*\u00a0Alliance Rising<\/b>,<\/em> by C.J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher (DAW): \u00a0Set in Cherryh’s Alliance-Rising Universe (before her novel\u00a0Downbelow Station)<\/em>, this interstellar saga of technological upheaval, intrigue and romance explores the early days of the Merchanter Alliance. Independent spaceship families ally during complex, multisided political-economic rivalries to defend established rights and promote the common good through free trade.<\/p>\n *\u00a0Ruin\u2019s Wake<\/b>,<\/em> by Patrick Edwards (Titan Books): \u00a0This dystopian debut novel, set within a totalitarian world that emerged from catastrophe 500 years ago, weaves narrative threads from different sympathetic characters fighting for identity, love, and revenge amid repression. *\u00a0Luna: Moon Rising<\/b><\/em>, by Ian McDonald (TOR Books): \u00a0In the sequel to the Prometheus-nominated novels\u00a0Luna: New Moon\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Luna: Wolf Moon,<\/em> McDonald dramatizes the struggle for independence and sovereignty as feuding lunar factions unite against a threat from Earth.<\/p>\n *\u00a0Ode to Defiance<\/b>,<\/em> by Marc Stiegler (LMBPN Publishing): \u00a0The forces of enlightenment, science, liberty, and truth battle factions of statism, bureaucracy, ignorance, superstition, and deception in this lighthearted, explicitly libertarian and occasionally satirical sci-fi\/adventure novel, set in Stiegler\u2019s BrainTrust Universe.<\/p>\n LFS members also nominated these 2019 works for this year\u2019s Best Novel category:\u00a0They Will Drown in Their Mother\u2019s Tears,<\/em> by Johannes Anyuru (Two Lines Press);\u00a0Monster Hunter Guardian,<\/em> \u00a0by Larry Correia and Sarah H. Hoyt (Baen Books);\u00a0The Good Luck Girls,<\/em> by Charlotte Nicole Davis \u00a0(TOR Teen);\u00a0Empire of Lies,<\/em> by Raymond Khoury (Forge Books\/TOR);\u00a0The Year of Jublio!,<\/em> by Joseph T. Major (Amazon);\u00a0Atlas Alone,<\/em> by Emma Newman (ACE Books\/Penguin Group); and\u00a0Stealing Worlds,<\/em> by Karl Schroeder (TOR Books).<\/p>\n The Best Novel winner will receive a plaque with a one-ounce gold coin. Planning is ongoing, as in past years, to present the 2020 awards at Columbus NASFiC 2000 (the annual North American Science Fiction Convention), still set (pandemic permitting) for Aug. 20-23 in Columbus, Ohio.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s slate of Best Novel finalists was selected by a 12-member judging committee (listed in alphabetical order): John Christmas, Steve Gaalema, Michael Grossberg (chair), Chris Hibbert, Lowell Jackson, Tom Jackson, Ryan Lackey, Charlie Morrison, Eric Raymond, Jeff Schulman, William H. Stoddard, and Adam Tuchman.<\/p>\n For more information about this year’s Best Novel finalists, read the full press release<\/strong> <\/a>posted on the LFS website.<\/p>\n Pending further updates, read our initial Prometheus-blog post about plans (still underway) for LFScon III<\/strong> <\/a>with Prometheus Awards Guest of Honor F. Paul Wilson at the Columbus NASFiC 2000.<\/p>\n * Coming up soon on the Prometheus Blog:<\/strong>\u00a0A 40th<\/sup>Anniversary Celebration and appreciation of the next novel to be recognized with a Prometheus Award: Cory Doctorow\u2019s\u00a0Little Brother<\/em>, the 2009 winner for Best Novel.<\/p>\n *\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit volunteer association of libertarian sf\/fantasy fans and freedom-lovers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whether set on Earth, on the Moon, or throughout interstellar space and whether taking place in the near-future or distant future, novels dramatizing fights for freedom and threats of tyranny can achieve a timeless and universal relevance. Recognizing the perennial tensions between Liberty and Power, the Libertarian Futurist Society presents its annual Prometheus Awards for … Continue reading Atwood’s The Testaments, Cherryh and Fancher’s Alliance Rising, Patrick Edwards’ Ruin’s Wake, Ian McDonald’s Luna: Moon Rising and Marc Stiegler’s Ode to Defiance selected as 2020 Prometheus Award finalists for Best