The Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS) has announced the finalists for this year’s Prometheus Awards—both for Best Novel and for Best Classic Fiction—which “recognize pro-freedom novels of speculative fiction or science fiction/fantasy, that dramatizes the value of personal liberty, exposes abuses of coercive power to the extremes of tyranny, offers anti-authoritarian satires or imagines a fully free future.” The awards will be handed out at Denvention 3, this year’s World Science Fiction Convention, which will be held in Denver, Colorado, from 6 to 10 August.
The finalists for best novel are:
Ragamuffin by Tobias S. Buckell (published by Tor). “Set in the same world as Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin focuses on a struggle for power that leads to total war for humanity’s right to live free from alien rulers.”
The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod (Tor). “The Execution Channel imagines a post-9/11 era of terrorism, paranoia, espionage and media spin, disinformation and a rogue media outlet that broadcasts murders and executions.”
Fleet of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (Tor). Fleet of Worlds is a prequel to Niven’s classic Ringworld that dramatizes the deception and dominations of alien Puppeteers over enslaved descendants of a human colony ship.”
The Gladiator by Harry Turtledove (Tor). “A Crosstime Traffic story about a future where the Soviet Union won the Cold War but curious teenagers rediscover capitalism.”
Ha’Penny by Jo Walton (Tor). “An alternate-history sequel to Farthing, Ha’Penny portrays a convincing surrender of freedom for illusory safety in a 1940s-fascist Great Britain.”
This is MacLeon’s ninth Prometheus nomination; he has won three times (The Star Fraction, The Stone Canal, and Learning the World).
This is Niven’s third nomination; all three came as parts of collaborations). Niven won in 1992 for Fallen Angels (with Michael Flynn and Jerry Pournelle).
Turtledove has been nominated once before; this is the first nomination for Buckell and Walton.
The LFS notes “Special congratulations to Tor Books, for its grand slam of all five finalist slots for the second time in the award’s three-decade history.”
Other novels considered “nominees,” but which did not make the list of finalists, include:
The Guardener’s Tale by Bruce Boston (Sam’s Dot Publishing)
Echoes of an Alien Sky by James Hogan (Baen Books)
Gradisil by Adam Roberts (Pyr)
Off Armageddon Reef by David Webber (Tor)

The Prometheus Hall of Fame, or Best Classic Fiction, award goes to “novels, novellas, stories, graphic novels, anthologies, films, TV shows, TV series, plays, poems, music recordings, and other works of fiction, first published or broadcast more than five years ago.” Of this year’s finalists, the LFS says they “are a group of true classics—the earliest was first published in 1912, the latest in 1977. All five nominees are by well-known British authors. Despite their age, these works still have things to say to present-day libertarians.”
The 2008 Prometheus finalists for Best Classic Fiction:
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1963). “A stylized cautionary novel of behavior modification gone wrong and a classical-liberal warning against the denial of human free will.”
“As Easy as A.B.C.” by Rudyard Kipling (1912). “A short story by the great 19th-century novelist that looks back at the racial conflicts of the twentieth century from the perspective of a global civilization of the future.”
That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis (1945). “A novel that completes Lewis’s science-fiction trilogy and brings out the libertarian strain in his Christian faith in its portrayal of a corrupted research organization that hides totalitarian ambitions behind the name of science.”
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954). “A three-part fantasy novel that affirms the classic values of Western and British civilization by weaving lessons about the terrible temptations of unlimited power through an epic journey to destroy the Ring of Power and the Ringbearer’s struggle against the Ring’s addicting nature in a war against the totalitarian state of Mordor.”
The Once and Future King by T.H. White (1938-58). “This separately published five-part novel, including a posthumously published finale The Book of Merlyn (1977), weaves anarchist-libertarian themes into its classic fantasy retelling of the Arthurian legends as an attempt to subordinate power to the service of justice, freedom, and peace.”