Mark your calendar: The 45th Prometheus Awards has been confirmed for Saturday Aug. 30, with a leading libertarian thinker and novelist as a guest presenter.
The Zoom-led ceremony will run from 2 to 3 p.m. that Saturday (Eastern time) and will be open to all LFS members and the public. (The Zoom link is below.)
Among the speakers: leading libertarian thinker and fantasy novelist David D. Friedman, who will present the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction; Astrid Anderson Bear, daughter of the late sf/fantasy writer Poul Anderson, a frequent Prometheus Awards winner; CAEZIK SF & Fantasy publisher Shahid Mahmud; author Kevin Flynn, brother of the late sf novelist Michael Flynn, a three-time Prometheus winner; LFS President William H. Stoddard, and Libertarian Futurist Society co-founder Michael Grossberg.
DAVID FRIEDMAN TO SPEAK, PRESENT HALL OF FAME
Our guest speaker will be David D. Friedman, who is expected to discuss libertarianism, libertarian sf/fantasy, the power of fiction to shape our visions of the future and the value of the Prometheus Awards, among other topics.
Since the heyday of the emerging libertarian movement in the 1970s-1980s, David has been recognized as a leading libertarian theorist (The Machinery of Freedom) and economist (Price Theory, Future Imperfect, Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life).
A retired professor specializing in the economic analysis of law, David is also a Prometheus-nominated sf/fantasy writer of several novels.
His first novel, Harald, published by Baen Books in 2006, was nominated for a Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Friedman’s other fantasy novels include Salamander (2011) and its 2020 sequel Brothers.
His nonfiction books have been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and the Times Literary Supplement, discussed in an episode of Booknotes and used as university textbooks.
Friedman (the son of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman) has a home page at www.daviddfriedman.com, but more recently has launched an interesting and insightful Substack column where he offers regular columns that analyze both everyday life and the more complex or timely issues of today from the perspective of economics and law.
For more information about David Friedman and his achievements, see this earlier article announcing him as a speaker; and read a related article about his three fantasy novels.
MICHAEL FLYNN TO BE HONORED FOR BEST NOVEL
This year’s Best Novel award will go to Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale, an epic social novel about the complex lives, work, challenges and conflicts of 40,000 human colonists aboard a colossal generation ship during a long 12-light-years voyage to another star.
LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg will introduce and present the Best Novel category. Grossberg chairs the Prometheus Best Novel finalist-selection judging committee, whose 12 members read and discuss the nominees and select the annual slate of finalists, from which LFS members choose the Best Novel winner.
Kevin Flynn, the brother of Michael Flynn and himself a published nonfiction book author (The Order), will accept the award for his late brother on behalf of Flynn’s family and children. Flynn, who died in 2023 at 75, is now a three-time Prometheus winner for Best Novel, following previous awards for In the Country of the Blind and Fallen Angels.
Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale was published by Shahid Mahmud’s CAEZIK SF & Fantasy and is the first work published by Mahmud’s company to be recognized with a Prometheus Award.
Following Kevin Flynn’s speech, Mahmud will also speak at the ceremony to discuss Flynn’s career, posthumous final novel and long-underestimated literary reputation.
POUL ANDERSON TO BE HONORED FOR BEST CLASSIC FICTION
This year’s Prometheus Hall of Fame award will go to Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise.
The 1983 novel, originally published by Timescape, explores the corruptions and temptations of power and how a free society might survive and thrive after an apocalypse.
Set on a post-nuclear-war Earth with four renascent but very different civilizations in conflict over the proper role of technology – including a libertarian society with minimal government – the story plays fair to all sides. Yet, the ultimate focus is on forward-thinking visionaries who dream of reaching for the stars.
William H. Stoddard, who chairs the Prometheus Hall of Fame judging committee that selects each year’s Best Classic Fiction finalists, will introduce the Hall of Fame category and its guest presenter, Friedman.
Friedman will present the award, which will be accepted by the late author’s daughter Astrid Anderson Bear.
She also accepted the Hall of Fame award in 2020 when Anderson’s story “Sam Hall” was inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
SAVE THE ZOOM LINK
Here is the Zoom link to access and watch the Aug. 30 awards show:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87344910540?pwd=rD6ckCN7j8k5Ytyh2n2YaQbpqoGkjr.1
The Zoom link also will be included in a final update about the ceremony, expected to post here on the blog in the week ahead of the show.
All Libertarian Futurist Society members, their families and friends are invited to watch the ceremony. Feel free to post the news on social media, since the event will be open to the general public.
ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS AND THE LFS
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
Libertarian futurists understand that culture matters. We believe that literature and the arts can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future. In some ways, culture can be even more influential and powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.
* Prometheus winners: For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website. This page includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to the latest Prometheus Blog posts
