Prometheus Award Winners for the Hall of Fame

Alongside the Prometheus Award for Best Novel is the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. Originally handed out in 1983, this award is designed to honor classic works of libertarian fiction, and as such is not necessarily a science fiction oriented award. In practice, the bulk of the Hall of Fame winners are works of science fiction, because the Libertarian Futurist Society is an organization comprised of libertarian science fiction fans, but there is nothing intrinsic to the award that requires the winners to be science fiction. In practice, the award was also heavily dominated by Robert A. Heinlein, who won this award six times.

In the first several years of this category, the Hall of Fame award was given to two winners. These were not tie results, but rather a practice of honoring two books by declaring two winners in each year. In 2007, on the other hand, Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here and Vernor Vinge's True Names did tie for the award. Like many "retrospective" or historical awards, the award seems to mostly be "what books did the voters love when they were young readers", with a grab-bag of works, some of which seem to have almost nothing to do with libertarian thought. While there is certainly political content in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, it is difficult to see how it could be construed as libertarian fiction. And while The Dispossessed is something of a close call on the ground that it is certainly a political book, other books, like J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings just make me scratch my head. I love The Lord of the Rings, but I cannot figure out what it has to do with libertarianism.

1983: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
          Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
1984: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
          Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
1985: The Great Explosion by Eric Frank Russell
          Trader to the Stars by Poul Anderson
1986: The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
          The Syndic by Cyril M. Kornbluth
1987: Anthem by Ayn Rand
          Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
1988: The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
1989: Alongside Night by J. Neil Schulman
1990: Healer by F. Paul Wilson
1991: An Enemy of the State by F. Paul Wilson
1992: This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
1993: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
1994: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
1995: The Star Fox by Poul Anderson
1996: Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein
1997: Methuselah's Children by Robert A. Heinlein
1998: Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein

1999: A Planet for Texans (aka Lonestar Planet) by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

2000: The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen
2001: The Survival of Freedom edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr
2002: The Prisoner written and produced by Patrick McGoohan
2003: Requiem by Robert A. Heinlein
2004: The Ungoverned by Vernor Vinge
2005: The Weapon Shops of Isher by A.E. van Vogt
2006: V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
2007: (tie) It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
          (tie) True Names by Vernor Vinge
2008: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

2009: The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King) by J.R.R. Tolkien

2010: No Truce with Kings by Poul Anderson
2011: Animal Farm by George Orwell
2012: The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
2013: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
2014: Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold
2015: 'Repent Harlequin!' said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison
2016: Courtship Rite by Donald M. Kingsbury
2017: Coventry by Robert A. Heinlein
2018: With Folded Hands . . . by Jack Williamson
2019: Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut

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