Prometheus winner Dave Freer has a new novel coming out soon.
Storm-Dragon, to be published April 11, 2025, by Raconteur Press, is a relatively short novel (with illustrations) geared toward a young-adult audience – and especially targeted at boys and teenagers.
“It is my attempt at writing a Heinlein “Juvie” – a book aimed specifically at teen boys (not their scene) to get them interested in sf,” Freer said in an email from his home base Down Under in the Australian state of Tasmania.
Several Prometheus-recognized authors are included on New Scientist’s intriguing list of the 26 best science fiction/fantasy stories of all time.
E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” is the only story on the magazine’s list previously inducted into the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus Hall of Fame. Yet, several other enduring and Prometheus-winning authors have classic stories on the magazine’s list – just not the ones our award has recognized.
Among them: Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin and Kurt Vonnegut.
It’s interesting to see which of their stories are recognized by the magazine, and why.
TANSTAAFL!
Many libertarians and other freedom-loving SF fans know that term well. For those who don’t recall, it’s an acronym for “There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.”
The Grand Master SF writer Robert Heinlein did his share to popularize the acronym in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. His bestselling, Hugo-winning novel, about a libertarian revolution on the Moon, was one of the first works inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
So did free-market economist and classical liberal Milton Friedman, who often quoted it over the years.
Both libertarians used the acronym to communicate the idea that nothing is truly free, and there’s always a cost to any decision.
But did the popular catchphrase inadvertently also spread a misunderstanding about economics?
What do Poul Anderson, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, James P. Hogan, Sarah Hoyt, Victor Koman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ken MacLeod, George Orwell, Ayn Rand, L. Neil Smith, Neal Stephenson, J.R.R. Tolkien, Vernor Vinge and F. Paul Wilson have in common?
Some rank high among bestselling and even world famous authors; some are not quite as well known but still have sold millions of copies of their books, and a few are lesser-known writers who deserve a wider readership.
Yet they’re all writers who have written notable speculative fiction (generally science fiction and/or fantasy) that in different ways championed freedom-loving themes and exposed the evils of authoritarianism.
And all of the above have been recognized for such works by winning Prometheus Awards – some for Best Novel, some for Best Classic Fiction and several for both annual award categories.
Back in 2020, I encountered an online listing for a novel by Mackey Chandler with the provocative title Who Can Own the Stars?, twelfth in a series and a 2021 Prometheus Best Novel finalist.
After reading it, I went back to the original volume, April, and read it and, in succession, all the rest. Two further volumes have come out since then – Let Us Tell You Again and The Long View, respectively 2023 and 2024 Best Novel nominees. With each, I’ve reread the entire series.
Editor’s note: As part of our coverage of the 44th Prometheus Awards ceremony, the Prometheus Blog is posting a variety of reports and the full texts of all speeches – including LFS President William H. Stoddard’s overview of the history and focus of the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
The Libertarian Futurist Society began giving Hall of Fame Awards in 1982, with awards to two libertarian classics: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, a key work for the emergence of the modern day libertarian movement, and Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the foundational work of libertarian science fiction and still one of its best.
In recent years, as earlier Prometheus Award nominees have become old enough to be regarded as classics, we’ve adopted a requirement that Hall of Fame nominees must have been published at least twenty years ago, and must not have won the Best Novel award.
Here is Part 2 of the Prometheus Blog interview with veteran LFS member and Prometheus judge Rick Triplett, conducted by interviewer Michael Grossberg:
Q: Once you discovered the joys of reading, and became a voracious reader of “all things futuristic, scientific or heroic” (as you said in Part One of this interview), were there particular writers who especially captured your imagination?
A: The main one – as he was for many folks – is Robert A. Heinlein.
His juveniles were a giant leap forward from the less sophisticated ones I had read, like Tom Swift Jr., Tom Corbett, etc. and they had more relatable stories than those I found in pulp fan mags.
Today (July 7) is the birthday of Robert Heinlein, one of the greatest science fiction writers of the past century.
In honor of his birthday, the Prometheus blog remembers and celebrates Heinlein (1907-1988), hailed by his peers as a Grand Master of science fiction and perhaps the most famous and widely read libertarian sf author of his era.
Heinlein also is the author most often honored and recognized with Prometheus Awards – a grand total of nine.
So it’s no surprise that the Prometheus Blog over its first seven years has posted 46 articles, reviews, essays, news stories or author’s updates about him – more than those about any other author.
Most of Heinlein’s works retain their story-telling power and prescient relevance, so today’s a good day to check out something by or about Heinlein.
Continue reading Robert Heinlein: Remembering the Grand Master on his birthday
The Three-Body Problem, a 2015 Prometheus Best Novel finalist and landmark international bestseller by Chinese sf novelist Liu Cixin, has now inspired not one but two TV series worth watching.
Three Body, available free with Amazon Prime, is a 30-episode Chinese series. Netflix also has tackled its own TV-series adaptation of Cixin’s epic novel with a recent eight-episode first season.
Leading libertarian thinker Virginia Postrel has praised both TV series as good SF, along with the English translation of the novel.
“All three versions produce the sense of wonder that is science fiction’s—especially hard science fiction’s—traditional appeal. The stories take place on a grand scale and are propelled by mind-expanding scientific ideas,” Postrel wrote in her “Virginia’s Newsletter” Substack column on “3 Three Body Problems and the Appeal of Science Fiction.”
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
