Prometheus Hall of Fame – Page 5

Slavery, liberty, personal responsibility and legacy: The Heinlein Trust and Heinlein Society acceptance speeches for Prometheus Hall of Fame winner Citizen of the Galaxy

The late great Robert Heinlein has received his eighth Prometheus Awards recognition over more than four decades, with his 1957 novel Citizen of the Galaxy recently inducted into the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus Hall of Fame.

Robert Heinlein, a drawing (Creative Commons license)

Although Heinlein passed in 1988, his fans are fortunate to have two organizations carrying on his legacy in related and cooperative ways: the Heinlein Trust, established by his wife Ginny after his death, and the Heinlein Society.

Art Dula, Trustee of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust, gave an eloquent and informative extemporaneous speech accepting the 2022 Prometheus Hall of Fame award in Heinlein’s name and memory. Like the entire 40-minute ceremony, broadcast and recorded Aug. 13 on Zoom, Dula’s speech is available to watch on YouTube.*

Meanwhile, John Tilden, president of the Heinlein Society, followed Dula in delivering an interesting and insightful second acceptance speech, for which we do have the text, which we share here for posterity:

Continue reading Slavery, liberty, personal responsibility and legacy: The Heinlein Trust and Heinlein Society acceptance speeches for Prometheus Hall of Fame winner Citizen of the Galaxy

The recurring Orwellian threat: Nineteen Eighty-Four, an early Prometheus Hall of Fame winner, sadly retains its relevance and resonance today

By Michael Grossberg
Almost three quarters of a century after the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the influence and prophetic power of George Orwell hasn’t faded.

Quite the contrary.

George Orwell, in his 1943 press card portrait (Creative Commons license)

With the rise of “cancel culture” and various online-sparked mob panics increasingly common in our so-called enlightened modern era and with such dystopian experiments as the recent failed roll-out of the current administration’s “Disinformation Governance Board,” it’s become virtually impossible to read informed commentary across a broad spectrum of opinion magazines and columnists without coming across Orwellian references and warnings these days.

Continue reading The recurring Orwellian threat: Nineteen Eighty-Four, an early Prometheus Hall of Fame winner, sadly retains its relevance and resonance today

Dangerous Visions anthology and Reason review highlight Heinlein and other Prometheus winners

By Michael Grossberg

Several leading sf writers whose classic works have won Prometheus Awards are examined in a new anthology about science fiction’s New Wave.

Most notably, Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Marsh Mistress and Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed are among the libertarian sf works explored, contrasted and debated in Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950-1985.

Reason book editor Jesse Walker reviews the anthology of essays while noting its discussions of libertarian writers and libertarian-themed sf in the March 2022 issue of Reason magazine.

Continue reading Dangerous Visions anthology and Reason review highlight Heinlein and other Prometheus winners

Latest crop of Hall of Fame nominees reflect broad range and many types of fiction

This year’s nominees for the Prometheus Hall of Fame encompass several genres and types of fiction.

Of the eight works being considered by judges as potential finalists, one is a short story, one a song, one a TV episode, one a collection of linked stories and four are novels – plus, half are first-time nominees.

This year’s line-up of Best Classic Fiction nominees may be the freshest in years as well as the broadest, at least in terms of types of fiction, in the history of this Prometheus awards category, first presented in 1983.

Continue reading Latest crop of Hall of Fame nominees reflect broad range and many types of fiction

Butter, eggs and the taste of freedom: An Appreciation of F. Paul Wilson’s “Lipidleggin’”, the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

To highlight the Prometheus Awards’ four-decade history and make clear why each winner deserves recognition as a notable pro-freedom and/or anti-authoritarian work, the Libertarian Futurist Society has been publishing since 2019 an Appreciation series of all past award-winners.

Here is a review essay about F. Paul Wilson’s story “Lipidleggin’,” the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction. With this appreciation for this year’s winner, our Appreciation series for the Hall of Fame category of the Prometheus Awards is now complete.

By Michael Grossberg

Once you taste freedom, it’s harder to live your life without it.

Once you learn to enjoy the taste of something good, you naturally tend to want more of it.

The mouth waters, remembering how wonderful some things taste… like liberty…. and frying eggs in butter. Mmmm… yummy.

(Also, wouldn’t it be nice if petty bureaucrats and aspiring tyrants could be seduced by the mere taste of freedom?)

Such are my immediate thoughts after rereading “Lipidleggin’,” the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.

Continue reading Butter, eggs and the taste of freedom: An Appreciation of F. Paul Wilson’s “Lipidleggin’”, the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Banning trans fats and “food that tastes good” – F. Paul Wilson’s Hall of Fame acceptance speech for ‘Lipidleggin”

Here is F. Paul Wilson’s acceptance speech for winning the 2021 Prometheus Award for Best Classic Fiction (the Hall of Fame) for his short story “Lipidleggin'”, which he delivered Aug. 21, 2021, during the online ceremony for the 41st annual Prometheus Awards:

By F. Paul Wilson

Many thanks to the members of the Libertarian Futurist Society for this honor.

I’ll be brief. (“Lipidleggin’” is a short story, after all.)

