Tag: Alfred Bester

Self-reliance, liberty and sf: The Prometheus interview with author-singer-songwriter Leslie Fish

“(In sf fandom), the Prometheus is now considered third place after the Hugo and Nebula.” — author-songwriter Leslie Fish

Here is the first part of the Prometheus Blog interview with Leslie Fish, the Prometheus-winning author and songwriter.
Fish, interviewed by journalist and blog editor Michael Grossberg, won a 2014 Special Prometheus Award for her novella “Tower of Horses” and related filk-song “The Horseman’s Daughter.”

Leslie Fish, playing the guitar and singing her songs (Creative Commons license)

LFS: You’ve said a lot of your stories and songs contain libertarian themes. What attracts you to such themes and what kinds of stories do you find best reflect those themes?

Fish: It’s more a case of the ideas being part of me and therefore coloring all my work.  I’ve noticed the nostalgic medievalism of most published Fantasy stories, and the socialistic assumptions of a lot of Science Fiction, and it tends to annoy me, so I tend to write songs and stories that push in the opposite direction.  I’m surprised by how much of my own work is reactive, in this way.

Continue reading Self-reliance, liberty and sf: The Prometheus interview with author-singer-songwriter Leslie Fish

Transformation, interstellar liberation and “a Randian hero run amok”: Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, the 1988 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

The Libertarian Futurist Society’s Appreciation series aims to make clear why each Prometheus winner deserves recognition as a notable pro-freedom or anti-authoritarian work. Here is our Appreciation of Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, the 1988 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.

Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination explores themes of transformation and liberation.

Set in our solar system in a distant future on the verge of interstellar travel and colonization and written in beautifully stylized and lyrical language, this classic 1956 novel revolves around a lazy, gutter-talking spaceman described by LFS Director Victoria Varga in her 1994 review for the Prometheus quarterly as “a Randian hero run amok.”

Adrift with no ambition, Gully Foyle is abandoned in space with his pleas for help ignored. Consumed by a burning passion for revenge, Foyle embarks on a quest that propels a raging torrent of events.

“In the process of transformation he awakens the people of the worlds, and gives them back the right to think, dream, grow, and take command of their own lives,” Varga wrote.

Continue reading Transformation, interstellar liberation and “a Randian hero run amok”: Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, the 1988 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner