Travis Corcoran, a guest speaker at the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, was introduced by LFS President William H. Stoddard with these words:
“The Best Novel and Hall of Fame awards are given annually. But the LFS also gives Special Awards, not every year, but when there’s a deserving recipient. A few years ago, we established the category of Special Awards for Young Adult Fiction. This year, for the first time, we’re giving such an award.
“To present this award, we have invited Travis Corcoran to speak. Corcoran received our Best Novel award in 2018 and 2019 for the two volumes of his Aristillus series, The Powers of the Earth and Causes of Separation; this year he has published a new novel, Red State Mars. He currently serves as a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. We look forward to hearing what he has to say about young adult fiction and about this year’s honoree.”
There’s a strange thing about systems – they have state, and often state comes in two or more types, which trade off against each other.
Pendulums have both kinetic energy and potential energy. When a pendulum is dead still, it’s at its highest altitude, and when it’s moving rapidly, it’s at its lowest. Social phenomena can also have state that’s traded back and forth – hobbies and subcultures often reach their absolute peak at exactly the point when growth has fallen to zero. …but there’s no law of conservation of energy in subcultures – a hobby can lose both size and energy at the same time!
Ham radio, bowling leagues – many hobbies have suffered from losing both “altitude” and “speed” at the same time. Deadly in an airplane as a private pilot, and equally deadly to a subculture. …deadly in a subculture like science fiction, generally, or libertarian science fiction, more specifically.
HOW TO NURTURE A VIBRANT AND FREE CULTURE
Which is to say that we libertarian science fiction fans have to be aware that our culture can contract.
…and because real-world politics is at least partially downstream of culture, liberty in the real world depends on making the case for, and normalizing, liberty in our culture.
Many aspects of culture depend on the youth.
Most people don’t listen to music created after they were twenty five.
Most people don’t pick up new slang after a similar age.
In spoken language, mutation in pronunciation happens as language-instructor mothers pass on their quirks to their children; every male language speaker is a dead end.
CONNECTING TO NEW GENERATIONS
So the trick to culture is, as in so many things, “grab ’em when they’re young”.
Whether we’re talking about books, movies, music, – as the Jesuits say, “Give me the child for the first seven years and I’ll give you the man.” Maybe not seven years, exactly. Maybe fifteen or twenty – but the point holds.
So if we want to keep written science fiction – and specifically libertarian written science fiction – as a relevant art form, we need to speak to the youth.
How do we do that?
Well, we write high quality liberty-loving science fiction that instills the love of the genre – and the culture – into the youth.
INCENTIVES MATTER… AND SO DOES RECOGNITION
Ok, great … but just as quality-obsessed Japanese factory management asks “the seven whys” to get to the root cause, we have to ask another question: how do we get more high quality liberty-loving science fiction for the youth?
I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening?
“Plastics.”
Excuse me, I mean, “incentives.”
Which brings us to the first ever Libertarian Futurist Society’s first ever Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction.
The board members of the LFS have, in their wisdom, created this award, and the idea behind it is simple: if you want more of something, reward it.
It’s counter intuitive, but it just might work!
WONDER, ADVENTURE AND THE POWER OF FREEDOM
Dave Freer’s novel Storm-Dragon was published by Raconteur Press – which targets reader aged 8 to 18 (and boys in particular).
(They’re) bringing so many of the things that we all love about libertarian YA science fiction to a new generation of readers: Adventure. The wonders of new worlds. A trust in the power of rationality to solve problems, and a demonstration of the power of freedom to execute those solutions. A distrust, contempt even, for stuffed shirts, naysayers, sinecure holders, and veto-mad bureaucrats.
I’m thrilled to be present as Dave receives the first Special Award for YA Fiction, and I want to congratulate Dave on his accomplishment – not just in writing a great book, but in leading a new generation towards science fiction, and towards liberty.
…and remember what I said about incentives? Let’s reward Dave, and incentivize him to tackle the same challenge again next year…and to incentivize others to get in the game too.
The LFS has already given Dave a nice chunk of precious metal, but let’s go further – let’s each buy a copy of Dave’s book, or maybe two or three. We want to send the message to authors and publishers that there’s gold in them thar hills …and also in them thar libertarian YA books.
… because as we all know from Econ 101, moving the demand curve upward will increase the volume of product created and sold.
…which in this case, means liberty.
ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards, honor outstanding freedom-loving fantastical fiction and find fellowship with other fans, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer international 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, 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 links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each work that has won a Prometheus since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both liberty and literary quality.
* 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 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 Prometheus Blog posts.
I only discovered Travis’s fiction last year (thanks to LFS) and was very glad to do so. Hard core libertarian fiction, written vigorously and well. I look forward to following his work for many years to come. (Currently, after almost 50 years, re-reading Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky — a very different book but still with some of the flavor I enjoy in Travis’s work.)