Magic, superhuman tyranny and creating a society without slavery in Graydon Saunders’s fantasy Commonweal Series

Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation.”
—Alasdair Gray.

“If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.”
—Graydon Saunders

By William H. Stoddard

Ken MacLeod’s blog, “The Early Days of a Better Nation,” takes its title from a quotation from Alasdair Gray. Obligingly, he provides that quotation, followed immediately by another quotation from Graydon Saunders that comments on the idea.

Who is Graydon Saunders? Eventually, I became curious, and found that he was, among other things, the author of a series of strikingly original fantasy novels, the Commonweal series.

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Liberty and laughter: Which Special Award winners benefit from a sense of humor?

By Michael Grossberg

“Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight…”
— Lyrics from the opening song in Stephen Sondheim’s musical farce A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum

Of all the works recognized with Prometheus Awards, one of the funniest is rather unusual, even unique.

It’s not a novel, a novella or a story – the types of fiction that by far most commonly have won one of the two annual Prometheus awards for Best Novel or Best Classic Fiction.

Nor is it a movie or TV series, although several have won.

It’s a “webcomic” – and so far, the only one that’s ever received a Prometheus: Freefall (Chapter 1), created by Mark Stanley.

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Making ‘em laugh: Which Hall of Fame winners best incorporate comedy?

By Michael Grossberg

Everyone has their favorites among the fiction works that have won the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

And by everyone, I mean virtually everyone – since at least some of the 46 winning works are enjoyed by libertarians and non-libertarians alike, and by both science fiction/fantasy fans and those who don’t often read that genre.

But how many rank the comedies that high?

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Making ‘em laugh for the sake of liberty: Which Best Novel winners best incorporate comedy?

By Michael Grossberg

If beauty is proverbially found in the eye of the beholder, then a sense of humor may be located in our funny bones.

Yet everyone’s sense of humor is a bit different. What you find hilarious may leave me cold (or at least lukewarm), while what fills some bellies with laughs may leave others with barely a smile on their faces.

Given how personal a sense of humor tends to be, it may be provocative but should be interesting to ask: Which Prometheus Award winners do you find most amusing?

Which are designed to make you smile, and laugh out loud – and achieve their goal?

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Funny is funny: How two Best Novel finalist authors have responded to Prometheus recognition

By Michael Grossberg

When life gets you down, there’s nothing better for renewing your spirit or gaining perspective than having a good sense of humor.

Receiving recognition in the Prometheus Awards usually sparks a more serious response blending pride and gratitude.

But funny is funny – and anyway, if your novel is already satirical, then why not respond in that spirit with both pride and humor to such recognition?

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A poet of liberty? How Shakespeare upheld and advanced our appreciation of liberty and wariness about unlimited authority

By Michael Grossberg

Does Shakespeare still matter?

And does the world’s greatest playwright have important things to say to libertarians, other freedom lovers and those millions still wrestling in the 21st century with tyranny, war, slavery and other poisonous fruits of statism?

As a veteran theater critic, I’d argue yes on both counts!

So does a thoughtful essay by Michael Lucchese reviewing and comparing two recent books about Shakespeare and his views on liberty and authority in the Law and Liberty journal.

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A 2022 Prometheus Best Novel finalist heads to the silver screen

Prometheus Award winners or finalists don’t make it to the screen that often, so it’s promising news when another is reported to be on its way.

Director Taika Waititi (Creative Commons license)

Deadline.com recently reported that Oscar-winning film director Taika Waititi is is in talks to direct a film adaptation of Klara and the Sun, by Nobel-prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro.

Klara and the Sun, a poignant near-future fable about an A.I. robot tasked with caring for and befriending a human child, was one of five Best Novel finalists for the 2022 Prometheus Award.

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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.

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Appreciating sf author Nancy Kress, her Beggars trilogy and other Prometheus-nominated novels

By Michael Grossberg

Prolific sf author Nancy Kress has won Hugos and Nebula awards but she’s never won a Prometheus Award. Not yet, anyway.

Nor was Kress nominated for The Eleventh Gate, an interesting 2020 novel (recently reviewed in the Prometheus blog) that pits libertarian planets against more authoritarian worlds.

Nevertheless, Kress has been frequently recognized within the history of the Prometheus awards.

In fact, she has been nominated four times for Best Novel – and one of her novels (Beggars in Spain) was voted a Best Novel finalist.

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Review: Nancy Kress novel The Eleventh Gate imagines pros, cons & conflicts of future libertarian, authoritarian worlds

By Michael Grossberg and Adam Tuchman

Many sf and fantasy novels imagine different visions of free societies and how they might function in the future – including quite a few Prometheus Award finalists and winners.

In recent years, more authors seem to be incorporating future libertarian worlds into their novels, so many that it’s becoming harder to keep track of them all.


While few of these sf authors may be outright libertarians, they appear to be curious about exploring in fiction how future societies might be based on libertarian principles, in full or in part. They appreciate how that can provide fresh and interesting sf scenarios to explore dramatically – especially given inevitable human flaws and conflicts that tend to occur, no matter what kind of laws, customs and norms define different cultures.

One illustrative recent case in point: The Eleventh Gate, by Nancy Kress, an award-winning sf author known for space opera who previously has been nominated four times for a Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

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