Who are the most nominated authors in Prometheus history? Here’s the top-ten list

 

Who are the most popular authors in Prometheus Awards history?

Prometheus, the light bringer (Creative Commons license)

One could answer that question in several different ways, such as looking at a bestselling writer’s number of books sold or in print – or more narrowly, in terms of our award, comparing the number of Prometheus Awards different writers have won over the decades in different categories. (The Prometheus Blog will explore the latter perspective in later postings.)

But let’s focus first on one parameter that roughly reflects the ongoing popularity and relevance of different sf/fantasy authors among LFS members over more than four decades: How many times an author has simply been nominated by LFS members for a Prometheus Award.

Without peeking at the next page or examining the track record of past winners on the LFS website’s Prometheus Awards page, how many of the Top Ten most popular authors can you guess?

Continue reading Who are the most nominated authors in Prometheus history? Here’s the top-ten list

Economics in Science Fiction: The Specter of Overproduction (from Pohl and Huxley to Heinlein)

By William H. Stoddard

Science fiction has mainly been based on the natural sciences, from astronomy to biology; economics and the other social sciences come on stage less often.

Certainly, social science fiction was one of Isaac Asimov’s three categories of science fiction (along with gadget stories and adventure stories—as TV Tropes puts it, “Man invents car” can be followed by “lectures on how it works,” “gets into car chase,” or “gets stuck in traffic”).

But the premise for social science fiction was commonly a discovery or invention in the natural sciences, whose social and economic consequences are explored. It’s not so common for science fiction to be inspired by an economic theory.

Nonetheless, some theories have been the basis for science fiction stories. Economic issues are a major concern for libertarians; how science fiction deals with such issues is worth exploring.

Continue reading Economics in Science Fiction: The Specter of Overproduction (from Pohl and Huxley to Heinlein)

Two-time Prometheus winner Michael F. Flynn has died


We are sorry to have to report that science fiction writer Michael F. Flynn has died. He was 75. Here is the obituary from  his local newspaper in Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Flynn won the Prometheus Award twice, in 1991 for In the Country of the Blind, and in 1992 for Fallen Angels (a collaboration with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle).

Continue reading Two-time Prometheus winner Michael F. Flynn has died

Who’s won the most Prometheus Awards for Best Novel? A reader’s guide, Part 2

By now, more than four decades after the Prometheus Awards were first presented, many authors have won the annual award for Best Novel – but just 10 writers have won more than one.

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Of the writers who’ve won the most Prometheus Awards, which of their works should you read first?

By Michael Grossberg

The Prometheus Award has been presented more than 100 times, but which authors have won the most? And which of their winning works should you read first, if you aren’t familiar with them?

In the original Best Novel annual category, which I’ll focus on here, only 10 authors have won more than one – and only four writers have won as many as three.

(Try to guess their names, just for fun, without taking a peek at the LFS website’s Prometheus Awards page, which lists all past winners.)

Continue reading Of the writers who’ve won the most Prometheus Awards, which of their works should you read first?

How and Why to Fight For Freedom: An Appreciation of Heinlein’s “Free Men,” the 2023 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction


As part of the LFS’ ongoing Appreciation series of review-essays explaining how each Prometheus Award-winner fits the distinctive libertarian and anti-authoritarian focus of the sf/fantasy award and why it deserved to win, here is an Appreciation by author Karl K. Gallagher (a frequent Best Novel finalist himself) of Robert Heinlein’s story “Free Men,” the 2023 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.

By Karl K. Gallagher

Many writers have “trunk stories”—pieces rejected so many times that the writer shoves them into a trunk and stops sending them out again. “Free Men” seems to have been one of Heinlein’s trunk stories.

The Expanded Universe foreword says he wrote it in 1947, just a year after Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech. The story wasn’t published until 1966, in the Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein single-author collection.

I can understand why editors didn’t want it.

It’s a grim story, with the protagonist left bleeding out as his followers flee to a new hiding place.

The premise is a USA occupied after losing WWIII, by an enemy willing to nuke towns as reprisals against guerillas. The kind of story that makes readers put the terms “unpatriotic,” “defeatist,” or “advocating ‘better red than dead’” in the letters cancelling their subscriptions.

