Mark your calendar and tune in to watch the 45th Prometheus Awards!
Half a dozen interesting and inspiring speakers, including three book authors, will participate in the 40-minute live ceremony, scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. Saturday (Eastern time) Aug. 30 and open to the public via Zoom.
Poul Anderson, a seven-time Prometheus winner, who died in 2001 (Creative Commons license)Three-time Prometheus winner Michael Flynn, who died in 2023 (Creative Commons license)
This will be the first ceremony in the Prometheus Awards’ 46-year history in which both winners will be recognized posthumously – with eloquent, personal, revealing, amusing and inspirational speeches about their lives and works by the family members who loved them and knew them best.
Mark your calendar: The45th Prometheus Awards has been confirmed for Saturday Aug. 30, with a leading libertarian thinker and novelist as a guest presenter.
The Zoom-led ceremony will run from 2 to 3 p.m. that Saturday (Eastern time) and will be open to all LFS members and the public. (The Zoom link is below.)
Among the speakers: leading libertarian thinker and fantasy novelist David D. Friedman, who will present the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction; Astrid Anderson Bear, daughter of the late sf/fantasy writer Poul Anderson, a frequent Prometheus Awards winner; CAEZIK SF & Fantasy publisher Shahid Mahmud; author Kevin Flynn, brother of the late sf novelist Michael Flynn, a three-time Prometheus winner; LFS President William H. Stoddard, and Libertarian Futurist Society co-founder Michael Grossberg.
Not one but two celebrity presenters will grace the 44th annual Prometheus Awards ceremony, set for Sunday Aug. 25 in a Zoom event set to begin at 2 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (11 a.m. Pacific time) and open to the public.
We invite Libertarian Futurist Society members, their families and friends, science fiction/fantasy fans and all freedom lovers to watch the roughly hourlong awards show, which is expected to include interesting, entertaining and substantive speeches by celebrity presenters, LFS leaders and this year’s Prometheus Award winner for Best Novel.
In 2023, the Prometheus Blog surpassed previous years in the number, frequency and regularity of posts.
By the time this year ends, the Prometheus blog will have posted a record 78 articles – from essays, reviews and commentaries to news, awards updates, tributes and progress reports.
Ever since 2017, when the Prometheus Blog replaced Prometheus, the Libertarian Futurist Society’s former printed quarterly review and newsletter, the goal has been to gradually increase the frequency of posts to equal and then surpass the amount of material previously published in the four quarterly printed issues.
Why is government, by its nature, a distinctive threat to freedom?
LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg strived to answer that question in his speech introducing the Best Novel category of the 43rd annual Prometheus Awards ceremony.
Michael Grossberg, a veteran journalist and arts critic. File photo
BY MICHAEL GROSSBERG
The Prometheus Awards, one of the oldest fan-based sf/fantasy awards after the Hugos and Nebulas, are unique in recognizing speculative fiction that dramatizes the sadly perennial conflict between liberty and power.
As a journalist and arts critic for five decades, I can testify to the importance of awards in raising the visibility of valuable and rewarding works that might otherwise be overlooked.
How does culture and politics affect science fiction?
Why do the Prometheus Awards matter – perhaps more today than ever?
All those intriguing questions were explored by a variety of authors, leaders and sf fans in the recent 43rd annual Prometheus Awards ceremony.
Airing live Aug. 19, 2023, to an international audience, the hourlong ceremony honored Dave Freer, winner of the 2023 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Cloud-Castles, and the late great Robert Heinlein, whose 1966 story “Free Men” was inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
Here is the video of the 43rd Prometheus Awards ceremony:
Are you a fan of Sarah Hoyt? Dave Freer? Robert Heinlein?
If you love freedom-loving science fiction in the zestful, imaginative, adventurous and libertarian spirit of Heinlein – or if you just enjoy the emotional and spontaneous moments of awards shows – then you don’t want to miss the 43rd annual Prometheus Awards ceremony, set for 2-2:40 p.m. Saturday Aug. 19 (Eastern time) via Zoom.
And we’ve now got the link for that Zoom event, open to all to watch.
An intercontinental friendship between two prolific science-fiction writers will add an extra measure of celebrity to the 43rd annual Prometheus Awards ceremony.
Sarah Hoyt, the 2011 Prometheus winner (File photo)
Sarah Hoyt, who won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel in 2011 for Darkship Thieves, will present the Best Novel category to Dave Freer during the live-Zoom ceremony, now scheduled for 2-2:30 p.m. Saturday Aug. 19 (Eastern U.S. time).
Libertarian science fiction writer L. Neil Smith has died, leaving a legacy of high-spirited libertarian sf adventure and of the Prometheus Award itself.
L. Neil Smith (Creative Commons photo)
Smith, who died at 75 on Aug. 27, 2021 in Fort Collins, Colo., is best known for his explicitly libertarian novel The Probability Broach and its rambunctious alternate-history sequels in his The North American Confederacy series.
During his writing career from the 1970s into the 2010s, Smith wrote 31 books, including 29 novels, and many essays and short stories.
Quite a few of his works were nominated for Prometheus Awards because of their freewheeling adventure, sense of humor, imaginative alternate-reality scenarios and strong libertarian/individualist themes.
Here is a handy guide to viewing the Libertarian Futurist Society’s recorded programs – and a welcome to our new Videos page.
Below is an overview, with links and descriptions, of LFS panel discussions, podcasts, interviews and awards ceremonies over the past decade at various Worldcons (World Science Fiction Conventions) and NASFiCs (North American Science Fiction Conventions).
But first, take a look to your left – to the new VIDEOS link at the top of the left-side column of the Prometheus blog. Here is where you can go, from now on, to check out all LFS videos and podcasts, including each year’s Prometheus Awards ceremonies and related speeches and Worldcon panel discussions, as they are recorded and added each year. (The LFS is already looking forward to making plans to present our 2021 Prometheus Awards ceremony at DisCon II, the 79th Worldcon set to run Aug. 25-29, 2021, in Washington, D.C.)
In these LFS panels, podcasts and Prometheus award speeches, bestselling sf novelists and LFS members have discussed a wide variety of timely and timeless subjects that inspired their stories and novels.
Cory Doctorow (Creative Commons license)
Among the speakers: novelists C.J. Cherryh, Travis Corcoran, Cory Doctorow, Harlan Ellison, Jane Fancher, Sarah Hoyt, John Hunt, Ken MacLeod, Ramez Naam, Andy Weir, and F. Paul Wilson and LFS leaders Steve Gaalema, Michael Grossberg, Tom Jackson and LFS president William H. Stoddard.
C.J. Cherry (Creative Commons license)
Unlike typical awards acceptance speeches at the Oscars, Tonys, Grammys or Emmys, which tend to be laundry lists of names to thank, most Prometheus-Ceremony speeches tend to be wide-ranging, fascinating, thoughtful (and longer) explorations of ideas, ideals and libertarian themes, often combined with personal stories – and thus, rewarding to view even years later.
Here, in this overview of LFS videos, the most recent events are listed first, with brief descriptions of speakers and subjects, interesting excerpts and links.
