Review: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World offers still-timely dystopian vision of a collectivist “soft tyranny” denying individuality, history, culture and art


By Michael Grossberg

Aldous Huxley (Creative Commons license)

British writer-philosopher Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) is best remembered today for writing one of the earliest and most emblematic works of dystopian literature.

His 1932 novel Brave New World continues to be a bestseller and is universally recognized as a modern classic. For example, the Modern Library ranked it number 5 on its list of the 100 Best Novels in English of the 20th century.

Not all dystopian works fit the distinctive focus of the Prometheus Award, but Brave New World more than qualifies – and that’s why I’ve nominated it for the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Continue reading Review: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World offers still-timely dystopian vision of a collectivist “soft tyranny” denying individuality, history, culture and art


Prometheus Awards 40th anniversary panel set with F. Paul Wilson, LFS leaders, for online-only New Zealand Worldcon; Sarah Hoyt and Wilson to lead LFS panel and awards ceremony at North American Science Fiction Convention

The Libertarian Futurist Society will raise its visibility online and around the world this summer with events and Prometheus-winning speakers and LFS leaders at both the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and the North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC).

Everything will take place safely during these “virtual cons,” set up to protect online participants and viewers during the pandemic – which means that LFS members and the public will be able to watch, participate and ask questions from the comfort of their own homes via computers, smart TVs, tablets or smart phones.

WORLDCON PROMETHEUS PANEL
Bestselling, Prometheus-winning novelist F. Paul Wilson (An Enemy of the State, Sims, Healer, Wheels within Wheels, Repairman Jack series) will headline the LFS’ Worldcon panel on “Freedom in SF: Forty Years of the Prometheus Award.”

Celebrating the recent 40thanniversary of the awards, the Worldcon panel will explore the distinctive focus and impressive track record of the many diverse winners of one of the oldest continuing fan-based awards in the sf/fantasy field after the Hugo and Nebula awards.

(To find out who has won the 2020 Prometheus Awards, read the LFS press release posted on the LFS website.)

Continue reading Prometheus Awards 40th anniversary panel set with F. Paul Wilson, LFS leaders, for online-only New Zealand Worldcon; Sarah Hoyt and Wilson to lead LFS panel and awards ceremony at North American Science Fiction Convention