Each year, SF/fantasy publications, critics and readers compile annual lists of the past year’s best fiction.
Such lists can be helpful to examine for general readers and Prometheus Awards judges, because they bring to our attention or remind us of significant works worth checking out and that might otherwise be overlooked.
Consider, for example, the “Best SF books of 2024” list by SF2 Concatenation (Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation), a digital zine website and online archive focused on reviewing SF books, news and related media.
Of the eight 2024 novels recognized on the Concatenation “bests” list, half have figured in some way in the current cycle of Prometheus Awards judging for Best Novel – a relatively high degree of overlap.
ALASTAIR REYNOLDS’ MACHINE VENDETTA
Most notably, one of the eight works has been nominated for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel: Machine Vendetta, Alaistair Reynolds’ space opera and detective murder mystery.
Set within the British author’s epic and vividly detailed Revelation Space future-history series depicting a wide variety of interstellar societies and habitats – including several with quasi-libertarian aspects – Machine Vendetta weaves into its complex plot a growing threat to life, liberty and civilization itself.
Two other well-written and satisfying novels on the Concatenation list also were considered as candidates for Prometheus nomination:
KALIANE BRADLEY’S THE MINISTRY OF TIME
* The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley’s fresh, poignant, engrossing and twisty time-travel story about love and power.
The cross-cultural romantic relationship at the story’s heart is especially compelling, while the overall approach to time travel is both inventive and plausible.
JAMES S.A. COREY’S THE MERCY OF GODS
* The Mercy of Gods, James S.A. Corey’s far-flung space opera about a ruthless alien conquest of a human-colonized planet.
The first book in a projected series by Corey (the pseudonym for the co-creators of the acclaimed TV series The Expanse), The Mercy of Gods focuses with chilling realism on how the enslaved and transplanted remnant of survivors struggle to survive, make sense of their forbidding new alien environment and begin to figure out how to cope under strange new circumstances.
While both novels proved to be superior works of science fiction, from the perspective of the Prometheus Best Novel finalist-selection judges who read and reported on these potential award candidates, neither ended up offering sufficient and central libertarian themes to justify a formal nomination.
Yet, both talented authors are now on our “map” and thus deserve attention to their subsequent novels, in case any do fit our distinctive dual focus. (That’s especially prudent for the sequels planned to The Mercy of Gods, since from the way that novel ends, it’s conceivable that the remaining humans may reach a point where they not only can survive but also may find a way to escape such alien slavery.)
ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY’S ALIEN CLAY
Another novel on the SF2 Concatenation list that overlaps with the Prometheus set of 2024 candidates (among the remains few still being read and considered for possible nomination before the annual Feb. 15 Best Novel nominating deadline) is Alien Clay, by acclaimed Hugo-finalist author Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Especially fascinating in its complex and fresh exploration of alien biology, Tchaikovsky’s space opera centers on a human zeno-ecologist professor and political dissident to Earth’s tyrannical Mandate.
When some of his free-thinking scientific papers challenge the Mandate’s rigid ideology, he becomes a political prisoner exiled from Earth and struggling for survival as a worker-researcher in a harsh prison colony on a strange and dangerous planet with alien secrets.
The other “best SF” novels on the Concatenation list include M.R. Carey’s multiverse space opera Echo of Worlds, Samantha Harvey’s mundane-SF Orbital, C.K. McDonnell’s urban fantasy Relight My Fire and John Wiswell’s fantasy romance Someone You Can Build a Nest In.
THE DUAL FOCUS OF THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS
Of course, it’s somewhat unusual and all the more impressive whenever such “bests” lists happen to overlap with Prometheus Awards’ unofficial list of candidates.
The latter are suggested by LFS members, publishers or authors based on some sense from the authors, publishers’ descriptions or reviews that the work might not only be worth reading but also be eligible for our distinctive award.
Like other literary awards, the Prometheus Awards aim to recognize outstanding fiction. And like other SF/fantasy awards, our award broadly embraces all forms of speculative fiction, including alternate history, dystopian literature, near-future political-suspense “tech” thrillers, mythology, horror, and fable.
Those libertarians who also are SF/fantasy fans certainly enjoy reading good works in the field, whether or not their themes, characters and plots happen to fit our award. So it should be no surprise that many of us count many of the classic and mainstream bestsellers that often have won the Hugo or Nebula awards among our personal favorites, too.
Yet, only a fraction of such works also happen to focus on visions of the future based on freedom, not tyranny, and on cooperation, rather than coercion. Only the former, in the libertarian view, can truly achieve full civilization that incorporates basic respect for each other’s rights, human dignity, individuality and moral autonomy – and thereby best fosters peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice and the optimum dynamics for positive social change.
Thus, our herculean task in sifting through the thousands of novels published annually is much harder because of the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus award on both literary quality and liberty.
While as mythological legend has it, Hercules cleaned out the Augean stables in one day, LFS members and Prometheus judges pretty much need all year to “clean out” (i.e. read, report on, debate and discover) the Prometheus-eligible fiction published annually amid the vast and growing field of speculative fiction published each year.
And that’s why we appreciate it when LFS members, other libertarian SF/fantasy fans, other freedom-loving SF/fantasy fans, publishers and authors bring works to our attention that might fit our special focus.
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, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.
Through recognizing the literature of liberty and the many different but possible and complementary visions of a free future via the Prometheus Awards, the LFS hopes to help spread ideas, humane ideals 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.