Novel<\/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":[31,159],"tags":[408,414,406,87,407,411,412,404,413,409,46,410,405],"class_list":["post-1488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards-news","category-best-novels","tag-alliance-rising","tag-best-novel-finalists","tag-c-j-cherry","tag-ian-mcdonald","tag-jane-s-fancher","tag-luna-moon-rising","tag-marc-stiegler","tag-margaret-atwood","tag-ode-to-defiance","tag-patrick-edwards","tag-prometheus-awards","tag-ruins-wake","tag-the-testaments"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-o0","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488","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=1488"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1502,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions\/1502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lfs.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/0-Testaments-luL.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a>Some face mortal risks undermining the Gilead dictatorship, struggling with thorny moral complexities and working within the halls of power while taking covert steps to subvert tyranny. Poignantly and with sly humor, Atwood weaves three narrative threads exploring enduring questions about liberty, power, responsibility, and resistance. An \u201cUnderground Femaleroad\u201d network (much like 19th-century libertarian Abolitionists) smuggles women into Canada while intelligence provided to the wider world\u2019s free press promotes re-establishment of a free United States. Atwood references the “eternal verities” about “life, liberty, democracy, and the rights of the individual” that remain at the heart of libertarian ideals.<\/p>\n<\/a>In one of the better fictional treatments of a complex economy, characters maneuver to prevent statist regimes from dominating space lanes, resist Earth\u2019s centralized governance, and investigate the mysterious purpose of a ship, The Rights of Man, undergoing construction on an isolated space station. Classic libertarian themes emerge about what rights are and where they come from (often to resolve conflicts), and how commerce and property rights promote peace and prosperity as humanity spreads among the stars.<\/p>\n
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\nA young woman finds hope in an illicit love affair with a subversive rebel while trapped in an abusive marriage with a government official. An exiled old soldier searches desperately for his dying son, and a female scientist-archeologist discovers a mysterious technology that exposes the vulnerability of her world. A dictatorial government threatens their pursuit of happiness, knowledge, and family in a world recovering from ruin. This state has erased history and individual identity \u2013 a plausible scenario modeled by the author to evoke parallels to Stalinist Russia and today\u2019s communist North Korea.<\/p>\n<\/a>The trilogy\u2019s thrilling finale builds on McDonald\u2019s intricate future of moon colonization, buoyed by somewhat free markets marred by violence, corporate espionage, and political marriages as the Five Dragons family dynasties control the main lunar industrial companies. Characters empowered by personal freedom and individual\/social achievement in a society where contracts with others define people. Rendering a more positive view of a free society than earlier novels, McDonald offers justifications for freedom and markets while showing more negative aspects of politics and human behavior dealt with by people addressing inevitable problems in more voluntary ways.<\/p>\n<\/a>To escape a United States impoverished by socialist bureaucracy, people live and work on innovative technology on a BrainTrust fleet of independent seastead ships. The story explores how a libertarian society can work and engage with rivals without violence and, ultimately, in peaceful co-existence (though some opponents receive the sharp end of the BrainTrust’s characteristically pointed violence.) This world-encompassing sequel to Stiegler\u2019s Prometheus-nominated novels\u00a0Crescendo of Fire<\/em> and Rhapsody for the Tempest<\/em> explores bio-engineered diseases and biological warfare \u2013 especially timely during the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
\nLibertarian futurists believe cultural change is as vital as political change (and often more fun!) in achieving universal individual rights and a better world (perhaps eventually, worlds) for all.<\/p>\n