Startide Rising – Prometheus Blog

By Michael Grossberg

Acclaimed science fiction writer David Brin will receive the National Space Society’s Arthur C. Clarke Memorial Award.

Novelist David Brin (ISDC, Creative Commons license)

Brin, a Prometheus Best Novel finalist and two-time Prometheus nominee, expressed his libertarian/liberal views about how the world should be and is evolving toward greater freedom in “Confessions of a Cheerful Libertarian,” published in the former Prometheus quarterly.

According to a report in File 770, Brin will receive the coveted Clarke Memorial Award for “his pivotal writing in sci-fi and futurism.”

Continue reading Prometheus Best Novel finalist David Brin to receive the Arthur C. Clarke Memorial Award at the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference 

By Eric S. Raymond

The history of modern SF is one of five attempted revolutions — one success and four enriching failures. I’m going to offer a look at them from an unusual angle, a political one. This turns out to be a useful perspective because more of the history of SF than one might expect is intertwined with political questions, and SF had an important role in giving birth to at least one distinct political ideology that is alive and important today.

Robert Heinlein (Photo courtesy of the Heinlein Trust)

CAMPBELL AND HEINLEIN

The first and greatest of the revolutions came out of the minds of John Wood Campbell and Robert Heinlein, the editor and the author who invented modern science fiction. The pivotal year was 1937, when John Campbell took over the editorship of Astounding Science Fiction. He published Robert Heinlein’s first story a little over a year later.
Continue reading Freedom in the Future Tense: A Political History of SF