Libertarian Futurist Society members have made 17 nominations for the Best Novel category of the next Prometheus Award.
Of the authors whose works are nominated, a majority are being recognized for the first time by the LFS and the Prometheus Awards.
Ten novelists are being recognized for the first time with Prometheus nominations. Listed in alphabetical order, those authors are Stephen Albrecht, Devon Eriksen, Howard Andrew Jones, Naomi Kritzer, Paul Lynch, Sandra Newman, Salman Rushdie, C. T. Rwizi, Fenton Wood and Alan Zimm.
Has the “cancel culture” trend peaked, or will it continue in 2024?
With Shakespeare increasingly in disfavor among some elite precincts of academia and popular authors like Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming posthumously having their classic fiction bowdlerized and edited to be politically correct, what artists and authors will be next?
Will 2024 deepen disturbing trends undermining artistic freedom and other civil and economic liberties? Or will a new year bring fresh hope for civility, voluntarism, tolerance and respect for other people’s rights?
Such questions continue to linger in the back of my mind as I recall some of my favorite posts in 2023 on the Prometheus Blog.
Although it’s now the start of 2024, it’s not too late to look back again at the past year to savor (and perhaps reread) a few especially timely and relevant favorites from the blog – beyond the three already highlighted last week.
In 2023, the Prometheus Blog surpassed previous years in the number, frequency and regularity of posts.
By the time this year ends, the Prometheus blog will have posted a record 78 articles – from essays, reviews and commentaries to news, awards updates, tributes and progress reports.
Ever since 2017, when the Prometheus Blog replaced Prometheus, the Libertarian Futurist Society’s former printed quarterly review and newsletter, the goal has been to gradually increase the frequency of posts to equal and then surpass the amount of material previously published in the four quarterly printed issues.
Every year, when the Libertarian Futurist Society announces its Prometheus finalists in press releases, the two leading science-fiction/fantasy trade publications and other influential media cover it well – and promptly.
Happily, such positive coverage has occurred again this year, all within 24 hours of the LFS press release going out to the media.
The attractive new image used by one major blog to accompany its Prometheus awards news update
With less than two weeks left until the Sept. 30 nominating deadline, Libertarian Futurist Society members have nominated ten works for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
Among the Hall of Fame nominees so far this year: six novels, two stories, a film and a song. That includes novels by Poul Anderson, Cecilia Holland, C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett and E.C. Tubb; both a novel and a story by Harry Turtledove; a story by R.A. Lafferty; a song by the Canadian art-rock group Rush; and, for the first time, a feature film written and directed by and starring Woody Allen.
Woody Allen (Creative Commons license)
Such varied forms of art and fiction reflects the broad scope of the Hall of Fame – an annual Prometheus Awards category that incorporates stories, novellas, novels, graphic novels, songs, albums, musicals, operas, plays, poems, films, TV episodes/series, anthologies or trilogies.
Read on to see the current list of nominees so far and how to nominate works (if you’re an LFS member) or submit works for consideration by members (if you’re an author, publisher or non-member).
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
