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.
Publisher-editor Tom Doherty, who founded TOR Books, has won the 2024 Robert A. Heinlein Award.
The award, funded by the Heinlein Society and named after the Grand Master who has won more Prometheus Awards than anyone else, is bestowed for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings that inspire the human exploration of space.
According to a Heinlein Society press release, the Heinlein award was given to Doherty in recognition of his work “in bringing the inspiring books of hundreds of authors writing about our future in Space to public awareness.”
One of the leading publishers of sf/fantasy, TOR Publishing Group has won every major award in the sf field – including Hugo, Nebula and Prometheus awards.
Continue reading TOR Books founder Tom Doherty wins Heinlein Award
Almost four dozen classic works of science fiction and fantasy have been inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, first presented four decades ago in 1983.
Libertarian Futurist Society members will select the next Best Classic Fiction inductee from four finalists, all first published or released more than 20 years ago.
The 2024 Hall of Fame finalists – just announced to the media in an LFS press release that’s already been reported on in full by File 770, a leading sf-industry trade publication – is varied in artistic form (including three novels and one song) and in its balance of the old and the new.
The current finalist slate, selected from 10 works of fiction (novels, stories and song) nominated by LFS members, recognizes both a first-time nominee and several stalwart candidates that have found favor with judges and voters in recent years.
The Prometheus Award for Best Novel has been won over the decades by writers from the United States, England, Scotland and Finland – with Best Novel finalists from China, Japan, Canada and many other countries.
But Dave Freer is the first writer from the Southern Hemisphere to win a Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Here is the fourth and final part of the Prometheus Interview with the Australian/Tasmanian author, the 2023 winner of the Prometheus for Best Novel for Cloud-Castles.
Q: Do you have any favorites among Prometheus Award winners?
A: It’s a good reading list, isn’t it? I think I have just about everything in the Hall of Fame.
With less than two weeks left until the Sept. 30 nominating deadline, Libertarian Futurist Society members have nominated ten works for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
Among the Hall of Fame nominees so far this year: six novels, two stories, a film and a song. That includes novels by Poul Anderson, Cecilia Holland, C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett and E.C. Tubb; both a novel and a story by Harry Turtledove; a story by R.A. Lafferty; a song by the Canadian art-rock group Rush; and, for the first time, a feature film written and directed by and starring Woody Allen.
Such varied forms of art and fiction reflects the broad scope of the Hall of Fame – an annual Prometheus Awards category that incorporates stories, novellas, novels, graphic novels, songs, albums, musicals, operas, plays, poems, films, TV episodes/series, anthologies or trilogies.
Read on to see the current list of nominees so far and how to nominate works (if you’re an LFS member) or submit works for consideration by members (if you’re an author, publisher or non-member).
Introduction: As part of our series of posts about the 43rd annual Prometheus Awards ceremony, which aired live internationally Aug. 19, 2023, here is the transcript of the sobering but inspiring remarks of the ceremony’s emcee, Libertarian Futurist Society President William H. Stoddard:
By William H. Stoddard
Good afternoon, and welcome to the 2023 Prometheus Awards presentation. I’m William H. Stoddard, president of the Libertarian Futurist Society.
The purpose of the Prometheus Awards is to recognize works in the fantastic literary genres — science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternative history, dystopia, and others — with pro-liberty themes.
The awards have been given every year since 1982; we are now in our fifth decade.
Sadly, the twenty-first century has seen the deaths of many of our award winners.
“When we started our writing career we never dreamt of winning the Prometheus Award. … Of all the awards in Science Fiction, … The Prometheus Award, above all others, became the one we truly wanted. [because] liberty must be championed and valued — of the myriad awards out there, only the Prometheus recognizes this essential fact. And the authors we respect the most have all won it.”
– Eytan and Dani Kollin, co-authors of The Unincorporated Man, the 2010 Prometheus Awardwinner for Best Novel, from their Prometheus acceptance speech
Following up on a recent Prometheus blog post, here are more classic Prometheus Award acceptance speeches to savor.
These speeches, all since 2000, offer insightful quotes that still resonate today.
Continue reading Enduring quotes from more classic Prometheus Award acceptance speeches (since 2000)
Prolific SF/fantasy author Greg Bear has died at 71.
Bear, who died in November after suffering several strokes during heart surgery, was widely acclaimed for his wide-ranging and epic science fiction and fantasy.
An international bestseller and Heinlein Award-winner, Bear wrote more than 50 novels and almost as many works of short fiction, and edited an important Poul Anderson anthology.
Even though Bear never won a Prometheus Award, much of his life and work were “Prometheus-adjacent.”
The Star Fox by Poul Anderson, winner of the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 1995, currently is on sale as a Kindle for only $1.99.
1995 was a pretty good year for Anderson, at least as far as the Prometheus Award is concerned. Anderson also won the Prometheus Award that year for his novel The Stars Are Also Fire.
Continue reading Poul Anderson’s Hall of Fame winner ‘Star Fox’ on sale as ebook
