{"id":1250,"date":"2019-12-24T22:13:02","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T04:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lfs.org\/blog\/?p=1250"},"modified":"2024-05-11T13:23:29","modified_gmt":"2024-05-11T18:23:29","slug":"40th-anniversary-celebration-an-appreciation-of-l-neil-smiths-pallas-the-1994-prometheus-best-novel-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/40th-anniversary-celebration-an-appreciation-of-l-neil-smiths-pallas-the-1994-prometheus-best-novel-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom-lovers and power-mongers on a terraformed asteroid: An Appreciation of L. Neil Smith\u2019s Pallas, the 1994 Prometheus Best Novel winner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Libertarian Futurist Society’s Appreciation series aims to make clear why each Prometheus winner deserves recognition as a notable pro-freedom or anti-authoritarian work. Here’s the Appreciation for L. Neil Smith\u2019s Pallas,<\/em> the 1994 Best Book winner:<\/p>\n

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

Set in the 22nd\u00a0<\/sup>century on the terra-formed and colonized asteroid of Pallas, L. Neil Smith\u2019s Heinlein-esque novel imagines a believable future based on plausible scientific developments but one beset by familiar political divisions between freedom-lovers and power-mongers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Two groups of colonists sharing the habitat in a 20th\u00a0<\/sup>of Earth\u2019s gravity come into conflict. The larger culture is a fully free gun-toting group of rugged individualists who live as they choose \u2013 but at their own expense, with strict accountability in \u201cmoon-is-a-harsh-mistress\u201d respect for the harsh realities of asteroid existence in the outer solar system.<\/p>\n

These colonists represent something of a libertarian utopia based on explicit consent, since all have signed a founding document modeled on the ideas of an Ayn-Rand-style woman philosopher.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The other smaller subculture, led by an ambitious former Earth Senator unwillingly forced to emigrate to Pallas because of sexual scandal, is a small socialist agrarian community, operating behind a Berlin-style wall closed off from the free-wheeling larger asteroid society, ideologically based on manual labor, vegetarianism and communalism and controlled by a dominating elite.<\/p>\n

Those outside the walls have nicknamed it the \u201cant farm,\u201d but tolerate its existence from a larger libertarian meta-framework of live and let live, much like Robert Nozick outlined in his National-Book-award-winning Anarchy, State and Utopia<\/em>.<\/p>\n

At the center of this 1993 novel and linking the two worlds dramatically, is the coming-of-age of Emerson Ngu, a rebel who escapes his walled socialist community to explore and live in Pallas\u2019 larger world.<\/p>\n

With a fast-paced plot and interesting characters, Pallas\u00a0<\/em>can be read on its own, but is a prequel to Ceres<\/em>, a 2010 Prometheus nominee.<\/p>\n

ABOUT L. NEIL SMITH<\/strong><\/p>\n

Note:\u00a0<\/strong>L. Neil Smith also won Prometheus Awards for Best Novel in 1984 for The Probability Broach<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>in 1984 and The Forge of the Elders<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>in 2001.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
L. Neil Smith (Creative Commons photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He later won a Special Award, shared with illustrator Scott Bieser, in 2005 for The Probability Broach: The Graphic Novel<\/em>,<\/a> and the Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2016.<\/p>\n

For more about L. Neil Smith, check out the Prometheus blog\u2019s June 2019 interview<\/strong><\/a> by Tom Jackson with the author about his work, the Prometheus Award and his influences.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE:
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\n<\/u><\/b><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

* See related introductory essay<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>about the LFS\u2019 40th<\/sup>anniversary retrospective series of Appreciations of past Prometheus Awards winners, with an overview of the awards\u2019 four-decade history.<\/p>\n

* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/strong>For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to the full set of published appreciation-reviews of past winners.<\/p>\n

* Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\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

*\u00a0Watch\u00a0 <\/strong>videos <\/strong>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.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

*\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters! We understand that the arts and literature can be vital, and in some ways even more powerful than politics in the long run, by sparking innovation, better ideas, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights and differences<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Libertarian Futurist Society’s Appreciation series aims to make clear why each Prometheus winner deserves recognition as a notable pro-freedom or anti-authoritarian work. Here’s the Appreciation for L. Neil Smith\u2019s Pallas, the 1994 Best Book winner: By Michael Grossberg Set in the 22nd\u00a0century on the terra-formed and colonized asteroid of Pallas, L. Neil Smith\u2019s Heinlein-esque … Continue reading Freedom-lovers and power-mongers on a terraformed asteroid: An Appreciation of L. Neil Smith\u2019s Pallas, the 1994 Prometheus Best Novel winner<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43,159,2353,2203,8],"tags":[238,234,279,233,539,29,239,232,236,16,237,538,235,63],"class_list":["post-1250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-best-novels","category-book-reviews","category-l-neil-smith","category-review","tag-anarchy-state-and-utopia","tag-ares","tag-capitalism","tag-ceres","tag-communalism","tag-l-neil-smith","tag-ngu-family-saga-series","tag-pallas","tag-prequel","tag-prometheus-award","tag-robert-nozick","tag-terraformed-asteroid-society","tag-the-forge-of-the-elders","tag-the-probability-broach"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-ka","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1250"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7561,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1250\/revisions\/7561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}