Tag Archives: Libertarian Futurist Society

2013 Prometheus Finalists

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The Libertarian Futurist Society published the shortlist for the 2013 Prometheus Awards on April 7.

Best Novel

  • Arctic Rising, by Tobias Buckell (TOR Books)
  • The Unincorporated Future, by Dani and Eytan Kollin (TOR Books)
  • Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow (TOR Books)
  • Darkship Renegades, by Sarah Hoyt (Baen Books)
  • Kill Decision, by Daniel Suarez (Dutton – Penguin)

The Prometheus Award for Best Novel recognizes pro-freedom novels published in the last year.

Hall of Fame Award for Best Classic Fiction
(Descriptions quoted from the LFS press release)

  • Sam Hall, a short story by Poul Anderson published 1953 in Astounding depicts a regimented future American obsessed with security faces a revolution aided by cybernetic subversion.
  • Falling Free, a novel by Lois McMaster Bujold published in 1988 explores the legal and ethical implications of human genetic engineering.
  • ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman, a short story by Harlan Ellison published in 1965 in Galaxy concerns a satirical dystopia set in an authoritarian society dedicated to punctuality, where a lone absurdist rebel attempts to disrupt everyone else’s schedules.
  • Courtship Rite, a novel by Donald M. Kingsbury in 1982 portrays an exotic human culture on a harsh desert planet, founded on the principle of applying optimization to biology, political organization, and ethics.
  • As Easy as A.B.C., a short story by Rudyard Kipling published in London Magazine in 1912 presents an ambiguously utopian future that has reacted against the mass society that was beginning to emerge when it was written, in favor of privacy and freedom of movement.
  • Cryptonomicon, a novel by Neal Stephenson published in 1999 has linked narratives set in World War II and the early 21st century that trace the development of computation and cryptography and their implications for a free society.

Women did not win any of the first 30 Prometheus Awards but they are now on a roll, having won Best Novel twice in the past two years — Delia Sherman, 2012-tie, and Sarah Hoyt, 2011.

Three of the five Best Novel nominees this year were written by past winners – the books by Hoyt, Doctorow and the Kollin brothers.

The Prometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction honors novels, novellas, stories, graphic novels, anthologies, films, TV shows/series, plays, poems, music recordings and other works of fiction first published or broadcast more than five years ago.

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress won the first year the award was given, 1983. Rand won again in 1987 for Anthem. The only other woman with an award-winner in this category is Ursula Le Guin, for The Dispossessed in 1993.

Despite being open to all media, nearly every Hall of Fame honoree so far has been text. The lone exception is Moore and Lloyd’s graphic story V for Vendetta (2006).

Stamped on Arrival?

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Is this truly Elizabeth Moon, two-time nominee for the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus Award, arguing that everyone should be given a barcode at birth?

She told listeners to the “Future Wars” episode of BBC’s “The Forum”:

If I were empress of the Universe I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached – a barcode if you will; an implanted chip to provide an easy, fast inexpensive way to identify individuals.

It would be imprinted on everyone at birth. Point the scanner at someone and there it is.

Having such a unique barcode would have many advantages. In war soldiers could easily differentiate legitimate targets in a population from noncombatants.

This could prevent mistakes in identity, mistakes that result in the deaths of innocent bystanders. Weapons systems would record the code of the use, identifying how fired which shot and leading to more accountability in the field.

Anonymity would be impossible as would mistaken identity making it easier to place responsibility accurately, not only in war but also in non-combat situations far from the war.

So instead of a slap, doctors will be giving newborns a stamp on the bottom? That really will be something to cry about.

Click the link for audio of Moon’s “Sixty Second Idea to Improve the World” (available until June 18.)

Moon suggested her idea as part of a 45-minute BBC discussion about the way technology is reshaping warfare —

Robot spy planes as small as insects, drones that hover high overhead for days at a time, interfaces to plug a soldier’s mind directly into a weapons system and lasers that could temporarily blind you: some of this technology is still on the drawing board but some of it is already used on the battlefield.

[Thanks to David Klaus for the story.]