The Libertarian Futurist Society is pleased to announce that prominent libertarian policy expert and lifelong SF fan Robert (Bob) Poole will be a presenter at the 44th annual Prometheus Awards ceremony.
Poole, a veteran LFS member and consistent Prometheus Awards voter for decades, co-founded the Reason Foundation, a leading libertarian think tank that publishes Reason magazine.
Now retired but with some important life lessons and insights to share, Rick Triplett has worked for the cause of liberty in many ways over many decades – including as a Prometheus judge, reviewer and board member in the Libertarian Futurist Society.
Here’s the fifth and final part of the Prometheus Blog interview with Rick, recently honored by the LFS board as the LFS’s first Emeritus member:
Q: What role can fiction play in helping to form the future or inspire people with new visions of a free-er future?
A:I think fiction is where big ideas are popularized and gain broad acceptance. We’ll always need intellectuals and polemicists to lay the theoretical groundwork of the movement, but we need novelists, screenwriters, and lyricists to get those ideas into the popular culture.
Continue reading The Rick Triplett interview, part 5: On the value of science fiction and education
Rick Triplett, 79, has seen the Prometheus Awards from the inside.
Recently recognized by the Libertarian Futurist Society board as the organization’s first Emeritus member after decades of service, Rick has served as a judge in all three categories of the Prometheus Awards – chairing the Special Awards committee and serving as a finalist-selection judge on the two committees that help whittle down candidates and nominees to a short list in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction categories.
So Rick’s views about the challenges of judging the Prometheus Award are worth sharing, as well as his insights about the pros and cons of various ideologies.
Here is the third part of the Prometheus Blog interview with Triplett.
Not all literary award-winners stand the test of time.
Most works of arts and entertainment fade. Yet when they last and take on the patina of a classic, they should be recognized.
For only the third time in the history of the Prometheus Awards, a former Best Novel finalist has been inducted into the Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
Terry Pratchett’s novel The Truth, first recognized by the Libertarian Futurist Society as a 2001 Best Novel finalist, has won the 2024 award for Best Classic Fiction.
Before The Truth was inducted this year into our Hall of Fame, only two other Best Novel finalists have received that rare honor: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Falling Free and Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.
Given the complexity and multiple variables in weighing works of speculative fiction for how well they fit the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Awards, many LFS members and Prometheus judges have found a set of questions useful to answer as they read different works and consider their eligibility and quality.
These questions also may help LFS members as they read and rank finalists before voting to choose each year’s Prometheus winners.
After outlining a set of basic eligibility questions in the previous Prometheus Blog post, this post will focus on further questions related to overall literary quality.
Continue reading Literary qualities: Questions to consider in judging the Prometheus Awards, part 2
Those Libertarian Futurist Society members who’ve served for some time as finalist-selection judges or Early Readers for different categories of the Prometheus Award have come to find a variety of questions helpful.
These questions also may help LFS members as they read and rank Best Novel and Hall of Fame finalists before voting to choose each year’s winners – including this year.
Whether LFS members are considering the eligibility of an sf/fantasy novel for the Best Novel category, suggesting a candidate for nomination for Best Novel or Best Classic Fiction (the Prometheus Hall of Fame) or volunteering to read and report on various candidates as Early Readers, such questions can prove useful.
Accordingly, the Prometheus Blog is posting a sample set of such questions.
Continue reading Eligibility questions to ask when considering sf/fantasy for the Prometheus Awards
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.
Works of fantasy are eligible to consider for the Prometheus Awards, along with science fiction.
Fantasy has always been eligible for nomination – which might be news to some.
Many falsely assume that the Prometheus Awards are exclusively focused on “libertarian science fiction.”
And many continue to do so, even though several notable works of fantasy have been selected this year as finalists in both annual categories for Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (the Prometheus Hall of Fame.)
Without the Libertarian Futurist Society and its members, the Prometheus Awards wouldn’t have survived for 45 years – and counting.
Freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans have made a difference over the decades in three major ways: Through their continuing LFS memberships and support, by becoming active in the discovery and nominating process of our awards and ultimately, by reading the annual finalists and voting to choose the annual winners.
Yet, there are several less obvious but vital ways that LFS members (and others) can help enhance the awards process and help ensure that worthy potential contenders aren’t overlooked – especially in the annual Best Novel category, first presented in 1979.
Naturally, the Prometheus Awards are important to Libertarian Futurist Society members and other freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
But where does our award rank among other sf/fantasy literary awards in the considered opinion of leading sf/fantasy editors?
Prominent sf/fantasy novelist Charles Stross, who won the 2007 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Glasshouse, shared a private conversation with a top editor that actually ranks the Prometheus Award quite high.
