{"id":6262,"date":"2023-09-13T00:16:37","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T05:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/?p=6262"},"modified":"2023-09-13T15:34:29","modified_gmt":"2023-09-13T20:34:29","slug":"cycles-of-liberty-deaths-rebirths-and-new-generations-lfs-president-frames-the-2023-prometheus-awards-with-historical-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/cycles-of-liberty-deaths-rebirths-and-new-generations-lfs-president-frames-the-2023-prometheus-awards-with-historical-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Cycles of liberty, deaths, rebirths and new generations: LFS President frames the 2023 Prometheus Awards with historical perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction: As part of our series of posts about the 43rd\u00a0<\/span>annual Prometheus Awards ceremony, which aired live internationally Aug. 19, 2023, here is the transcript of the sobering but inspiring remarks of the ceremony\u2019s emcee, Libertarian Futurist Society President William H. Stoddard:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
William H. Stoddard, LFS President (File photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By William H. Stoddard<\/strong><\/p>\n

Good afternoon, and welcome to the 2023 Prometheus Awards presentation. I’m William H. Stoddard, president of the Libertarian Futurist Society.<\/p>\n

The purpose of the Prometheus Awards is to recognize works in the fantastic literary genres — science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternative history, dystopia, and others — with pro-liberty themes.<\/p>\n

The awards have been given every year since 1982; we are now in our fifth decade.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the twenty-first century has seen the deaths of many of our award winners.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Poul Anderson (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Poul Anderson<\/a> died in 2001, shortly after he received the first award for lifetime achievement.<\/p>\n

Recent years have seen the passing of Brad Linaweaver<\/a>, Victor Milan<\/a>, J. Neil Schulman<\/a>, and L. Neil Smith<\/a> — many of the outstanding names in libertarian science fiction.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sarah Hoyt, the 2011 Prometheus winner (File photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But this century has also seen the emergence of a new generation of libertarian science fiction writers, including Travis Corcoran<\/a>, Sarah Hoyt<\/a>, and Dani and Eytan Kollin.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Travis Corcoran wins his first Prometheus Award Photo: Courtesy of author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the Prometheus Awards began, the cultural climate was one of increased support for liberty: for free minds, free markets, and the subordination of government to law.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But the United States sees recurrent outbreaks of unrestrained governmental power, such as the bipartisan Progressivism of the early twentieth century, which gave us press censorship, the prohibition of alcohol and other drugs, and forced sterilizations, or the New Deal, which created the administrative state.<\/p>\n

This new century faces another such outbreak, when liberty is once again threatened.<\/p>\n

But we are also seeing increasing resistance to that threat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Prometheus depicted in a 1762 sculpture in the Louvre by Nicolas-Sebastien Adam (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And this is a time when the Prometheus Award<\/a> is more urgently needed.<\/p>\n

The LFS<\/a> is founded on the idea that culture comes before politics; that we need visions of liberty, and authors who can provide them.<\/p>\n

In giving recognition to such authors, the Prometheus Award supports the continued survival of libertarian science fiction<\/a>, and, we may hope, of liberty itself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nNote: Read more about the 43rd annual Prometheus Awards ceremony in recent Prometheus Blog posts, which include reports and transcripts of the acceptance speeches of Best Novel winner Dave Freer<\/a> (for Cloud-Castles)<\/em> and of Heinlein Prize Trust president Art Dula<\/a> and Heinlein Society President John Tilden<\/a> (for Robert Heinlein’s story “Free Men”).<\/p>\n

Other posts include the transcripts of awards-ceremony speeches by Best Novel presenter Sarah Hoyt<\/a> and LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg.<\/p>\n

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>* 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

\"\"<\/a>*\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, individuality and human dignity.<\/p>\n

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Introduction: As part of our series of posts about the 43rd\u00a0annual Prometheus Awards ceremony, which aired live internationally Aug. 19, 2023, here is the transcript of the sobering but inspiring remarks of the ceremony\u2019s emcee, Libertarian Futurist Society President William H. Stoddard: By William H. Stoddard Good afternoon, and welcome to the 2023 Prometheus Awards … Continue reading Cycles of liberty, deaths, rebirths and new generations: LFS President frames the 2023 Prometheus Awards with historical perspective<\/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":[2080,31],"tags":[75,648,2085,415,2088,285,2086,23,29,2087,6,1150,1199,18,2089,42,171],"class_list":["post-6262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-award-presenter-speech","category-awards-news","tag-brad-linaweaver","tag-censorship","tag-cultural-climate","tag-dani-and-eytan-kollin","tag-forced-sterilizations","tag-free-markets","tag-free-minds","tag-j-neil-schulman","tag-l-neil-smith","tag-new-generations","tag-poul-anderson","tag-progressivism","tag-prohibition","tag-sarah-hoyt","tag-the-new-deal","tag-travis-corcoran","tag-victor-milan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-1D0","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6262","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=6262"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6507,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6262\/revisions\/6507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}