Tag: Best Classic Fiction

2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame acceptance speech: Stoddard quoting the late great Terry Pratchett on libertarianism and a key passage from The Truth

Editor’s note: As part of our coverage of the 44th Prometheus Awards ceremony, the Prometheus Blog is posting a variety of reports and the full texts of all the speeches.

Terry Pratchett (Creative Commons license)

Here are the remarks of LFS President William H. Stoddard, a long-time Terry Pratchett fan. Stoddard stepped in to accept the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame for the late great Pratchett (1948-2015), whose Discworld comic-fantasy novel The Truth was inducted into the 2024 Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
Before his death, Pratchett was able to attend and speak at the 2003 Prometheus ceremony at the Worldcon, when he won his first Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Night Watch. 


By William H. Stoddard

Regrettably, Terry Pratchett cannot be with us to accept his award. But rather than talk about him, I’d like to quote some relevant words of his own.

Continue reading 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame acceptance speech: Stoddard quoting the late great Terry Pratchett on libertarianism and a key passage from The Truth

Why former Prometheus winners aren’t eligible for Hall of Fame nomination, but former Best Novel finalists are (such as The Truth, the 2024 winner)

By Michael Grossberg

Not all literary award-winners stand the test of time.

Most works of arts and entertainment fade. Yet when they last and take on the patina of a classic, they should be recognized.

For only the third time in the history of the Prometheus Awards, a former Best Novel finalist has been inducted into the Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Terry Pratchett’s novel The Truth, first recognized by the Libertarian Futurist Society as a 2001 Best Novel finalist, has won the 2024 award for Best Classic Fiction.

Before The Truth was inducted this year into our Hall of Fame, only two other Best Novel finalists have received that rare honor: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Falling Free and Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.

Continue reading Why former Prometheus winners aren’t eligible for Hall of Fame nomination, but former Best Novel finalists are (such as The Truth, the 2024 winner)

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.

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

Three-time Prometheus winner Victor Koman to present Best Novel category at our public 2024 awards ceremony

Victor Koman, a veteran libertarian sf writer who’s won three Prometheus Awards for Best Novel, has agreed to speak and be a presenter at the 44th Prometheus Awards ceremony.

Prometheus-winning novelist Victor Koman (Courtesy of author)

Koman will present the Best Novel category at the online Zoom ceremony, tentatively planned for a Saturday afternoon in mid- to late August.

Continue reading Three-time Prometheus winner Victor Koman to present Best Novel category at our public 2024 awards ceremony

Hall of Fame finalist review: Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise offers masterful social-scientific world-building in clash of cultures (including a libertarian society)

By William H. Stoddard

One of the things Poul Anderson was known for throughout his literary career was world-building. Much of this was planetary design, based on the natural sciences, in which he started out with stellar type, planetary mass, orbital radius, and elemental abundances and worked out the geology, meteorology, and biology of a world.

Anderson was certainly one of the masters of this, up there with Hal Clement and Vernor Vinge. But he put equal effort into social scientific worldbuilding, creating economies, polities, and cultures, and developing plots for his stories from the conflicts they gave rise to.

Orion Shall Rise, a 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame finalist for Best Classic Fiction, is a nearly pure example of social scientific world-building, set not in a distant solar system but on a future Earth.

Continue reading Hall of Fame finalist review: Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise offers masterful social-scientific world-building in clash of cultures (including a libertarian society)

Several ways you can make a difference in the Prometheus Awards – including some less-obvious steps worth taking

By Michael Grossberg

Without the Libertarian Futurist Society and its members, the Prometheus Awards wouldn’t have survived for 45 years – and counting.

Prometheus, the light bringer (Creative Commons license)

 

Freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans have made a difference over the decades in three major ways: Through their continuing LFS memberships and support, by becoming active in the discovery and nominating process of our awards and ultimately, by reading the annual finalists and voting to choose the annual winners.

Yet, there are several less obvious but vital ways that LFS members (and others) can help enhance the awards process and help ensure that worthy potential contenders aren’t overlooked – especially in the annual Best Novel category, first presented in 1979.

