The Prometheus Award

The Prometheus Awards, first presented in 1979 to F. Paul Wilson and administered by the nonprofit Libertarian Futurist Society (www.lfs.org), recognizes outstanding pro-freedom and/or anti-authoritarian speculative fiction. Winners are selected in a ranked vote by LFS members from finalist slates in annual categories for Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame). The 2020 awards ceremony features novelists F. Paul Wilson and Sarah Hoyt, with acceptance speeches by the winners. Among past winners: Hans Christian Anderson, Ray Bradbury, Ernest Cline, Cory Doctorow, Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein, Hoyt, Ursula LeGuin, Ken MacLeod, George Orwell, Jerry Pournelle, Terry Pratchett, Ayn Rand, L. Neil Smith, Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross, J.R.R. Tolkien, Harry Turtledove, Vernor Vinge, Kurt Vonnegut, Jo Walton, Jack Williamson, Wilson and Robert Anton Wilson.)

This year the awards will be followed by a Panel about it’s history.

Prometheus Awards’ 40th Anniversary Ceremony

1:00p.m. - 1:30p.m., Saturday, August 22nd

Moderator: Michael Grossberg

Michael Grossberg co-founded the Libertarian Futurist Society (lfs.org), established in 1981 to sustain the Prometheus Awards, and chairs the Prometheus Awards Best Novel Finalist Judging Committee, which selects annual slates of finalists_._ A theater critic and arts reporter since the early 1980s, Michael has contributed to six books, including critical essays for the annual Best Plays Theatre Yearbook, and an essay/afterword for the first paperback edition of J. Neil Schulman’s Prometheus-winning novel_The Rainbow Cadenza_; written reviews for Reason_magazine, wrote a regional column for years with Backstage, the national performing-arts weekly; and helped lead the American Theatre Critics Association and administer its national new-play and regional-Tony awards. Michael won the 2019 Society of Profession_Journalists awards for Best Critic in Ohio (also 2015) and Best Arts Reporting (won seven times).

Moderator: Tom Jackson

Tom Jackson, an Ohio resident, is a newspaper reporter for The Sandusky Register who has also worked as a reporter in Cleveland, Ohio, and in Oklahoma. He writes a blog, RAWIllumination.net, devoted to writers Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea (Prometheus Hall of Fame winners for _The Illuminatus_trilogy). He has been active in fandom for years, contributing to fanzines, attending conventions and participating in the apas APA-50 and FAPA. He is a member of the board of the Libertarian Futurist Society (lfs.org), which presents the Prometheus Award, and serves as a judge on the Prometheus Award nominating committee.

Presenting Best Novel category: Prometheus winner F. Paul Wilson

F. Paul Wilson, a New Jersey resident, Grand Master Horror award-winner and Prometheus Award Lifetime Achievement winner, has written over 60 books spanning science fiction, horror, adventure, medical thrillers, young-adult, etc. – including the Prometheus Award (www.lfs.org) winners Wheels within Wheels, an sf murder mystery; Sims; Healer;_and _An Enemy of the State._Wilson, who sold his first story to Analog in 1970 and has 8 million books in U.S. print, is best known as creator of the urban mercenary Repairman Jack (featured in his latest novel The Last Christmas). Among his New York Times bestsellers: The Keep (also a 1983 Paramount film),The Tomb, Harbingers, By the Sword, The Dark at the End, and_Nightworld.

Presenting Hall of Fame category: Prometheus winner Sarah Hoyt

Sarah Hoyt, a Colorado resident, is an American science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and historical fiction writer. After moving to the United States in the early 1980s, and becoming a U.S. citizen in 1988, she began writing under her own name and under the noms de plume Sarah D’Almeida, Elise Hyatt, Sarah Marques, Laurien Gardner and Sarah Marques de Almeida Hoyt. Hoyt won the 2011 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for her science fiction novel Darkship Thieves, the first in a future-history series of novels set within our solar system and including a libertarian anarchist society in the asteroids_._ She also won the 2018 Dragon Award for Best Alternate History Novel for Uncharted, co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson.

