Two of the best-known Prometheus Hall of Fame winners are enjoying a surge in sales.
George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 shot up on Amazon’s best-seller list after the recent U.S. presidential election.
So did Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a 1987 Prometheus Best Novel finalist. (The Testaments, Atwood’s sequel to her classic dystopian novel, was recognized as a Best Novel finalist in 2020.)
Both Orwell’s classic and Bradbury’s classic dystopian novels were inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in 1984, only the second year of the Hall of Fame.
All three novels – well-worth reading (or rereading) – offer cautionary tales about the rise of various types of authoritarian or totalitarian governments that institutionalize massive violations of individual rights – from censorship to torture and mass murder.
Check out the Prometheus blog review-essay Appreciations of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Fahrenheit 451.
On the Friday after the November 2024 presidential election, Atwood’s novel reached the number two slot on Amazon’s best sellers, while Orwell’s 1984 was No. 14 and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 was #16.
It seems a shame, though, that some Americans wait until the feverish peaks and fearful immediate aftermaths of presidential elections before reading such classics – or frankly, these days, read much of anything else in depth (e.g., books, rather than Facebook or X postings.)
QUESTIONS TO PONDER
Were they not concerned about our liberties before?
Or are they really indulging only belatedly in performative acts of “cosplay,” perhaps to indulge their worst fantasies of the end of the world (or worst for libertarians, the end of freedom itself)?
Perhaps some of the post-election increase in book sales for some of these classics can be chalked up to the partly unacknowledged desire for entertainment – merely to titillate ourselves as many of us do during Halloween season.
Or even worse for our psychology and continuing rationality, have our annual Halloween seasons now fatally and permanently merged with our quadrennial presidential election seasons hyping the most unrealistic hopes and fears (amid genuine and legitimate concerns) about the continuing imperfections, ups and downs of the American experiment with a constitutional and democratic republic that promises (but doesn’t always fulfill) each individual’s right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
I do believe that some of it, perhaps a lot of it, is sincere – even if its exaggerated or uninformed by a deeper understanding of the history and cycles of American politics.
The same phenomenon, according to an Axios post-election news report, occurred after the 2016 presidential election.
A NEED FOR PERSPECTIVE
Frankly, one wonders if many of those reading these works immediately after an election, whipped up into near-hysteria about the worst that might happen if the other candidate wins, have the capacity to objectively discern the differences between speculative fiction and reality.
In theory, at least, and from a libertarian perspective, it seems good for our fellow citizens to become or remain vigilant about our freedoms and basic rights, and sensitive to genuine threats of tyranny.
Lifelong libertarians have long gotten accustomed to the experience of losing elections, and thus no longer expect much (good or bad) from whoever wins. So few (or fewer) libertarians end up panicking and projecting the worst from the latest election.
All too often in practice, though, many people who identify with the two major parties tend to go to extremes and imagine that every election is “the most important election of our lifetimes.” (If I had a dollar for every utterance of that phrase by a candidate, politician, newspaper columnist or TV commentator during the presidential election seasons of my adult lifetime, I’d be a multimillionaire.)
Similarly, can we call a moratorium on the temptation to go to the extremes of calling the leaders of that other faction or party over there by the names of mass-murdering dictators of the past century? (Names like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini, for starters.)
Doesn’t that trivialize the evils of totalitarianism, by falsely comparing them to the messy and fallible politics of countries that can and do have harmful policies and excesses but remain at least semi-free as representative and democratic republics?
A BETTER REASON TO READ DYSTOPIAN CLASSICS
If only those now reading such wise and enduring political parables by Orwell, Bradbury and others could read them with more critical thinking and more of an open mind, rather than as a sore-loser’s fantasy motivated perhaps partly and unconsciously by a fearful and vengeful desire to demonize the Other and think the worst of people you strongly disagree with.
Perhaps then, they might have an even deeper and more insightful and rewarding experience reading 1984, or the other dystopian classics mentioned.
