Prometheus 2006 Awards Winners Announced
British author Ken MacLeod won his third Prometheus Award for best novel for Learning the World, an inventive first-contact novel that explores the politics involved from two perspectives: the natives of the planet and the "alien" (human) visitors.
MacLeod also won Prometheus Awards for The Stone Canal (1998) and The Star Fraction (1996.)
The other Prometheus finalists for Best Novel, a category recognizing pro-freedom novels published in the previous calendar year, include Chainfire, by Terry Goodkind (TOR Books); 47, by Walter Mosley (Little, Brown and Company); The Hidden Family, by Charles Stross (TOR); The Black Arrow, by Vin Suprynowicz (Mountain Media); and RebelFire: Out of the Gray Zone, by Claire Wolfe and Aaron Zelman (RebelFire Press)
* Author Alan Moore and illustrator David Lloyd are the winners of this year's Prometheus Award for Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) for "V for Vendetta", an innovative and visually striking graphic novel about an anti-state anarchist hero who fights authoritarian repression.
The Prometheus Award for Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) 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:
The other Hall of Fame finalists: A Clockwork Orange, a novel (1963) by Anthony Burgess; As Easy as A.B.C., a short story (1912) by Rudyard Kipling; It Can't Happen Here, a novel (1936) by Sinclair Lewis; and The Lord of the Rings, a trilogy of novels (1954) by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Special Awards committee submitted a recommended citation about Joss Whedon's film Serenity that was subsequently approved in a vote of the entire LFS membership:
* "To Serenity, writer-director Joss Whedon's fun-loving and pro-freedom movie that portrays resistance fighters struggling against oppressive collectivism (based on the unfortunately short-lived TV series Firefly)."
This is the first Special Prometheus Award to a film and a film's writer-director. Special Awards, only presented four times before, have recognized libertarian anthologies (such as "Free Space"), an adaptation of a Prometheus Best Novel winner into a graphic novel (The Probability Broach: The Graphic Novel) and for lifetime achievement (Poul Anderson).
The Prometheus awards for Best Novel, Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) and (occasional) Special awards honor outstanding science fiction/fantasy that explores the possibilities of a free future, champions human rights (including personal and economic liberty), dramatizes the perennial conflict between individuals and coercive governments, or critiques the tragic consequences of abuse of power-- especially by the State.
The Prometheus Award, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (lfs.org), was established in 1979, making it one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf. Presented annually since 1982 at the World Science Fiction Convention, the Prometheus Awards include a gold coin and plaque for each of the winners.