Without a commitment to reading, the Prometheus Awards couldn’t have been sustained for 46 years. That commitment is about to be put to the test, once again.
To assist Prometheus voters, we offer below a few tips to enhance your reading habits amid life’s busy home and work demands.
This is a timely moment to offer such encouragement. After a considerable degree of reading, discussion and related efforts by the LFS’ two awards-finalist-judging committees over the past half year or more, we are now on the verge of entering the final stage of judging the Prometheus Awards.
Between now and July 4, our traditional final Prometheus awards-voting deadline, Libertarian Futurist Society members will have the privilege to read and rank the finalists in our two annual awards categories for Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction.
Since our Prometheus Hall of Fame judges selected four Best Classic Fiction finalists in December, LFS members have had a head start of four months to read those finalists. That slate includes two novels by Poul Anderson (Orion Shall Rise) and Charles Stross (Singularity Sky), a Rudyard Kipling story (“As Easy as A.B.C.”) and a Rush song (“The Trees.”)
Meanwhile, our 12 Best Novel judges are on the verge of selecting a slate of finalists from the 11 2024 novels nominated by Libertarian Futurist Society members. We expect to post that news very soon on the Prometheus Blog.
We hope all LFS members will take time this spring and summer to fully familiarize themselves with the finalists in both categories before voting to choose the winner.
Of course, we always appreciate the continued support of LFS members – whose annual dues helps sustain the Prometheus Awards and the increasingly expensive cost of the gold coins and plaques that accompany the prize – whether or not they have the time every year to read and rank the finalists in one or both categories and thereby help to choose the winners.
But for those LFS members able and willing to exercise their right to vote, we want to share some reading tips, suggested by Shane Savitsky in his Axios Columbus story on “How to Read 100 Books in 2025.”
Here are three of Savitsky’s tips that seem especially useful for LFS members:
* Make it a habit: Carve out intentional reading time.
“I love to do it while riding my exercise bike (much to my wife’s horror), but even listening to an audiobook while doing chores or taking a walk is a start,” Savitsky said.
* Reduce screen time: Don’t give in to the temptation of the dopamine hits that Twitter or TikTok might bring. Put the phone on the other side of the room and spend your time with your book instead.
* Use your library: Reading can be an expensive hobby, but taking full advantage of your local library can seriously brunt the costs.
“And you never have to leave home! I manage all of my borrowing via Libby, which sends my library books straight to my Kindle,” Savitsky said.
His article also makes clear that reading has broader benefits beyond awards or narrow utility.
Savitsky quotes professor Becca Levy, who told Yale Alumni Magazine about the ways that reading enhances not just our knowledge but also can improve our character:
”Reading books involves two cognitive processes that could confer a survival advantage: the slow, deep immersion needed to connect to content; and promotion of empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence,” Levy said.
ABOUT THE LFS AND PROMETHEUS AWARDS:
* 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, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.
* 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.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* 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.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.
