FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Dec. 20, 2024
2025 PROMETHEUS HALL OF FAME AWARD FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
POUL ANDERSON, RUDYARD KIPLING, CHARLES STROSS AND THE ROCK GROUP RUSH SELECTED
The Libertarian Futurist Society has selected four finalists for the 2025 Hall of Fame Award for Best Classic Fiction.
This year's finalists – first published between 1912 and 2003 - include novels by Poul Anderson and Charles Stross, a story by Rudyard Kipling, and a song by the Canadian rock group Rush.
Here are capsule descriptions of each work, listed in alphabetical order by author:
- Orion Shall Rise, a 1983 novel (Timescape) by frequent Prometheus
winner Poul Anderson, was a Best Novel finalist. It explores the corruptions and temptations of power and
how a free society might survive and thrive after an apocalypse. The story is set on a post-nuclear-war Earth
with four renascent but very different civilizations in conflict over the proper role of technology. While
sympathetic to all four civilizations and playing fair to all sides, Anderson focuses on forward-thinking
visionaries who dream of reaching for the stars while trying to revive the forbidden nuclear technology that
destroyed their now-feudal, empire-dominated world. Most intriguing: the depiction of a libertarian society
with minimal government operating in formerly western Canada, Alaska and United States.
- "As Easy as A.B.C.," by Rudyard Kipling (first published 1912 in London Magazine), the
second of his "airship utopia" stories and one of the earliest examples of libertarian/liberal SF, envisions a
21st-century world founded on free travel, the rule of law, privacy, individual self-sufficiency, and an
inherited abhorrence of crowds. Officials of the Aerial Board of Control, essentially a non-repressive world
government reluctant to exceed its limited power, are summoned to remote Chicago. The city has been convulsed
by a small group's demands to revive the nearly forgotten institution of democracy, with its historical
tendencies toward majoritarian tyranny, unlimited by respect for the rights of individuals and minorities. The
cautionary tale is most notable for its bitter condemnation of lynching, racism and mob violence.
- "The Trees," a 1978 song by Rush, was released on the Canadian rock group's album "Hemispheres." With
lyrics by Neil Peart and music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, this was a rare Top-40 rock hit conceived in the
fantasy genre. The song warns against coerced equality in a beast fable – or in this case, a “tree
fable.” Peart poetically present a nature-based fable of envy, “oppression” and misguided
revolution motivated by a radical true-believer ideology of coercive egalitarianism. The survival and
individuality of both agitating Maples and lofty Oaks are threatened when a seemingly “noble law”
is adopted in the forest to keep the trees "equal by hatchet, axe and saw."
- Singularity Sky, a 2003 novel (Ace Books) by Charles Stross, dramatizes the
ethics and greater efficacy of freedom in an interstellar 25th century as new technologies trigger radical
transformation—strikingly beginning with advanced aliens dropping cell phones from the sky to grant any and
all wishes. Blending space opera with ingenious SF concepts (such as artificial intelligence, bioengineering,
self-replicating information networks and time travel via faster-than-light starships), the kaleidoscopic saga
explores the disruptive impact on humanity as various political-economic systems come into contact. Stross
weaves in pro-freedom and anti-war insights as a man and woman, representing Earth’s more libertarian
culture and anarchocapitalist economy based on private contracts, interact with a repressive and reactionary
colony, its secret police and its military fleet.
In addition to the above finalists, the Prometheus Hall of Fame Finalist Judging Committee considered six
other nominees: "Death and the Senator," a 1961 short story by Arthur C. Clarke; That Hideous Strength, a 1945 novel by C.S. Lewis; "Ultima Thule," a 1961
novella by Mack Reynolds; The Demon Breed, a 1968 novel by James H. Schmitz;
Between the Rivers, a 1998 novel by Harry Turtledove; and "Conquest by
Default," a 1968 novelette by Vernor Vinge.
The final vote will take place in mid-2025. All Libertarian Futurist Society members are eligible to
vote. The award will be presented at a major science fiction convention and/or online.
Hall of Fame nominees may be in any narrative or dramatic form, including prose fiction, stage plays, film,
television, other video, graphic novels, song lyrics, or epic or narrative verse; they must explore themes
relevant to libertarianism and must be science fiction, fantasy, or related speculative genres.
First presented in 1979 (for Best Novel) and presented annually since 1982, the Prometheus Awards have
recognized outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between
liberty and power, favor private social cooperation over legalized coercion, expose abuses and excesses of
obtrusive government, critique or satirize authoritarian ideas, or champion individual rights and freedoms as
the mutually respectful foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, civility, and
civilization itself.
The awards include gold coins and plaques for the winners for Best Novel, Best Classic Fiction (Hall of
Fame), and occasional Special Awards.
The Prometheus Award is one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the
oldest fan-based awards currently in sf.
Nominations for the 2026 Hall of Fame Award can be submitted to committee chair William H. Stoddard
(halloffame@lfs.org) at any time up to Sept. 30, 2025. All LFS members are eligible to nominate.
The LFS welcomes new members who are interested in speculative fiction and the future of freedom. More
information is available at our website, lfs.org and on the Prometheus blog (lfs.org/blog).
