Liberty, Art, & Culture Vol. 26, No. 4 Summer 2008 2008 Prometheus Award Winners Announced The Libertarian Fu- the past. Burgess’s novel turist Society presented is a graphic depiction of awards to the winners of a dystopian and authori- the annual Prometheus tarian society. Alex is an Award in Denver, Colo- unapologetic ultraviolent rado at Denvention 3, the criminal who is eventually 66th World Science Fiction captured and sent to prison. Convention, on August The ultimate horror oc- 6th 2008. curs when he is subjected For the first time since to an experimental form the award was established of aversion therapy, and in 1979 there was a tie in his love of music is taken voting for the Best Novel away along with his taste award, so Jo Walton and for violence. Harry Turtledove each The other finalists for received a plaque and a Best Novel were Ragamuffin, one-ounce gold coin. The by Tobias S. Buckell; The Co-winners are Ha’penny, Execution Channel, by Ken by Jo Walton (Tor Books), and The Gladiator, by Harry Turtle- MacLeod; and Fleet of Worlds, by Larry Niven and Edward dove (Tor Books). The award for Best Classic Fiction (the Hall of Fame award) —Continued on page 10 Hall of Fame Award goes to A Clockwork Orange, a novel by Anthony Burgess. Harry Turtledove received a previous Best Novel nomination Inside Prometheus: in 1999 for Between the Rivers from TOR Books, but this is his Reviews: first time to win the award. The Gladiator is part of Turtledove’s Crosstime Traffic series, which is aimed at young adults. The In War Times, by Kathleen Ann Goonan story follows some teenagers in an alternate Italy with a com- Bright the Sky & A World Too Near, munist government and a mostly compliant society. The young- by Kay Kenyon sters discover a store selling role-playing games that promote Hurricane Moon, by Alexis Glynn Latner entrepreneurial behavior and independent thinking and learn Publicani, by Zak Maymin a lot about their society as they explore the games. This was Jo Walton’s first nomination for a Prometheus. The Coming Convergence, by Stanley Schmidt Ha’penny is a follow-up to Farthing, published in 2006. The Roswell, Texas, by L. Neil Smith, Rex May, novels are alternate histories that take place in a Britain that Scott Bieser, Jen Zach made peace with Hitler in 1941 and has slowly been turning Halting State, by Charles Stross more fascist itself. In Ha’penny, Scotland Yard Inspector Peter Opening Atlantis, by Harry Turtledove Carmichael is assigned to investigate an explosion in a Lon- don Suburb that leads to evidence of a conspiracy. The story Ha’penny, by Jo Walton portrays the fall of a society into totalitarianism, emphasizing Serenity: Better Days, by Joss Whedon et al subtle moral corruption rather than overt brutality. Franz Kafka’s The Trial, Directed by A Clockwork Orange has been nominated several times in Orson Welles Prometheus Volume 26, Number 4, 2008 The Libertarian Futurist Society The newsletter of the Board members Libertarian Futurist Society President — Chris Hibbert Vice President — William H. Stoddard Editor Treasurer — Fred Curtis Moulton Anders Monsen Secretary — Michael Grossberg David Tuchman, Rick Triplett, & Joseph P. Martino Contributors Chris Hibbert Thomas E. Jackson Director — Charles Morrison Max Jahr Assistant Director — Steve Burgauer Phil Maymin William H. Stoddard Webmaster Fran Van Cleave Tod Casasent 2008 Prometheus Awards News Letters and Submissions: Anders Monsen 501 Abiso Ave. San Antonio, TX 78209 [email protected] Subscriptions & Advertisements Libertarian Futurist Society 650 Castro St. Suite 120-433 Mountain View, CA 94041 [email protected] LFS Online: http://www.lfs.org Basic Membership: $25/yr ($30 int’l Full Membership: $50/yr Sponsors: $100/yr Benefactors: $200/yr Subscriptions: $20/yr ($25 int’l) All memberships include one-year sub- scriptions to Prometheus. Fran Van Cleave holds the Hall of Harry Turtledove and Jo Walton, co-winners of Classified ads: 50 cents/word, 10 percent Fame Award for Anthony Burgess’ the Prometheus Award for Best Novel, for The off for multiple insertions. Display ad novel, A Clockwork Orange. Gladiator and Ha’penny, respectively. rates available. All checks payable to the Libertarian Futurist Society. The 2008 Prometheus Awards for Best Van Cleave, also representing the LFS, Novel and Best Classic Fiction were held accepted the award for Classic Fiction, Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 pm in the also known as the Hall of Fame, for Denver Convention Center at Denven- Anthony Burgess’s savagely dystopian Prometheus © 2008 the Libertarian Futurist tion, the 66th World Science Fiction novel, A Clockwork Orange. Burgess died Society. The LFS retains a non-exclusive Convention. This year marked two firsts in 1993. license to republish accepted articles