the Prometheus Awards, which the Libertarian Futurist Society celebrated in 2019, LFS members began writing review-essays about each past winner that summer.

Today, more than three years later, that series of informative essays is now complete:
Continue reading Prometheus Blog progress: The LFS Appreciation series about past winners is now complete and accessible

Works by Asimov, Heinlein, Lafferty, Lewis, Longyear, Pratchett and more: Judges to select Prometheus Hall of Fame finalists from eight nominees

LFS members have nominated eight works for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Among them are one song, a novelette, a collection of linked short stories, two short stories and three novels – reflecting the many forms of fiction that are eligible for consideration in this Prometheus category.

With the nominations deadline having passed in September, here is the final list of this year’s nominees:

* The End of Eternity,  a 1955 novel by Isaac Asimov
* “Free Men,” a 1966 novelette by Robert Heinlein
* “Primary Education of the Camiroi,” a 1966 short story by R.A. Lafferty
* That Hideous Strength, a 1945 novel by C.S. Lewis
* Circus World, a 1981 collection of linked stories by Barry B. Longyear
* “The Trees,” a 1978 song by Neal Peart and Rush
* The Truth,  a 2000 novel by Terry Pratchett
* “Or Give Me Death,” a 1955 short story by Donald Westlake

Continue reading Works by Asimov, Heinlein, Lafferty, Lewis, Longyear, Pratchett and more: Judges to select Prometheus Hall of Fame finalists from eight nominees

Appreciation series update: Review-essays of Special Prometheus Award fiction winners now available, linked

Three anthologies.
Two films.
Two graphic novels.
A related novella and filk song.
Plus, a webcomic about a sentient robot and his pals.

If you’ve ever wondered why the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Special Prometheus Awards have recognized all of the above, then wonder no longer.

You can check it out on the LFS website’s Prometheus Awards page, which now has convenient links to Appreciation review-essays about all 10 works that have won recognition since the occasional Special Awards category of was established in 1998.

Continue reading Appreciation series update: Review-essays of Special Prometheus Award fiction winners now available, linked