Visions of SF, Liberty, Human Rights: The Prometheus Awards over Four Decades, from F. Paul Wilson and Robert Heinlein to Today

How have our visions of a free, dynamic and better future, with universal respect for each other’s rights, evolved and changed in science fiction/fantasy? What about cautionary dystopian visions, from Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm to Doctorow’s Little Brother? Prometheus-winning authors Sarah Hoyt (Darkship Thieves), William H. Stoddard and F. Paul Wilson (An Enemy of the State, Repairman Jack series) will join journalists Michael Grossberg and Tom Jackson in examining the perennial tensions between Liberty and Power and cooperation versus coercion, as reflected in these and other authors’ diverse Prometheus Award winners over the past 40 years.

1:30p.m. - 2:30p.m., Saturday, August 22nd

Panelist: Michael Grossberg

Michael Grossberg co-founded the Libertarian Futurist Society (lfs.org), established in 1981 to sustain the Prometheus Awards, and chairs the Prometheus Awards Best Novel Finalist Judging Committee, which selects annual slates of finalists_._ A theater critic and arts reporter since the early 1980s, Michael has contributed to six books, including critical essays for the annual Best Plays Theatre Yearbook, and an essay/afterword for the first paperback edition of J. Neil Schulman’s Prometheus-winning novel_The Rainbow Cadenza_; written reviews for Reason_magazine, wrote a regional column for years with Backstage, the national performing-arts weekly; and helped lead the American Theatre Critics Association and administer its national new-play and regional-Tony awards. Michael won the 2019 Society of Profession_Journalists awards for Best Critic in Ohio (also 2015) and Best Arts Reporting (won seven times).

Panelist: Sarah Hoyt

Sarah Hoyt, a Colorado resident, is an American science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and historical fiction writer. After moving to the United States in the early 1980s, and becoming a U.S. citizen in 1988, she began writing under her own name and under the noms de plume Sarah D’Almeida, Elise Hyatt, Sarah Marques, Laurien Gardner and Sarah Marques de Almeida Hoyt. Hoyt won the 2011 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for her science fiction novel Darkship Thieves, the first in a future-history series of novels set within our solar system and including a libertarian anarchist society in the asteroids_._ She also won the 2018 Dragon Award for Best Alternate History Novel for Uncharted, co-authored with Kevin J. Anderson.

Moderator: Tom Jackson

Tom Jackson, an Ohio resident, is a newspaper reporter for The Sandusky Register who has also worked as a reporter in Cleveland, Ohio, and in Oklahoma. He writes a blog, RAWIllumination.net, devoted to writers Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea (Prometheus Hall of Fame winners for _The Illuminatus_trilogy). He has been active in fandom for years, contributing to fanzines, attending conventions and participating in the apas APA-50 and FAPA. He is a member of the board of the Libertarian Futurist Society (lfs.org), which presents the Prometheus Award, and serves as a judge on the Prometheus Award nominating committee.

Panelist: William H. Stoddard

William H. Stoddard is a copy editor specializing in scientific and scholarly publications. He has written more than two dozen GURPS supplements for Steve Jackson Games, beginning with GURPS Steampunk in 2000, which won an Origins Award for best role playing supplement. He is the president of the Libertarian Futurist Society, and many of his essays and reviews have appeared on its Prometheus blog (http://lfs.org/blog/).

Panelist: F. Paul Wilson

F. Paul Wilson, a New Jersey resident, Grand Master Horror award-winner and Prometheus Award Lifetime Achievement winner, has written over 60 books spanning science fiction, horror, adventure, medical thrillers, young-adult, etc. – including the Prometheus Award (www.lfs.org) winners Wheels within Wheels, an sf murder mystery; Sims; Healer;_and _An Enemy of the State._Wilson, who sold his first story to Analog in 1970 and has 8 million books in U.S. print, is best known as creator of the urban mercenary Repairman Jack (featured in his latest novel The Last Christmas). Among his New York Times bestsellers: The Keep (also a 1983 Paramount film),The Tomb, Harbingers, By the Sword, The Dark at the End, and_Nightworld.