Pratchett, Heinlein Win 2003 Awards

Presentation takes place at Torcon

The 2003 award for Best Novel went to Terry Pratchett for Night Watch, a novel in his popular Discworld series. Set in Ankh-Morpork, the Discworld’s largest city, Night Watch examines the nature of political revolutions and the abuses of police authority. This is Pratchett’s second Prometheus Award nomination; the first, two years ago, was for The Truth, which portrayed the founding of Ankh-Morpork's first newspaper.

The other finalists for the Best Novel award were Schild's Ladder, by Greg Egan; Dark Light, by Ken MacLeod; Escape From Heaven, by J. Neil Schulman; and The Haunted Air, by F. Paul Wilson. McLeod, Schulman, and Wilson have all won Prometheus Awards in previous years.

The 2003 Hall of Fame award went to Robert A. Heinlein's short story “Requiem,” one of the key stories in his “Future History” series. All the other finalists were novels: A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess; That Hideous Strength, by C. S. Lewis; It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis; and The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien. This category has been opened up to forms and media other than novels, including short stories, poems, films, television shows, and comic books; last year's award went to Patrick McGoohan for The Prisoner.

The award ceremony took place at 4:00 P.M. on Friday afternoon (August 28) of the World Science Fiction Convention (TorCon). LFS Director Victoria Varga presided over the ceremony. Science fiction writer Fran Van Cleave (LFS Assistant Director), presented the Best Novel Award to Terry Pratchett. Both Pratchett and Harper Collins representative Jennifer Brehl were present; Pratchett gave a short acceptance speech (see p. 5 for speech and photo). LFS Vice President Fred Moulton presented the Hall of Fame Award and also accepted it on behalf of the Heinlein Society. Moulton subsequently attended the Heinlein Society dinner at 6:00 P.M. and presented the award to David Silver of the Heinlein Society. It will be kept in the Society's archives.

The Torcon newsletter for Saturday afternoon carried a short announcement of the two awards.

An informal lunch gathering of libertarians, attended by 10 people, including some members of the Libertarian Futurist Society, was held on Saturday at 12:00 P.M.