{"id":10202,"date":"2025-12-31T00:03:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T06:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/?p=10202"},"modified":"2025-12-26T19:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T01:01:10","slug":"the-best-of-the-blog-highlights-of-2025-from-two-probing-series-to-an-unusually-moving-and-stimulating-45th-prometheus-awards-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/the-best-of-the-blog-highlights-of-2025-from-two-probing-series-to-an-unusually-moving-and-stimulating-45th-prometheus-awards-ceremony\/","title":{"rendered":"The best of the blog: Highlights of 2025, from two probing series to an unusually moving and stimulating 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Grossberg<\/b><\/p>\n

As we look back at what was published on the Prometheus Blog over the past year, it\u2019s hard to pick the very best articles and reports to highlight.<\/p>\n

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Among our more sustained efforts, we launched an awards-standards series, with essays by William Stoddard<\/a> and Eric Raymond<\/a> exploring the criteria for Prometheus nominations, and devoted an 11-part series<\/a> to analyzing the pros and cons of the increasing popularity of sequels in pop culture and in our awards.<\/p>\n

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Novelist Michael Flynn at an sf convention several decades ago (File photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yet in this final of three \u201cBest of the Blog\u201d posts highlighting some of our best work of 2025, reporting on our 45th awards ceremony may rank highest.<\/p>\n

For the first time in the history of the Prometheus Awards, the Best Novel winner was recognized posthumously. While we continue to mourn the passing of Michael Flynn, who died in 2023 at 75, this year\u2019s well-deserved award for his final novel I<\/em>n the Belly of the Whale<\/i><\/a> paved the way for one of our most emotional and inspirational acceptance speeches.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MICHAEL FLYNN
\n<\/b>
\nMichael\u2019s brother Kevin, himself a former journalist and non-fiction author, was eloquent, poignant, and often amusing in paying tribute to the three-time Prometheus Award-winner.<\/p>\n

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Kevin Flynn, brother of Michael Flynn (Courtesy of family)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his acceptance speech<\/a>, Kevin shared family stories about Michael\u2019s childhood, coming of age and illustrious career. Revelatory in its biographical details, the speech illuminated a great deal that was previously unknown to Flynn\u2019s fans about his philosophy, character and approach to science fiction.<\/p>\n

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Three-time Prometheus winner Michael Flynn (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYou know well of Michael\u2019s passion for learning, for liberty, for liberation of the mind and pushing back on authority in pursuit of freedom of thought and expression,\u201d Kevin said.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s what we didn\u2019t know that made his speech so fascinating.<\/p>\n

Some tidbits from Kevin\u2019s speech:<\/p>\n

\u201cHis first work\u2026 was to be published in a startup magazine\u2026 But the magazine folded before the short story could be published. Many years later Michael told an interviewer, \u2018My brothers, ever willing to offer encouragement, suggested the magazine folded because they had been reduced to the desperation of buying my story.\u2019 \u201cSlan Libh\u201d eventually was Michael\u2019s first published short story, in Analog i<\/i>n 1984, his first steps on a brilliant career.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen his planned Firestar trilogy led to a fourth novel, Falling Stars<\/i>, I kidded Michael that he didn\u2019t quite nail the definition of trilogy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn his blog The TOF Spot,\u2026 Michael frequently used his libertarian leanings like a matador\u2019s muleta, and he would enjoy the engagement no matter which ox \u2013 or bull \u2013 was gored. Daughter Sara remarked that her father would argue positions in which he had no stake, just for the intellectual exercise. Some people would find that upsetting but in fact he was simply trying to learn more. He didn\u2019t have a malicious bone in his body.\u201d<\/p>\n

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David Friedman (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

THE IDEAS OF DAVID FRIEDMAN
\n<\/b>
\nMeanwhile, our guest awards presenter this year was especially impressive and stimulating.<\/p>\n

David D. Friedman is a leading libertarian theorist (The Machinery of Freedom),<\/i> economist (Price Theory: An Intermediate Text)<\/i> and law-and-economics professor (Law\u2019s Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters),<\/i> and Prometheus-nominated sf\/fantasy novelist (Harald, Salamander, Brothers).<\/i><\/p>\n

