Works of fantasy are eligible to consider for the Prometheus Awards, along with science fiction.
Fantasy has always been eligible for nomination – which might be news to some.
Many falsely assume that the Prometheus Awards are exclusively focused on “libertarian science fiction.”
And many continue to do so, even though several notable works of fantasy have been selected this year as finalists in both annual categories for Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (the Prometheus Hall of Fame.)
Over the years, most nominees for the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus awards have been science fiction, and set in the present or the near or far future. Harry Turtledove’s Between the Rivers is an exception: A work of fantasy, and set in an invented world that parallels the Bronze Age of 3000 years ago or more.
As its title suggests, its setting is based on Mesopotamia. It’s a realm of contending city-states, and seems to be the first place in its larger world to develop them; at any rate, there’s no indication of comparably civilized realms elsewhere.
Even though they’re eligible for nomination, no songs have ever been inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
I can’t imagine a good song more deserving of that honor, and that fits the distinctive focus of the Prometheus Awards better, than “The Trees,” a 1978 song by the Canadian rock group Rush.
Have you seen the Atlas Society’s animated video highlighting Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged?
The video, which has received more than 600,000 viewings on You Tube, is billed as the “first-of-its-kind book trailer for Rand’s masterpiece novel.”
Continue reading Check out the Atlas Society’s animated Atlas Shrugged video
By Eric S. Raymond and Michael Grossberg
Subversive and satirical, God’s Girlfriend challenges some of the deepest assumptions of today’s politics and culture.
One of five 2024 Prometheus Best Novel finalists, Gordon Hanka’s provocative sci-fi novel raises thorny questions about ethics, religion, coercion and consent, the nature of masculinity and femininity and the use of weapons of mass destruction.
The 540-page novel offers a taboo-shattering mixture of unorthodox libertarian provocations and Christian eschatology amid a life-or-death clash of two cultures: Earth humans and Wyrms, human refugees from another planet.
Subtitled “Sci-Fi that should not be published,” the novel blends SF and fantasy tropes from spaceships and advanced weaponry to the apparently supernatural, including Jesus’ Second Coming.
The story revolves around the rising tensions, conflicts and increasing likelihood of nuclear war between Earth governments, desperate to preserve their power, and the Wyrms, genetically modified to resist disease and political-psychological control.
As the failing nation-states of Earth threaten nuclear apocalypse to wipe out the Outback-style beachhead of the Wyrms in Australia, all hell breaks loose. So does heaven, with the Second Coming of God in the unexpectedly modern form of Joshua, who has his own notions of good and evil and shifting ideas about which side should survive.
When it comes to the birth and development of dystopian literature, Russian dissident writer Eugene (Yevgeny) Zamyatin may have the dubious distinction of being one of the most overlooked novelists of that disturbingly timely and emerging 20th-century genre.
Zamyatin’s We was the first dystopian novel of the 20th century, helping to pave the way for others, most notably George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four and Ayn Rand’s similarly-themed Anthem.
Yet, sadly, references to Zamyatin are rare in today’s culture, media and magazines.
So it’s nice to see an insightful column that not only mentions Zamyatin but offers revealing commentary about his fiction and places him within the historical and literary context of Russia in the early 1900s.
V for Vendetta is one of only a handful of fiction works that have received Prometheus recognition twice – first as a graphic novel, inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, and second, as a feature film, which received a special Prometheus award.
So it’s nice to see a magazine article celebrating such popular art and exploring its resonant libertarian and anti-authoritarian themes.
Forty-two years after the initial publication of the graphic novel, Journey Planet 79, an online sf/fantasy journal, pays eloquent tribute to V for Vendetta and its creators: writer Alan Moore and artist David Lloyd.
Continue reading SF magazine explores the enduring themes of V for Vendetta
Without the Libertarian Futurist Society and its members, the Prometheus Awards wouldn’t have survived for 45 years – and counting.
Freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans have made a difference over the decades in three major ways: Through their continuing LFS memberships and support, by becoming active in the discovery and nominating process of our awards and ultimately, by reading the annual finalists and voting to choose the annual winners.
Yet, there are several less obvious but vital ways that LFS members (and others) can help enhance the awards process and help ensure that worthy potential contenders aren’t overlooked – especially in the annual Best Novel category, first presented in 1979.
Naturally, the Prometheus Awards are important to Libertarian Futurist Society members and other freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
But where does our award rank among other sf/fantasy literary awards in the considered opinion of leading sf/fantasy editors?
Prominent sf/fantasy novelist Charles Stross, who won the 2007 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Glasshouse, shared a private conversation with a top editor that actually ranks the Prometheus Award quite high.
Swim among the People, a 2024 Prometheus Best Novel finalist, is the fifth of six (so far) volumes in Karl K. Gallagher’s science fiction series The Fall of the Censorate.
The series as a whole begins when a merchant starship from a long isolated cluster of solar systems discovers a new route through hyperspace that leads to a much larger interstellar human civilization.
