The Libertarian Futurist Society’s ongoing Appreciation series strives to make clear what LFS members and other libertarian sf/fantasy fans see in each of our past winners and how each fit the Prometheus award’s distinctive focus on Liberty vs. Power. Here’s our Appreciation for J. Neil Schulman’s The Rainbow Cadenza, the 1984 Prometheus Best Novel winner:
Romantic and passionate, J. Neil Schulman’s The Rainbow Cadenza explores the power of art, the thirst for creativity and the threat to such individuality and self-expression in a future Brave New World dominated by one world government.
Schulman was prescient and years ahead of his time in envisioning a positive future where gay marriage is normal and legal.
Yet, his complex story portrays a very mixed and disconcerting dystopian future where teenage women are drafted into government prostitution service for three years, clones are treated as inferior and a new underclass called Touchables are hunted for sport.