Back in the 1970s, a national health care system was a major political topic. (Some things never change, do they?) So I asked the next question: If the State is paying for your health care, won’t the State demand a say in behaviors that it considers hazardous to your health? Like, oh, say, banning saturated fats?

So, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, I wrote this little cautionary tale about a day when foods with saturated fats – such as butter and eggs – would be banned by the government. I mean, I saw how it could happen, but never for a moment did I believe it would happen. Not in a free country like our good old U.S. of A.

Continue reading Banning trans fats and “food that tastes good” – F. Paul Wilson’s Hall of Fame acceptance speech for ‘Lipidleggin”

Robots, liberty and the tyranny of “benevolence”: Jack Williamson’s novelette “With Folded Hands…,” the 2018 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

To highlight the Prometheus Awards’ four-decade history and make clear why each winner deserves recognition as a notable pro-freedom work, the Libertarian Futurist Society has been publishing since 2019 an Appreciation series of all past award-winners.

Here is an Appreciation for Jack Williamson’s “With Folded Hands…,” the 2018 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.

By William H. Stoddard

Jack Williamson’s novelette “With Folded Hands . . .” illustrates one of the distinctive characteristics of science fiction: its tendency to a kind of dialogue, in which one author’s stories comment on earlier stories by other authors. (Poul Anderson was noteworthy for this kind of writing, in stories such as “Journeys End,” which offered a different view of relationships between telepaths, and “The Man Who Came Early,” which questioned the assumptions of “castaways in time” stories such as Lest Darkness Fall.)

In 1947, when Williamson’s novelette appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, the idea of essentially benevolent robots was well established there; Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics (which Astounding’s editor, John W. Campbell, played a part in formulating) had been explicitly stated in Asimov’s novelette “Runaround” five years before, in 1942. What Williamson did was not to revert to the older theme of monstrous and hostile robots (which Asimov had called “the Frankenstein complex”), but to look at Asimov’s own vision of robots from a different angle.

Continue reading Robots, liberty and the tyranny of “benevolence”: Jack Williamson’s novelette “With Folded Hands…,” the 2018 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

London exhibit on Prometheus winner ‘V for Vendetta’

It isn’t every day that a work which has won one of our awards becomes the subject of a museum exhibition. But V for Vendetta, which won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 2006, is the subject of a new exhibition at the Cartoon Museum in London, in Britain.

The V for Vendetta: Behind the Mask exhibit will be available until Oct. 31;

“Presenting 36 original comic artworks alongside storyboards and costume designs from the hit Warner Bros movie, V for Vendetta: Behind the Mask charts the rise from comic to graphic novel, Hollywood film to iconic symbol of protest,” the museum says.

Continue reading London exhibit on Prometheus winner ‘V for Vendetta’

Where to find the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame finalists for Best Classic Fiction

A 1912 story, 1969 novel, 1975 novel, 1978 rock song and 1978 story have been selected by LFS judges as finalists for the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

But where can you find them?

Two finalists – the song and a story – are easy to access, being online and free. But one novel is out of print and thus harder to find.

So here is an overview of each 2021 finalist – Poul Anderson’s The Winter of the World, Rudyard Kipling’s story “As Easy as A.B.C.,” Rush’s song “The Trees”, Jack Vance’s novel Emphyrio and F. Paul Wilson’s story “Lipidleggin’” – and the different places and editions and formats where they are available. Continue reading Where to find the 2021 Prometheus Hall of Fame finalists for Best Classic Fiction

KYFHO, interstellar economics and libertarian revolution: F. Paul Wilson’s Healer and An Enemy of the State, the 1990-1991 Prometheus Hall of Fame winners

To highlight the Prometheus Awards’ four-decade history, the Libertarian Futurist Society is publishing Appreciations of past award-winners that make clear why each deserves recognition as a pro-freedom work.
Here is our combined Appreciation of F. Paul Wilson’s Healer, the 1990 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner, and Wilson’s An Enemy of the State, the 1991 Hall of Fame winner.

“There used to be high priests to explain the ways of the king – who was the state – to the masses. Religion is gone, and so are kings. But the state remains, as do the high priests in the guise of Advisors, Secretaries of Whatever Bureau, public relations people, and sundry apologists. Nothing changes.”
– From THE SECOND BOOK OF KYFHO

By Michael Grossberg

When the first Prometheus Award was presented in 1979 to F. Paul Wilson for Wheels within Wheels, few realized that the sf mystery novel was an absorbing piece of what would become a much larger future-history saga.

Together with Wheels within Wheels, An Enemy of the State and Healer– respectively the 1990 and 1991 Prometheus Hall of Fame inductees for Best Classic Fiction – form one of the most libertarian sf trilogies ever written.

Set in a positive but realistically flawed interstellar future in which human beings have spread among the stars, the LaNague Federation trilogy focuses on an imperialist central State and empire that is toppled by Peter LaNague, a far-sighted revolutionary who abjures violence in favor of a subtle, long-term plan based on a sophisticated understanding of economics, markets, money and inflation.

Continue reading KYFHO, interstellar economics and libertarian revolution: F. Paul Wilson’s Healer and An Enemy of the State, the 1990-1991 Prometheus Hall of Fame winners