What a nomination means (and doesn’t mean) in the Prometheus Awards

By Michael Grossberg

When Libertarian Futurist Society members vote to select annual winners from the slate of Prometheus Awards finalists for Best Novel or the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, that really means something.

That’s because it’s the highest level of recognition possible by the LFS as a whole – and those two awards come with an engraved plaque and a gold coin prize.

Similarly, the annual slates of (typically four or five) finalists mean a lot, too. Achieving Prometheus finalist status can bring a worthy work or an emerging author to wider attention, not only by LFS members but the wider communities of SF/fantasy fans and libertarians.

Prometheus finalists are selected by hard-working LFS members appointed to the committees that judge each year’s Prometheus nominees in our two annual awards categories, with the wider LFS membership then having several months to consider and rank the finalists on the final ballot to choose the winners.

As such, and unlike a basic nomination, the slate of Prometheus finalists represents the first stamp of approval from the LFS itself as a nonprofit international association of freedom-loving SF/fantasy fans.

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A sense of wonder: The Gallagher Interview (part 3), about Heinlein, Niven, Bujold and other sf authors, favorite novels, and what he thinks of awards

So far, in the first two parts of his Prometheus-blog interview, SF writer Karl K. Gallagher has answered questions about his own novels. Now, in the wide-ranging conclusion, the focus shifts to other authors and his favorite works – including the “sense of wonder” and “sense of freedom” that he gets from his favorite pro-liberty sf novels.

Q: Which authors in particular have influenced you most as a writer – whether in terms of their style, themes or spirit?

Robert Heinlein, a drawing (Creative Commons license)

A: Robert Heinlein, for ideals and heroic characters.

Larry Niven, for ideas driving stories.

Lois McMaster Bujold, for looking at what a change will do to people and how they’ll react.

Continue reading A sense of wonder: The Gallagher Interview (part 3), about Heinlein, Niven, Bujold and other sf authors, favorite novels, and what he thinks of awards