So why did Heinlein write it? And why do some readers love it?

Continue reading How and Why to Fight For Freedom: An Appreciation of Heinlein’s “Free Men,” the 2023 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction

Heinlein Prize Trust working to sustain author’s legacy, spread liberty with digital archive, books, publishing contracts in Russia, China

By Michael Grossberg

With the late great Robert Heinlein having won more Prometheus Awards than any other author (including in 2023 for his story “Free Men,” inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame), LFS members and other Heinlein fans naturally should be interested in finding out more about organizations working to sustain his legacy.

Ginny and Robert Heinlein at their home in the 1980s (Photo from Heinlein Trust archives)

One of the most notable, visible and interesting groups is the Heinlein Prize Trust, established by Virginia (Ginny) Heinlein soon after her husband’s death in 1988.

Since then, the organization has published several books furthering commercial development in outer space, reprinted Heinlein’s entire body of writing in a deluxe leather-bound 46-volume edition, published graphic novels of two Heinlein classics and completed the preservation of Heinlein’s writings and memorabilia in a comprehensive digital archive.

Perhaps the most promising and newsworthy developments are the Trust’s recent efforts to make Heinlein’s stories and novels available around the world – including in countries under dictatorships.

“Only 15 to 20 percent of the world can be considered free, under even the most liberal interpretation of that world. That mans that about 80 percent of the world population today lives under an authoritarian government,” said Art Dula, primary trustee of the Heinlein Trust.

Continue reading Heinlein Prize Trust working to sustain author’s legacy, spread liberty with digital archive, books, publishing contracts in Russia, China

Anderson, Heinlein, Tolkien, Hoyt, Pratchett and other favorite authors: The Prometheus interview (part 4) with Dave Freer

The Prometheus Award for Best Novel has been won over the decades by writers from the United States, England, Scotland and Finland – with Best Novel finalists from China, Japan, Canada and many other countries.

Dave Freer with his 2023 Prometheus Awards Best Novel plaque for Cloud-Castles (Photo courtesy of Freer)

But Dave Freer is the first writer from the Southern Hemisphere to win a Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

Here is the fourth and final part of the Prometheus Interview with the Australian/Tasmanian author, the 2023 winner of the Prometheus for Best Novel for Cloud-Castles.

 Q: Do you have any favorites among Prometheus Award winners?

A: It’s a good reading list, isn’t it?  I think I have just about everything in the Hall of Fame.

 

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Problem-solving, blending satire with adventure, and skewering bureaucracy: Dave Freer’s Prometheus interview, part 3

Here is the third part of the Prometheus Interview with Australian author Dave Freer, 2023 winner of the Prometheus for Best Novel for Cloud-Castles.

Dave Freer (Photo courtesy of author)

Q: Are there common subjects or themes that you find yourself exploring and returning to in your different novels and stories?

A: Problem-solving. Endlessly. That’s what humans do best. It’s our species selective advantage.

Many animals are faster or stronger. We think our way out of the shit – that, often as not, we got ourselves into in the first place. We’re not sheep. We don’t need to follow, we can think, independently. I want to foment that.

Continue reading Problem-solving, blending satire with adventure, and skewering bureaucracy: Dave Freer’s Prometheus interview, part 3

Coming of age as an individualist: Author Dave Freer’s Prometheus interview, part 2

Here is the second part of the Prometheus interview with Australian/Tasmanian author Dave Freer, the 2023 Prometheus winner for Best Novel for Cloud-Castles.

Author Dave Freer at his home desk in Tasmania Photo courtesy of author

Q: How did you first get interested in science fiction/fantasy?

A: I was born into it, you might say. No, not in a hut hopping the Taiga on a solitary chicken-leg as might seem likely, or even half way up a space-elevator, hanging between heaven and earth. Into a family where reading sf and fantasy were a norm.

If you think there to be nothing unusual about this, it is plain you know little of the country and times of my birth.

Continue reading Coming of age as an individualist: Author Dave Freer’s Prometheus interview, part 2