![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Orion-Shall-Rise.jpg?ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nVictoria Varga, the first LFS Director and editor of the print edition of Prometheus<\/em><\/a> from 1983 to 1988, reviewed Anderson\u2019s science fiction novel when it was first nominated for a Prometheus Award for Best Novel.<\/p>\n Thanks in part to her positive review, Orion Shall Rise <\/i>was selected by Libertarian Futurist Society members as a 1984 Best Novel finalist (the year that J. Neil Schulman\u2019s The Rainbow Cadenza <\/i><\/a>won our award.)<\/p>\n Most notably, Varga praised Anderson for doing \u201ca brilliant job of creating mythologies, religious and secular, for his characters and their civilizations.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Varga\u2019s review also identifies a key character linking all four civilizations, one with an outside and more objective perspective that illuminates this dark but hopeful future.<\/p>\n Varga also provides context for the novel by reminding us that in several cases, the four different post-apocalyptic societies that have developed on Earth were previously developed and dramatized in Anderson\u2019s short stories.<\/p>\n \u201cAnderson does a good job with all this complexity partly because he has, in various short stories over the years, worked out many of the details of these societies. In addition, his evolving ideas about the conflict between economic expansion and ecological balance allows him to examine sympathetically all sides of his characters’ controversial debate,\u201d Varga wrote in the July 1984 quarterly issue of Prometheus<\/i> (Vol. 2, No. 3.)<\/p>\n \u201cIt is interesting to note that Anderson, by the evidence of those previously mentioned short stories (beginning with “Sky People” in 1959), believed the Maurai way to be the best,\u201d she observed.<\/p>\n \u201cNow he is more critical of any plan to stop progress by force, and at the same time he demonstrates that nuclear power can be (if used in weapons) misused by the power hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier in Varga\u2019s review she describes the four civilizations that co-exist, sometimes uneasily, on Earth.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Mong are mostly great-grandchildren of Asians that migrated over a Bering Strait ice bridge to settle mid-North America. The Domain consists of remnants of European civilization held together and protected by Skyholm, a centuries-old warship\/palace floating in the stratosphere.\u00a0 <\/span>The northwest Union is a lodge-based anarchist society desiring technological advancement\u2014particularly nuclear power.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDominating them all are the Maurai descendents of native New Zealanders, whose anti-technological viewpoint forces the Northwest Union to keep their nuclear-powered spaceship project secret. This project is the “Orion” of the book’s title.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026 Understandably, most of the world considers nuclear weapons and nuclear power terrifyingly dangerous and any attempt to build or use either as aggression against all humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n One character ties together the story and this world.<\/p>\n Plik, \u201ca continually soused troubadour,\u201d gets to know the main characters and participate in most of the action, almost by chance, Varga observed.<\/p>\n Plik is the character who makes explicit one of the deepest and most libertarian themes in the 2025 Prometheus awardwinner.<\/p>\n He \u201cwarns them again and again that they are creating a new power myth (one that he very much fears and one they might not be able to control). But the myth evolves as the whole world realizes the necessity of freedom and the devastating consequences of the use of force.\u201d<\/p>\n ABOUT POUL ANDERSON<\/strong><\/p>\n Poul Anderson (1926-2001) was a major American science fiction writer who won the Hugo Award seven times, the Nebula Award three times and the Prometheus Award seven times (including this year\u2019s award and the first Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement).<\/p>\n Orion Shall Rise <\/i>is the fifth work by Anderson to be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, following Trader to the Stars <\/i><\/a>(in 1985), The Star Fox<\/a> <\/i>(in 1995), \u201cNo Truce with Kings\u201d<\/a> (in 2010) and \u201cSam Hall\u201d<\/a> (in 2020.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS AND THE LFS<\/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 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 * Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society\u2019s Facebook page<\/a> for comments, updates and links to the latest Prometheus Blog posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Michael Grossberg With Poul Anderson\u2019s Orion Shall Rise inducted most recently into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, it\u2019s interesting to look back on our initial review of the 1983 novel for its insights and first impressions. Victoria Varga, the first LFS Director and editor of the print edition of Prometheus … Continue reading Power myths, clashing cultures and the necessity of freedom: The first Prometheus review of Poul Anderson\u2019s \u201cbrilliant\u201d Orion Shall Rise\u2028<\/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":[249,2353,1861,8],"tags":[2162,6,2698,119],"class_list":["post-9718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards-history","category-book-reviews","category-poul-anderson","category-review","tag-orion-shall-rise","tag-poul-anderson","tag-prometheus-newsletter","tag-victoria-varga"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-2wK","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718","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=9718"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10249,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9718\/revisions\/10249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n