on its Web site; all other rights revert to in the history of the Prometheus Awards Turtledove then made a brief state- the contributor. Letters and reviews are for Best Novel: First female winner and ment, followed by Walton. The floor welcome. Bylined articles are strictly the first tie. was then opened for questions, and the opinion of the writer and do not neces- Both of the Best Novel winners were awards presentation closed with photo- sarily reflect the opinion of the LFS or on hand for the presentation of the graphs of the winners. its members. awards, which was hosted by LFS rep- A full WorldCon report with all resentative, Fred Curtis Moulton. Fran speeches will appear in the Fall issue. Page 2 Volume 26, Number 4, 2008 Prometheus The other two investigators in this story are a professional OOK EVIEWS auditor and a programmer she hires as a consultant. Both have backgrounds in virtual reality games, but of very different B R kinds. The three focal characters are dissimilar enough to be easily told apart, but they have at least one important thing Halting State in common: all three are competent, not just technically but By Charles Stross as a general attitude toward life—they have what Ayn Rand Ace, 2007 and her followers called “efficacy.” Reading about people Reviewed by William H. Stoddard like this is one of the pleasures of science fiction and some other forms of genre fiction, less often found in mainstream fiction, and Stross provides it in good measure. By the end of When I bought Halting State, I hoped it might turn out the novel, the competence of all three viewpoint characters to be a suitable nominee for this year’s Prometheus award. has been repeatedly tested. Stross’s previous fiction has often used libertarian ideas in an The other thing that made this book enjoyable to read intelligent and informed way (notably in Singularity Sky and was its undercurrent of humor. This is partly a matter of its sequel, Iron Sunrise); and I’d read that this novel involved a characterization, and partly of ingenious small references to financial firm called Hayek Associates, which sounded like a the science fictional subculture. All the way through my first promising little joke. Having read it twice, though, I don’t see reading, I kept pausing to smile or laugh out loud. All in all, much in the way of libertarian content. It’s merely an intel- I recommend this as an entertaining and thought-provoking ligent, well-written, and sometimes quite funny novel that I book for anyone who likes police procedurals, technothrillers, found a delight to read. cyberpunk, or just clever extrapolations of the near future. Halting State is the same kind of departure for Stross that Rainbows End was for Vernor Vinge. It represents a move from the distant interstellar future to events a decade or two from now, from space opera to technothriller. In fact, the two Publicani novels have a lot of common themes, including international By Zak Maymin political conflict, the transformation of espionage by radical BookSurge Publishing, 2008 decentralization based on computer networks, and the real- Reviewed by Phil Maymin world impact of virtual reality and computer games. They’re also alike in having a strong sense of place: Rainbows End takes You never hear people badmouth the income tax anymore. place in San Diego, and Halting State mainly in Edinburgh and Not even this week, when each of our three hundred thousand Glasgow, meaning that each author is writing about a place Fairfield County households will on average fork over twenty and a cultural milieu he’s personally familiar with, extrapolated thousand dollars, hundreds of pieces of private and personal by a decade or two. information, dozens of otherwise enjoyable hours, and all of Halting State has many elements of another genre: the police our self-respect. procedural. One of its viewpoint characters, Sue Smith, is a Maybe it’s the Stockholm Syndrome in action, where, as detective in Edinburgh who’s called in to investigate a bank hostages, we begin to sympathize with our captors who pun- robbery. But this is an unusual sort of bank robbery: the bank ish and rape us. Whatever the reason, it’s nearly impossible is located in a virtual world, its clients are player characters to say the income tax is evil. You’re either labeled a nut, an in a fantasy game setting, and the robbers were a band of insurgent, or a greedy bastard. But is it really crazy to observe orcs backed up by a fire-breathing dragon. On the other that an income tax penalizes effort? Is it really unpatriotic to hand, the simulated currency of this setting has an exchange want your country to be free? Is it greedy to want to keep value, not just with the simulated currencies of other game what’s yours? environments, but with real world currencies.