By Michael Grossberg
With Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise inducted most recently into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, it’s interesting to look back on our initial review of the 1983 novel for its insights and first impressions.
Victoria Varga, the first LFS Director and editor of the print edition of Prometheus from 1983 to 1988, reviewed Anderson’s science fiction novel when it was first nominated for a Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Thanks in part to her positive review, Orion Shall Rise was selected by Libertarian Futurist Society members as a 1984 Best Novel finalist (the year that J. Neil Schulman’s The Rainbow Cadenza won our award.)
Most notably, Varga praised Anderson for doing “a brilliant job of creating mythologies, religious and secular, for his characters and their civilizations.”