Anders Monsen

The Libertarian Futurist Society announced on July 22 the winners of the annual Prometheus Award for best libertarian futurist fiction. Winner for Best Novel is The Unincorporated Man by Eytan Kollin and Dani Kollin, and for best classic work, the short story “No Truce With Kings,” by Poul Anderson.

From the LFS:

The Unincorporated Man is the first novel publication by the Kollin brothers. It is the first novel in a planned trilogy to be published by Tor. The Unincorporated Man presents the idea that education and personal development could be funded by allowing investors to take a share of one’s future income. The novel explores the ways this arrangement would affect those who do not own a majority of the stock in themselves. For instance, often ones investors would have control of a person’s choices of where to live or work. The desire for power as an end unto itself and the negative consequences of the raw lust for power are shown in often great detail. The story takes a strong position that liberty is important and worth fighting for, and the characters spend their time pushing for different conceptions of what freedom is.

Poul Anderson’s novels have been nominated many times, and have won the Prometheus Award (in 1995, for The Stars Are Also Fire), and the Hall of Fame Award (1995 for The Star Fox and 1985 for Trader to the Stars). He also received a Special award for lifetime achievement in 2001. This was the first nomination for “No Truce With Kings.”

Poul Anderson’s “No Truce with Kings” was first published in 1963. Like many science fiction stories of that era, it was set in a future that had endured a nuclear war. Anderson’s focus is not on the immediate disaster and the struggle to survive, but the later rebuilding; its central conflict is over what sort of civilization should be created. The story’s title comes from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Old Issue,” which describes the struggle to bind kings and states with law and the threat of their breaking free. Anderson’s future California is basically a feudal society, founded on local loyalties, but it has a growing movement in favor of a centralized, impersonal state. As David Friedman remarked about this story, Anderson plays fair with his conflicting forces: both of them want the best for humanity, but one side is mistaken about what that is. This story is classic Anderson and, like many of his best stories, reveals his libertarian sympathies.

Some sites that posted the news of the Prometheus Awards announcement include IO9 (with close to 100 comments, most of them snarky and dismissive of libertarianism), Liberty & Power, and Locus Online.

Two time Prometheus Award winner James P. Hogan died suddenly on July 12, 2010 at his home in Ireland. I admit to being stunned when I read the tweet late on July 12. Various SF news sites (Locus, io9, SFF Site, etc) posted announcements on July 13, and cause of death currently is unknown. The first Hogan bookI ever read was either Code of the Lifemaker or The Gentle Giants of Ganymede, when I “earned” a massive box of sf books from helping a friend paint his house in 1986. I remember reading virtually all his books in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but I stopped reading widely in sf starting in the 2000’s and did not keep up with his most recent novels. I interviewed Hogan for Prometheus in the late 1990’s and spoke with him at several conventions. He was 69, and from what I can tell was planning trips to at least two conventions later this year, including ArmadilloCon 32 in Austin next month. I am planning a longer obituary for the Fall issue of Prometheus, as the summer issue is done and shortly off to the printer.

Someone over at the Charlottesville Sci-Fi and Fantasy book group recently posted several 2010 sf award lists, including the Prometheus Award. Two statements caught my attention, First:

I never knew there was a group out there called the Libertarian Futerist Society. They exist though, and they yearly give out the Prometheus Award which honors that year’s novel which best ‘examines the meaning of freedom’.

And then this one:

So the award is really more for the presentation of the idea than it is the actual quality of the work, though I’m sure that factors into the mix, but the idea’s most important. Interesting.

Ah, well. The LFS has only been around since 1982, and I think the quality of the winners speak for themselves.

The current novel I’m reading is British writer George Mann’s Ghosts of Manhattan, a steampunk alternate history novel by Pyr Books set in early 20th century New York. So far two very interesting aspects in the first couple of chapters. The first is a snarky comment about politicians by a cop, the second that the protagonist is a superhero/vigilante who fights crime outside the law, much like Batman, Spider-Man and the like. I don’t know where the book will end up, but despite a few rough stylistic edges and odd cliches, it is holding my attention. I’m sure I’ll end up writing a review for the next Prometheus, if there is a next Prometheus.

This weekend I received a massive review copy of a book, Sic Semper Tyranis. A novel by Seamus Branaugh subtitled “A novel of liberty and the future of America” this appears to be the first fiction publication from Silver Lake Publishing. Their web site currently does not have any information that I can find about the book, but as I have yet to crack the shrinkwrap, I know fairly little about the novel at the moment. I intend to review the novel for Prometheus, but its fairly long so I am not sure when the review will appear, though it should be sometime this year.

A few days ago I received three of the current finalist novels for the 2010 Prometheus Award. Cory Doctorow’s Makers, Dani and Eytan Kallin’s The Unincorporated Man, and Orson Scott Card’s Hidden Empire. Not sure which one to start with yet, but I am leaning toward the Doctorow book at the moment. It’s the one I know the least about, so maybe it will clear some pre-conceptions out of the way before I start the other books.

The latest edition of the Prometheus newsletter is finally in the mail. Due to the extra length and the production delay, this is a double issue. Next issue is set for the summer. Reviews, letters, articles welcome from any and all writers.

The Libertarian Futurist Society announced this year’s finslists for the Prometheus Best Novel Award, for fiction published in 2009.

I have not yet read a single one of the nominees, though I admit to some surprise that Harry Turtledove has two books in the running. I have read only a handful of his books, and (my opinion only) I find them far from gripping and engaging in the manner I expect from an award winning novel. As for the other nominees, I read Card’s earlier novel, or rather, skipped huge chunks to get through it out of sheer sense of obligation. I enjoyed Doctorow’s Little Brother, but have read nothing else by him, and the Kollin brothers debut with their novel. Am I just losing touch with modern SF? I found the recent list of Hugo finalists also distressingly banal and uninteresting. It has been a long while since I truly enjoyed most of the new books I read, and I seem to read fewer each year. There is no sense of wonder in today’s SF, or maybe that’s just me. In movies, everything is a reboot. I expect more from books, but maybe the magic has faded. I get more out re-reading Jack Vance these days.

In April of this year Katherine Mangu-Ward from reason magazine interviewed me as part of a story on the 2008 Prometheus Award finalists. This article appears in the December issue of reason, and has been posted online. Tor published all five finalists, and reason thought this interesting enough to write a long story on the libertarian elements of sf and Tor. Tor should not be considered libertarian, or any -ian/ist, but they have a fearless and independent editorial policy. Tor publishes great fiction, and does not shy away from political books. SF mega-blog site io9 also picked up the story.

A few items I’d like to note: The title of the article actually comes from a speech F. Paul Wilson gave in 1983. I think I attributed those words to Wilson, but if somehow I omitted to do this, my apologies. Also, L. Neil Smith’s The Probability Broach was published first by Del Rey, and that is the edition that won the Prometheus Award. Tor reprinted the book twice, for which they should be commended, as the book long had been out of print and is a libertarian classic. Many libertarian sf writers failed to get mentioned, especially Vernor Vinge, who has published many books with Tor, and won both the Hugo and Prometheus Awards.

Anyway, hopefully this article reaches more libertarian sf fans out there and gains some attention for the Prometheus Awards.

Will Terry Pratchett’s new novel give Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother some competition for the 2009 Prometheus Award? The synopsis certainly sounds intriguing, and I am reserving judgment on Little Brother until I have read all the other nominees. I enjoyed 95% of Doctorow’s novel, but felt rather let down at the end.