Perhaps then, more readers might be able to “look in the mirror” more clearly, and recognize themselves – or at least some aspects of themselves – in the novels’ powerful dramas about man’s inhumanity to man and the sadly perennial tendency in every (or nearly every) human breast to desire freedom for ourselves but power over others.
Who knows what else you might see more clearly if you truly and honestly have the courage to “look in the mirror” as you read Orwell or Bradbury or Atwood – or Ira Levin (This Perfect Day) or Le Guin (The Dispossessed) or Johanna Sinisalo (The Core of the Sun) or Jo Walton (Ha’Penny) or Yevgeny Zamyatin (We) or Lionel Shriver (The Mandibles or her recently nominated Mania) or any other well-written and probing dystopia about a world without freedom?
For more perspective (and balance), click on the above links to read the review-essay Appreciations describing each of these Prometheus-recognized novels, why they deserved our recognition and how they fit our award.
In the case of Orwell’s 1984, a deeper novel than one might expect with insights going beyond the dangers of an extreme totalitarian dictatorship, Orwell dramatizes the common tendency of most people – even in free or semi-free representative democracies – to conform to authority, get caught up in the cult of the charismatic leader and engage in “doublethink,” “Newspeak” and “two-minute hates” to prove their loyalty to the tribe.
WHY HITLER COMPARISONS ARE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
A personal note: I had two cousins who were murdered at Auschwitz.
Being born roughly a decade later, I never had the chance to meet them. Yet, I did learn something about them when I met their concentration-camp-surviving brother in Israel during my Jewish family’s first visit there in 1965.
Sadly, at the age of 12, I didn’t think to write down the names of those two victims of the Holocaust, or even the name of their surviving relative (although strangely, I do still recall that our family visited him at his apartment on Karen Kayemet Avenue in Tel Aviv.)
But I remember – and will never forget – being shocked and impressed by the blue-ink string of numbers branded on the inside of the elderly brother’s arm by the National Socialist Workers Party (the full name for the abbreviation of “Nazis”) members working at that camp.
Despite this personal family loss, I don’t go around calling anyone Hitler – because fortunately, seen through more objective and informed eyes after wide reading in both Prometheus-nominated speculative fiction and nonfiction (especially history and political philosophy), no leading candidate for president in my lifetime has come within light years of legitimately being feared as a potential Hitler (or Stalin or Mao).
Yes, attention must be paid to the perennial and dismal potential for (further) loss of our precious liberties… but even so, distinctions must be made – so that we can see events and trends more clearly and put even disturbing events into greater perspective.
Does it truly help the cause of freedom, of sustaining our civilization (however flawed) and its respect for individual rights (however inconsistent), to immediately go to “11” on a scale of 1 to 10 (as the idiot rock band members did so memorably and hilariously in This is Spinal Tap) whenever a candidate or elected official you dislike and/or strongly disagree with supports a policy or program that you oppose?
I think not.
While we all know that “crying wolf” repeatedly tends to backfire and undercut our credibility, I do hope that those who read or reread any of these Prometheus-winning classics will deepen their appreciation for the freedoms we have – and should continue to defend.
And yes, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance – but not partisan or tribal hysteria, which I honestly don’t think helps.
Note: The above views are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of other LFS members.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS:
* Prometheus winners: For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies (including the recent 2023 ceremony with inspiring and amusing speeches by Prometheus-winning authors Dave Freer and Sarah Hoyt), Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters! We understand that the arts and literature can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future – and in some ways can be even more powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, individuality, and human dignity.
Through recognizing the literature of liberty and the many different but complementary visions of a free future via the Prometheus Awards, the LFS hopes to help spread ideas and ethical principles that help humanity overcome tyranny, end slavery, reduce the threat of war, repeal or constrain other abuses of coercive power and achieve universal liberty, respect for human rights and a better world (perhaps ultimately, worlds) for all.
