Best Libertarian Science Fiction of the Year Announced

(From the Intellectual Ammunition section in Volume 18, No. 15 of the Liberator Online Subscribe here!) Want some great reading? The Libertarian Futurist Society has some recommendations for you. Each year the Libertarian Futurist Society gives its coveted Prometheus Awards for the best current and classic science fiction and speculative fiction that explores libertarian themes. This year Cory Doctorow won the award for Best Novel for Pirate Cinema (TOR Books). In Pirate Cinema, a young-adults novel, Doctorow explores themes of artistic freedom, Internet freedom and peaceful social change while shedding light on issues of copyright and government surveillance. This is Doctorow’s second Prometheus Award. He won the Best Novel award in 2009 for Little Brother, described by the Libertarian Futurist Society as “an optimistic young-adult novel about a young pirate filmmaker whose Internet activity threatens his family with government reprisals and who learns to fight back against outdated forms of control.” Sounds timely… Cryptonomicon, a 1999 novel by Neal Stephenson, won the 2013 Prometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction. Set during World War II and during the early 21st century, Stephenson’s novel explores the implications for a free society in the development of computation and cryptography. Best Novel finalists for the best pro-freedom novel of the past year are Arctic Rising, by Tobias Buckell (TOR Books); The Unincorporated Future, by Dani and Eytan Kollin (TOR Books); Darkship Renegades, by Sarah Hoyt (Baen Books); and Kill Decision, by Daniel Suarez (Dutton – Penguin). Hall of Fame finalists recognized this year: Sam Hall, by Poul Anderson (a 1953 short story); Falling Free, by Lois McMaster Bujold (a 1988 novel); “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman, by Harlan Ellison (a 1965 short story); Courtship Rite, by Donald M. Kingsbury (a 1982 novel); and As Easy as A.B.C., by Rudyard Kipling (a 1912 short story). The awards will be given in a ceremony at the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio, Texas, which is being held August 29-September 3. For further great libertarian science fiction reading ideas, see the list of past Prometheus Award winners and nominees.