Poul Anderson – Prometheus Blog

The Prometheus Awards and the Forry award for lifetime achievement: Cherryh, Anderson, Heinlein, Pratchett, Ellison among 13 authors recognized by both 

Just as the Prometheus Awards overlaps to some extent with the Hugo and Nebula wards in terms of the works and writers recognized, our list of Prometheus-winning writers overlaps with the Forry Awards.

C.J. Cherryh, who co-wrote the 2020 Prometheus Best Novel winner (Alliance Rising) with her partner Jane S. Fancher, is the 13th Prometheus winner to also be recognized in the Forry awards.

Cherryh recently won the 2025 Forrest J Ackerman Award for Lifetime Achievement given by the members of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. (See our previous post about Cherryh’s latest honor.)

It’s interesting to see what writers have been recognized by both the LASFS, the world’s oldest continuously active science fiction and fantasy club, and the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), established in 1982 to sustain the Prometheus Awards.

Such broad cross-recognition should be another reminder of just how embedded libertarian and anti-authoritarian ideas and values are within our popular culture – and have been, for generations, even amid various socio-economic developments and political trends, both positive and negative.

So if Cherryh is the 13th Prometheus winner to be recognized with a Forry award, who else is on that illustrious cross-checked list?

Continue reading The Prometheus Awards and the Forry award for lifetime achievement: Cherryh, Anderson, Heinlein, Pratchett, Ellison among 13 authors recognized by both 

The best of the blog: Our 2025 reviews of Prometheus winners, finalists and more 

Some of the most important, impactful and lasting articles posted on the Prometheus Blog this year were reviews.

Of the 120 posts published here in 2025, more than 10 percent were reviews – perhaps most notably, the latest review-essays in our ongoing Appreciation series devoted to honoring each year’s Prometheus Awards winners for Best Novel and the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

That may seem like a relatively small percentage of our posts, but it actually represents a major sustained effort – in terms of both time and thought – by Prometheus judges and other Libertarian Futurist Society members.

Certainly, it takes time and careful attention to write, edit, illustrate and publish the many posts focusing on awards news, LFS progress reports, author’s updates, essays, features and trend pieces about the influence of Prometheus-winning works and their authors on today’s culture and politics.

Yet it generally takes substantially more effort, insight and creativity to write thoughtful reviews of the most significant fiction nominated each year for a Prometheus Award.

Here are the most noteworthy reviews we published in 2025, along with convenient links allowing you to read or reread any that spark your curiosity or interest:

Continue reading The best of the blog: Our 2025 reviews of Prometheus winners, finalists and more 

How Arc Manor Books, CAEZIK SF & Fantasy and Phoenix Pick support Prometheus-winning authors, including this year’s Best Novel winner

By Michael Grossberg

Besides the late great Michael Flynn, Arc Manor Books has published quite a few other Prometheus-winning authors – including Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, L. Neil Smith, Harry Turtledove and Jack Williamson.

Two of Arc Manor’s major imprints are CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, launched in 2020 with a “new” previously unpublished novel by Robert A. Heinlein, and Phoenix Pick, which reprints classic SF and Fantasy “from the ashes” of other publishing houses, with some new titles.

Thus, the Maryland-based small-press, created by Shahid Mahmud in 2006 to utilize the exciting new emerging technologies being developed in the publishing marketplace, should be better known, especially by Libertarian Futurist Society members and other freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.

Continue reading How Arc Manor Books, CAEZIK SF & Fantasy and Phoenix Pick support Prometheus-winning authors, including this year’s Best Novel winner

Masterful social-scientific world-building in clash of cultures, including a libertarian society: An appreciation of Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise, the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner 

By William H. Stoddard

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.

Continue reading Masterful social-scientific world-building in clash of cultures, including a libertarian society: An appreciation of Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise, the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner 

Video: Watch the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony, with speeches by leading libertarian thinker David Friedman and tributes to the late Poul Anderson and Michael Flynn 

How did Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress give leading libertarian thinker David Friedman the radical idea that society can develop just laws and functional legal systems without government?

What life events, travels, famous scientists and space projects helped shape the late Poul Anderson’s 1983 novel Orion Shall Rise, the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner?

How did the late Michael Flynn’s childhood lead him to become an award-winning science fiction writer?

Why does Flynn’s CAEZIK SF & Fantasy publisher view him as one of the most underestimated sf writers of his generation?

What Prometheus-winning sf/fantasy authors rank high among Friedman’s favorites – and why?

To find out, watch the recorded YouTube video of the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony:

Continue reading Video: Watch the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony, with speeches by leading libertarian thinker David Friedman and tributes to the late Poul Anderson and Michael Flynn 

Celebrating the 45th Prometheus Awards: Economist and novelist David Friedman on Anderson, Heinlein, Vinge and how science fiction influenced the development of his ideas  

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….

Continue reading Celebrating the 45th Prometheus Awards: Economist and novelist David Friedman on Anderson, Heinlein, Vinge and how science fiction influenced the development of his ideas  

Celebrating the 45th Prometheus Awards: Astrid Anderson Bear’s acceptance speech for her father Poul Anderson’s novel Orion Shall Rise, the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

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 Society for 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 series of works set on a post-apocalyptic future Earth.

Orion Shall Rise takes place roughly 500 years in our future, and brings together characters from the principal powers on the planet: the Domain, controlling much of western 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 the Pacific Northwest of North America.

Continue reading Celebrating the 45th Prometheus Awards: Astrid Anderson Bear’s acceptance speech for her father Poul Anderson’s novel Orion Shall Rise, the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Here’s the Zoom link to watch the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony with speeches by David Friedman, Astrid Anderson Bear, Kevin Flynn and more 

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.

Continue reading Here’s the Zoom link to watch the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony with speeches by David Friedman, Astrid Anderson Bear, Kevin Flynn and more 

 The 2025 Prometheus Awards ceremony is set for Aug. 30 via Zoom, with libertarian theorist and novelist David Friedman presenting the Hall of Fame 

By Michael Grossberg

Mark your calendar: The 45th 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.

Continue reading  The 2025 Prometheus Awards ceremony is set for Aug. 30 via Zoom, with libertarian theorist and novelist David Friedman presenting the Hall of Fame 