Suarez and Pratchett: Both 2024 Prometheus Award winners earn well-deserved recognition – again

By Michael Grossberg

The third time’s the charm, as the saying goes. Yet, in the Prometheus Awards, it seems the second time around’s the charm, too.


In the 2024 Prometheus Awards, both winners are being recognized for the second time.

Daniel Suarez, winner of the 2024 Best Novel category for Critical Mass, previously won Best Novel in 2015 for Influx.

Meanwhile, the late Terry Pratchett, winner of the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction for The Truth, was first recognized by the Prometheus Awards in 2003, when he won Best Novel for Night Watch.

When recently notified of the news that he’s won the Prometheus Award a second time, Suarez responded positively but soberly:

“Authoritarianism is on the march in this world once more, and I’m convinced the first step in resisting despots is to be free in one’s own thoughts and imagination. LFS is doing great work to keep free-thinking science fiction alive, and for that I thank you,” Suarez said in an email.

COMMONALITIES AND DIFFERENCES

While each of their novels incorporates themes of liberty versus power, the winning writers are notably different in their styles and subgenres.

Prometheus-winning author Daniel Suarez (Creative Commons license)

Suarez has become a Prometheus favorite for his realistic and suspenseful near-future SF-tinged thrillers.

Whether set on Earth or throughout our solar system, Suarez’s stories explore the socio-economic potential and impact of new technologies – for good and ill – amid political and statist threats to freedom and innovation.

Terry Pratchett in 2012. (Creative Commons license)

Meanwhile, Pratchett, one of the biggest bestselling UK writers of the past century, remains best-known for his wry sense of humor.

Especially in his popular Discworld series, which blends both science fiction and fantasy tropes, Pratchett wove insights into the follies of human behavior (including the dangers of tyranny, bureaucracy and political corruption) and the benefits of liberty and progress in society, science and industry.


THE FOCUS OF THE AWARD

In their different ways, both Critical Mass and The Truth fit the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Awards on both liberty and quality.

For more than four decades, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of speculative fiction (including science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, near-future high-tech thrillers and more) that dramatize the perennial conflict between liberty and power, favor voluntary cooperation over institutionalized coercion, expose the abuses and excesses of coercive government, and/or critique or satirize authoritarian systems, ideologies and assumptions.

Above all, the Prometheus Awards strive to recognize speculative fiction that champions individual rights, based on the ethical/legal principle of non-aggression as the ethical and practical foundation for justice, tolerance, peace, prosperity, progress, civility and the flourishing of civilization itself.


BEST NOVEL WINNER: CRITICAL MASS

Critical Mass, published by Dutton, is a fast-paced science-fiction thriller set in the inner solar system as engineer-entrepreneurs strive against the odds to use space-mined materials to build infrastructure in space for commercial development.

Heroic characters risk their lives in an audacious mission to complete a space station, allowing construction of a nuclear-powered spaceship and rescue of stranded crew members on the distant asteroid Ryugu.

The resourceful band must achieve their goals amid shortsighted opposition, censorship, shifting alliances and international tensions of Earth governments.

Unusually realistic in depicting the perils of living and working in space, Suarez achieves a high level of plausible engineering speculation. Government is shown as the problem and cooperation through free enterprise as part of a space-based solution to problems on Earth.

Included is a plausible depiction of the creation of a functional, private, decentralized currency beyond the reach of Earth, relevant in this era of inflationary government fiat money.

Visit the Prometheus Blog for an in-depth review of Critical Mass that illuminates how this novel fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

The other 2023 Best Novel finalists were Theft of Fire, by Devon Eriksen (Devon Eriksen LLC); Swim Among the People, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press); God’s Girlfriend, by Dr. Insensitive Jerk (AKA Gordon Hanka) (Amazon); and Lord of a Shattered Land, by Howard Andrew Jones (Baen Books).


BEST CLASSIC FICTION WINNER: THE TRUTH

The Truth, a 2000 novel published by HarperCollins, was first nominated for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel in 2001, when it became a finalist.

Part of Pratchett’s humorous but historically informed and socioeconomically insightful Discworld series, the novel revolves around the incidental founding by a struggling scribe of the Discworld’s first newspaper.

Using the newly invented printing press in the city of Ankh-Morpork, the newspaper evolves in the free market – just as real newspapers did historically – amidst cutthroat competition, shadowy opponents, a political crisis and threats to a free and independent press.

All too timely in its focus on misinformation, The Truth affirms the value of freedom of speech and the press as a bedrock principle sustaining free societies while demonstrating how newspapers can serve as a vital check on criminality and corrupt government.

At once appreciative of journalism and respectful of its ideals but well aware of its limitations, biases, flaws and foibles, the novel portrays how journalists find and report the facts (or not) and strive to communicate “the truth.”

Smart and sly, hilarious but serious, The Truth ultimately offers an inspirational tale of underdogs fighting for the truth against formidable opposition.

Visit the Prometheus Blog for an in-depth review of The Truth that illuminates how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

The other Prometheus Hall of Fame finalists were Orion Shall Rise, a 1983 novel (Timescape) by Poul Anderson; “The Trees,” a 1978 song by the Canadian rock group Rush; and Between the Rivers, a 1998 novel (TOR) by Harry Turtledove

THE 44TH ANNUAL PROMETHEUS CEREMONY

The Libertarian Futurist Society, a nonprofit all-volunteer international organization of freedom-loving science fiction fans, will present its 44th annual Prometheus Awards online via Zoom.

The hour-long event, open to the public, will most likely be scheduled on a Saturday afternoon in late August, once the availability of all winners and presenters is confirmed.

Victor Koman Photo courtesy of author

Victor Koman, a three-time Prometheus Best Novel winner for Solomon’s Knife and Kings of the High Frontier, will be the celebrity speaker. Koman will present the Best Novel category.

LFS President William H. Stoddard, who chairs the Best Classic Fiction finalist-selection judging committee, will emcee the ceremony and present the Hall of Fame category.

LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg, who chairs the Best Novel finalist-selection judging committee, will provide a brief overview of the history and focus of the Best Novel category and introduce Koman.

Suarez is expected to attend the ceremony and deliver an acceptance speech.

Meanwhile, Pratchett’s estate has been notified of this honor to the late great novelist and invited to send a representative to the ceremony and/or submit a prepared statement.

We encourage winners, publishers, LFS members and other freedom-loving SF/fantasy fans to spread the word about the winners and the awards ceremony, which is open to viewing by all.

Once the time and date of the ceremony is confirmed, it will be announced here on the blog – and a follow-up blog reminder with a link to the Zoom ceremony will be posted in the days before the event. So stay tuned.

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, individuality and human dignity.

Published by

Michael Grossberg

Michael Grossberg, who founded the LFS in 1982 to help sustain the Prometheus Awards, has been an arts critic, speaker and award-winning journalist for five decades. Michael has won Ohio SPJ awards for Best Critic in Ohio and Best Arts Reporting (seven times). He's written for Reason, Libertarian Review and Backstage weekly; helped lead the American Theatre Critics Association for two decades; and has contributed to six books, including critical essays for the annual Best Plays Theatre Yearbook and an afterword for J. Neil Schulman's novel The Rainbow Cadenza. Among books he recommends from a libertarian-futurist perspective: Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist & How Innovation Works, David Boaz's The Libertarian Mind and Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress.

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