Wil McCarthy’s novel Beggar’s Sky is a first-contact story.
The actual contact, though, is more picturesque than philosophical in this sequel to Poor Man’s Sky, itself the sequel to Rich Man’s Sky, McCarthy’s 2022 Prometheus winner for Best Novel.
The 2024 sequel – which has been nominated for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel – takes place within the larger context of an ongoing space race sparked by four Earth billionaires pushing to expand space industry and humanity to new frontiers beyond our solar system.
Here is part 4 of the Prometheus Blog interview with Rick Triplett, a lifelong science fiction fan, decades-long libertarian, a veteran Prometheus Awards judge and recently honored as the Libertarian Futurist Society’s first Emeritus member.
Rick Triplett demonstrating the art of aikido in 2007 at a community cultural festival (Photo courtesy of Triplett)
Q: You’ve practiced aikido for many years – and have even demonstrated the martial art at area festivals. What attracted you to aikido and does it have any relevance to your libertarian views?
A: Aikido is a non-aggressive martial art (virtually the only one).
Its strategy is to de-escalate rather than resort to fighting; its tactics are to avoid and restrain, rather than to damage the opponent. Although its techniques can damage or kill, they are applied in a measured way that at least attempts allowing an attacker to shift from domination to negotiation.
It respects human agency including one’s own right to self-defense.
The Three-Body Problem, a 2015 Prometheus Best Novel finalist and landmark international bestseller by Chinese sf novelist Liu Cixin, has now inspired not one but two TV series worth watching.
Three Body, available free with Amazon Prime, is a 30-episode Chinese series. Netflix also has tackled its own TV-series adaptation of Cixin’s epic novel with a recent eight-episode first season.
Leading libertarian thinker Virginia Postrel has praised both TV series as good SF, along with the English translation of the novel.
“All three versions produce the sense of wonder that is science fiction’s—especially hard science fiction’s—traditional appeal. The stories take place on a grand scale and are propelled by mind-expanding scientific ideas,” Postrel wrote in her “Virginia’s Newsletter” Substack column on “3 Three Body Problems and the Appeal of Science Fiction.”
To make clear why past winners deserve recognition as pro-freedom sf/fantasy and how they fit the Prometheus Award, Appreciations of past winners have been written and posted. Here’s the Appreciation for Ken MacLeod’s Learning the World, the 2006 Prometheus Best Novel winner:
MacLeod’s inventive first-contact novel explores the politics and uncertainties involved from two perspectives: the natives of the planet and the “alien” (human) visitors.
In some ways modeled on classic Heinlein juveniles and a departure from his other future-Earth-solar-system novels exploring the implications of libertarian and Marxist ideas, Learning the World offers as a primary viewpoint character a teen girl living on an interstellar colony ship about to enter a new solar system.