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Poul Anderson in his youth (File photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Friedman presented the Hall of Fame category. His speech discusses the works of Poul Anderson (whose novel Orion Shall Rise<\/em><\/a> was inducted this year into the Prometheus Hall of Fame), Robert Heinlein and Vernor Vinge.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>In the process, David revealed how science fiction influenced his thinking – most notably, in the development of his more radical anarchy-capitalist views.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs some of you may know, Vernor\u2019s story \u201cThe Ungoverned\u201d<\/a> (inducted in 1994 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame) is about a stateless society, modeled on my ideas, being invaded by an adjacent state,\u201d Friedman said.<\/p>\n

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Vernor Vinge at an SF con (File photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cSeeing that society through the eyes of a novelist rather than an economist showed me things about it that would not have occurred to me\u2026 What it might feel like to live in it, how the way its inhabitants would look at the world and differ, would not have occurred to me without that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friedman\u2019s speech, posted on the blog in a video<\/a> and in text,<\/a> was fascinating enough. But in the Q&A session at the end of the ceremony, Friedman commented on quite a few of his favorite science fiction writers, explaining what he admired of their work (and in a few cases, what he doesn’t.)<\/p>\n

Friedman\u2019s post-ceremony remarks were so interesting, amounting in some cases to mini-reviews, that we decided to post a series of later blogs focusing on different writers.<\/p>\n

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Author Karl K. Gallagher (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One post was devoted to Friedman\u2019s admiring view of the novels of frequent Best Novel finalist Karl K. Gallagher<\/a> (the Torchship trilogy, and the ongoing Fall of the Censor series.)<\/p>\n

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C.J. Cherryh in the 1990s (File photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another Friedman post was devoted to C.J. Cherryh<\/a>, co-writer with her partner Jane S. Fancher of Alliance Rising, <\/i>the 2020 Best Novel winner. It\u2019s the first novel in their Hinder Stars trilogy, which includes Alliance Unbound,<\/i> a 2025 Best Novel finalist.<\/p>\n

Another summed up Friedman\u2019s comments<\/a> on Lois McMaster Bujold, L. Neil Smith, J. Neil Schulman, Robert Heinlein and other Prometheus-winning writers.<\/p>\n

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Reading Heinlein\u2019s Hugo- and Prometheus-winning novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress<\/i><\/a> fundamentally changed Friedman\u2019s view of what might be possible in a fully free society.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore I read it, my view was that the free market, voluntary exchange, was the right way to produce things, but that it required a legal framework produced and enforced outside the market \u2013 a government. That view was in tension with my moral intuitions, which found no basis for taxes, government authority, no obligation to obey the law merely because it was the law,\u201d Friedman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeinlein\u2019s book was set in a society where the legal order was endogenous \u2013 produced from within the society. So far as I could tell, it was an internally consistent picture. If the society he described existed, there was no reason why it could not have functioned as he described. If that society could function as described, it could not be true, as I had believed and thought I could prove, that all societies required a legal framework produced by government,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

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David Friedman (Photo provided by Friedman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For further reading
\n<\/b>
\nRegarding Friedman\u2019s own sf\/fantasy novels, read our March 2025 post<\/a> \u201cDavid Friedman: Why isn\u2019t one of the leading libertarian theorists better known as a fantasy novelist?\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, check out our post about how Friedman analyzes and views TANSTAAFL,<\/a> a popular libertarian acronym popularized by Heinlein.<\/p>\n

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ABOUT THE LFS AND THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS<\/b><\/p>\n

*\u00a0Join us!<\/b> To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, \u00a0join<\/a> the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer international association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.<\/p>\n

* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/b>For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 including in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced \u00a0Prometheus Awards page<\/a>\u00a0on 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\u2019 distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Watch 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\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/a><\/p>\n

* Read \u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/a> an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/i>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n