Best of the blog 2024, part two: Reviews of Mackey Chandler, Devon Eriksen, Dave Freer, Gordon Hanka and Howard Andrew Jones

By Michael Grossberg

By the end of 2024, just a few days from now, the Prometheus Blog will have posted a record number of articles, essays, reviews, updates and news.

For the first time since the blog began seven years ago, Libertarian Futurist Society members and Prometheus judges wrote, edited and published 100 posts, or an average of roughly one article every three and a half days.

That’s a notable increase over the previous year, which also reached a new high of 77 articles, up from 67 in 2022 and 59 in 2021.

Of this past year’s 100 articles, more than one-fourth (28) were full-length or capsule reviews, often but not always of Prometheus Award nominees and finalists.

Looking back at a year rich with interesting, illuminating and just-plain entertaining reviews, here are excerpts from (and convenient links to) five of the best.

Continue reading Best of the blog 2024, part two: Reviews of Mackey Chandler, Devon Eriksen, Dave Freer, Gordon Hanka and Howard Andrew Jones

Heinlein’s Children: Tom Jackson’s fanzine essay on libertarians in sf fandom

Libertarianism and science fiction have been closely connected since their early history, a rich topic often explored here on the Prometheus Blog.

Robert Heinlein, a drawing (Creative Commons license)

Libertarian sf fan Tom Jackson explores their connections anew in his recently published essay “Heinlein’s Children: Libertarians in fandom.”

Published in “Portable Storage,” William Brieding’s sf fanzine, Jackson’s interesting and historically knowledgeable article offers a very readable introduction to the subject for the fanzine’s “The Great Sercon Issue Part One.”

Continue reading Heinlein’s Children: Tom Jackson’s fanzine essay on libertarians in sf fandom

The Libertarian Futurist Society made progress in 2020 with enhanced website, more blog articles, new video page and greater outreach – and here are the links to explore

The Libertarian Futurist Society made significant progress this year in raising its visibility worldwide and enhancing its website and blog.
If you haven’t had a chance to check it all out yet, why not take this New Year’s Eve weekend to take a fresh look, check out some of the links below and celebrate LFS success as well as the new year?

VISIT THE NEW VIDEOS PAGE!
Have you seen the new Videos page on the LFS website?
It’s now up, at the top of the Home page, with a clickable “Videos” link to the right of the “Blog” subhed.

Continue reading The Libertarian Futurist Society made progress in 2020 with enhanced website, more blog articles, new video page and greater outreach – and here are the links to explore

Review: J. Neil Schulman’s The Fractal Man brims with humor amid cross-time conspiracies

J. Neil Schulman

By Eric Raymond

The Fractal Man (written by J.Neil Schulman) is a very, very funny book – if you share enough subcultural history with the author to get the in-jokes.

If you don’t – and in particular if you never met Samuel Edward Konkin – the man known as known as “SEKIII” to a generation of libertarians and SF fans before his tragically early death in 2004 – it will still be a whirligig of a cross-timeline edisonade, but some bits might leave you wondering how the author invented such improbabilities. But I knew SEKIII, and if there was ever a man who could make light of having a 50MT nuclear warhead stashed for safekeeping in his apartment, it was him.
Continue reading Review: J. Neil Schulman’s The Fractal Man brims with humor amid cross-time conspiracies