Continue reading Several ways you can make a difference in the Prometheus Awards – including some less-obvious steps worth taking

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” – Andersen’s fable remains a useful metaphor and illustrative lesson for today

By Michael Grossberg

One of the best choices that LFS members have made in voting annually in the Best Classic Fiction category, in my opinion, was the decision to induct “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in 2000 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.

Hans Christian Andersen’s timeless anti-authoritarian parable isn’t merely a fable for children but a cautionary tale for everyone about the presumptions and illusions of power — not to mention the dangers of sheep-like conformity…. lessons that still apply today. (Perhaps especially today.)

Possibly because the Danish author’s 1837 story is often grouped somewhat diminutively with Anderson’s other stories as mere “children’s” literature or perhaps for other reasons, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” often seems to be overlooked or dismissed by contemporary columnists and bloggers as a still-resonant metaphor for the blind spots and knee-jerk tribalism of our increasingly conformist, censorious, culture-cancelling and fearful era.

So it’s a pleasure to come across a relatively rare reference to Andersen’s classic among today’s vast social commentary – moreover, not just a brief reference, but a full column from a regular Substack writer who makes the story central to his insightful and timely themes.

The column is even titled in honor of the fable: “The Emperor’s New Art.”

Continue reading “The Emperor’s New Clothes” – Andersen’s fable remains a useful metaphor and illustrative lesson for today

Short-listed for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame: Novels by Poul Anderson, Terry Pratchett and Harry Turtledove and a Rush song

By Michael Grossberg

Almost four dozen classic works of science fiction and fantasy have been inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, first presented four decades ago in 1983.

Libertarian Futurist Society members will select the next Best Classic Fiction inductee from four finalists, all first published or released more than 20 years ago.

The 2024 Hall of Fame finalists – just announced to the media in an LFS press release that’s already been reported on in full by File 770, a leading sf-industry trade publication –  is varied in artistic form (including three novels and one song) and in its balance of the old and the new.

The current finalist slate, selected from 10 works of fiction (novels, stories and song) nominated by LFS members, recognizes both a first-time nominee and several stalwart candidates that have found favor with judges and voters in recent years.

Continue reading Short-listed for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame: Novels by Poul Anderson, Terry Pratchett and Harry Turtledove and a Rush song

LFS President: Prometheus Hall of Fame honors reflect passages of time, recognition of merit

With the annual Sept. 30 deadline coming up soon for LFS members to nominate works for the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, this is a good time to remind ourselves what makes this annual category special.

LFS President William H. Stoddard did just that when he presented the Prometheus Hall of Fame category for Best Classic Fiction at the recent 43rd annual Prometheus awards ceremony. Here are Stoddard’s remarks:

By William H. Stoddard

Unlike the Best Novel Award, the Prometheus Hall of Fame can be given to works in any narrative or dramatic form — short fiction, narrative verse, plays, movies, television and video episodes or series, graphic novels, songs, and so on.

It’s restricted to works that first appeared at least twenty years ago.

A great many of our award winners are older than that, often dating to before the LFS was founded.

Continue reading LFS President: Prometheus Hall of Fame honors reflect passages of time, recognition of merit

Final call for 2023 Prometheus Hall of Fame nominations (LFS members have nominated 6 novels, 2 stories, a song and a film so far)

With less than two weeks left until the Sept. 30 nominating deadline, Libertarian Futurist Society members have nominated ten works for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Among the Hall of Fame nominees so far this year: six novels, two stories, a film and a song. That includes novels by Poul Anderson, Cecilia Holland, C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett and E.C. Tubb; both a novel and a story by Harry Turtledove; a story by R.A. Lafferty; a song by the Canadian art-rock group Rush; and, for the first time, a feature film written and directed by and starring Woody Allen.

Woody Allen (Creative Commons license)

Such varied forms of art and fiction reflects the broad scope of the Hall of Fame – an annual Prometheus Awards category that incorporates stories, novellas, novels, graphic novels, songs, albums, musicals, operas, plays, poems, films, TV episodes/series, anthologies or trilogies.

Read on to see the current list of nominees so far and how to nominate works (if you’re an LFS member) or submit works for consideration by members (if you’re an author, publisher or non-member).

Continue reading Final call for 2023 Prometheus Hall of Fame nominations (LFS members have nominated 6 novels, 2 stories, a song and a film so far)