One of the things Poul Anderson was known for throughout his literary career was world-building. Much of this was planetary design, based on the natural sciences, in which he started out with stellar type, planetary mass, orbital radius, and elemental abundances and worked out the geology, meteorology, and biology of a world.
Poul Anderson (Creative Commons license)
Anderson was certainly one of the masters of this, up there with Hal Clement and Vernor Vinge. But he put equal effort into social scientific worldbuilding, creating economies, polities, and cultures, and developing plots for his stories from the conflicts they gave rise to. Orion Shall Rise, winner of the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, is a nearly pure example of social scientific world-building, set not in a distant solar system but on a future Earth.
David D. Friedman added excitement and intellectual stimulation as the guest presenter at the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony.
David Friedman (Photo provided by Friedman)
A leading libertarian theorist (The Machinery of Freedom), economist (Price Theory: An Intermediate Text) and law-and-economics professor (Law’s Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters), David is also a Prometheus-nominated sf/fantasy novelist (Harald, Salamander, Brothers).
Friedman presented the Prometheus Hall of Fame category for Best Classic Fiction during the Aug. 30 ceremony. Here is the text of his speech, which followed an introduction by LFS President William (Bill) Stoddard.
By David D. Friedman
Bill mentioned my friend Vernor Vinge, who is in part responsible for my writing my second novel.
I described to him my idea for that and for the alternative, a sequel to my first novel (Harald, a 2007 Prometheus Best Novel nominee). He thought Salamander would more interesting, so I wrote it. He was right.
I thought I’d start by saying a little about what I’ve learned relevant to libertarianism from science fiction.
As some of you may know, Vernor’s story “The Ungoverned” (inducted in 1994 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame) is about a stateless society, modeled on my ideas, being invaded by an adjacent state.
Seeing that society through the eyes of a novelist rather than an economist showed me things about it that would not have occurred to me….
Astrid Anderson Bear, daughter of the late SFWA Grand Master Poul Anderson (1926-2001) and wife of the late sf author Greg Bear, accepted the Prometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction for Poul Anderson’s novel Orion Shall Rise.
Astrid Anderson Bear (Photo courtesy of Bear)
Astrid spoke during the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony, presented live via Zoom on Aug. 30, 2025, and recorded to post later on Youtube and on the Prometheus Blog.
By Astrid Anderson Bear
Thank you to the members of the Libertarian Futurist Societyfor voting to induct my dad’s novel, Orion Shall Rise, into the Prometheus Awards Hall of Fame.
Published in 1983, this wide ranging book is in his Maurai universe, a loosely connected seriesof works set on a post-apocalyptic future Earth.
Orion Shall Rise takes placeroughly 500 years in our future, and brings together characters from the principal powers on the planet: the Domain, controlling much ofwestern Europe by means of a huge aerostat, Skyholm, that has survived since the nuclear wars hundreds of years previously; the Maurai Federation, a coalition of Pacific Islanders centered in New Zealand; and the Northwest Union and its powerful Lodges in thePacific Northwest of North America.
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.
Orion Shall Rise, a 1983 novel by Poul Anderson, has won the 2025 Best Classic Fiction award and will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
Poul Anderson (Creative Commons license)
Published by Timescape and first nominated for the Prometheus Award in 1984, when it became a Best Novel finalist, Orion Shall Rise explores the corruptions and temptations of power and how a free society might survive and thrive after a post-nuclear-war apocalypse on a largely depopulated Earth.
For the convenience of LFS members and a guide to this year’s Prometheus Awards, the Prometheus Blog has now posted reviews of all four of the year’s Prometheus Hall of Fame finalists for Best Classic Fiction.
Libertarian Futurist Society members, who have the right to vote to select the annual Best Classic Fiction winner, are invited to read (or reread) our reviews of the 2025 finalists: Poul Anderson’s novel Orion Shall Rise, Rudyard Kipling’s story “As Easy as A.B.C.,” the Rush song “The Trees” and Charles Stross’ novel Singularity Sky.
Other science fiction and fantasy fans, outside the LFS, also may wish to check out the reviews to appreciate these works and to better understand how they fit the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Awards on both quality and liberty.
The four works selected as finalists for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame award span almost a century.
Rudyard Kipling File photo
From a Rudyard Kipling story published in 1912 to a Charles Stross novel published in 2003, the 2024 slate of finalists reflects a broad range of different eras, themes and literary styles.
Charles Stross (Creative Commons license)
Of the four Hall of Fame finalists for Best Classic Fiction, two are novels, one a story and one a song – demonstrating the wide variety of narrative or dramatic forms eligible for consideration each year among works that were first published, performed, recorded or aired at least 20 years ago.
One work appears on the Hall of Fame shortlist for the first time: Stross’ Singularity Sky, previously a write-in candidate for Best Novel after its initial publication by Ace Books in 2003. (Because of the 20-year rule, the novel only became eligible this past year for Hall of Fame nomination.)
Unlike the annual Prometheus Award for Best Novel, the other annual Prometheus category for Best Classic Fiction is open to works being renominated.
Neal Peart, Rush drummer and songwriter of “The Trees.” Credit: Creative Commons
Of the 10 works of fiction nominated for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, three are returning nominees after reaching the level last year of Hall of Fame finalists.
One is the Rush fantasy-fable song “The Trees,” first recorded in 1978.
The other is Poul Anderson’s novel Orion Shall Rise, published in 1984.
Here, in the fourth part of the Prometheus Blog’s series about this year’s Hall of Fame nominees, are capsule review-descriptions of those two finalists.
The Prometheus Blog has now succeeded in publishing reviews of all 2024 Prometheus Awards finalists – and all the reviews have convenient links posted below.
Although selective reviews have been posted of some finalists over the years, this is the first time in perhaps half a decade or so that reviews of all Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction finalists have been written and published.
One of the things Poul Anderson was known for throughout his literary career was world-building. Much of this was planetary design, based on the natural sciences, in which he started out with stellar type, planetary mass, orbital radius, and elemental abundances and worked out the geology, meteorology, and biology of a world.
Anderson was certainly one of the masters of this, up there with Hal Clement and Vernor Vinge. But he put equal effort into social scientific worldbuilding, creating economies, polities, and cultures, and developing plots for his stories from the conflicts they gave rise to.
Orion Shall Rise, a 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame finalist for Best Classic Fiction, is a nearly pure example of social scientific world-building, set not in a distant solar system but on a future Earth.