Tuesday, April 17, 2018

2018 Prometheus Award Nominees

Location: Worldcon 76 in San Jose, California.

Comments: The Prometheus Award continues its track record of not really being a "libertarian" award, or at least much of one. The ideologies represented by the list of nominees for the award are all over the place, ranging from Scottish socialism, to reactionary conservatism, to a kind of, sort of libertarianism. This is not a new development for the Prometheus Award - for the last several years I have been trying to figure out what the point of the award is as the libertarian element seems to have faded to an faint background note at best. The odd thing is that writers on the conservative (many of who style themselves as libertarians to a certain extent) have spent the last several years complaining that non-explicitly ideologically oriented genre fiction awards such as the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award have been dominated by factions pushing an ideological agenda, this award, which is supposed to have an explicit ideological bent, has seen its ideological bent leach away into nothingness.

Best Novel

Winner:
The Powers of the Earth by Travis J.I. Corcoran

Finalists:
Artemis by Andy Weir
The Corporation Wars: Emergence by Ken MacLeod
Darkship Revenge by Sarah A. Hoyt
Drug Lord: High Ground by Doug Casey and John Hunt
Torchship, Torchship Pilot, and Torchship Captain by Karl K. Gallagher

Hall of Fame

Winner:
With Folded Hands . . . by Jack Williamson

Finalists:
As Easy as A.B.C. by Rudyard Kipling
Conquest by Default by Vernor Vinge
The Island Worlds by Eric Kotani and John Maddox Roberts
Starfog by Poul Anderson

Previous year's nominees: 2017
Subsequent year's nominees: 2019

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4 comments:

  1. Well, I recall Poul Anderson's Boat Of A Million Years winning one year and that was definitely libertarian in its flavour! I admit I haven't read anything on this year's list.

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    1. @Sue: Boat of a Million Years was nominated for the Prometheus Award, but didn't win. It was also nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards, but didn't win any of those either.

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  2. Really? I’d swear it won the Prometheus! Anyway, it was suited to the libertarian theme.

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    Replies
    1. @Sue: The year it was nominated, Solomon's Knife by Victor Koman won the award.

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