Watching the Prometheus Awards: Creative, compelling, memorable, “an intellectual treat and a joy”


Note: The 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, presented by the Libertarian Futurist Society via Zoom on Aug. 16, 2026, attracted a large audience and sparked quite a few comments from viewers. Here is one response from a viewer, which we are sharing because it is a welcome reminder of the  intellectual and emotional impact that the Prometheus Awards can have in sometimes subtle and surprising ways.

By Margot Lisa Miglins, Ph.D.

I had the great pleasure of watching the 46th Prometheus Awards presentation. These annual awards celebrate the obvious link between libertarian principles and science fiction/fantasy literature as an important vehicle for communicating these principles to broad audiences in creative, compelling, and memorable ways. It was an intellectual treat and a joy to observe the presentation.

LFS hosts and speakers are an extraordinary group of highly-educated, eloquent, freedom-loving readers, writers and sf/f enthusiasts. Their prepared remarks and illuminative talking points were uniformly excellent and complemented the authors and books being honored, as well as the nominees.
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The 46th Prometheus Awards: Cato scholar Ilya Somin’s keynote speech (Part 2) on Heinlein, Star Trek, dystopias, technological optimism, SF/fantasy in popular culture and why it’s the most libertarian genre


Libertarian scholar Ilya Somin Photo: Creative Commons license)

Editor’s Note: This is the second part of the keynote speech that Cato Institute scholar and law professor Ilya Somin, a lifelong SF/fantasy fan, gave when he presented the 2026 Prometheus Hall of Fame award.  His speech, a highlight of the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony in August, explores libertarian currents in SF/fantasy.

By Ilya Somin

There are, of course, many other libertarian themes in prominent science fiction and fantasy works. I do not have time to go over them all. I’ll just mention a few.

Robert Heinlein, as most of you, like we know, was one of the founding fathers of modern American science fiction, and he of course, was consciously libertarian, his ideology.

The same thing is true of a number of other very prominent science fiction writers like L. Neil Smith, Larry Niven, and David Brin, though obviously for example Brin has a very different strain of libertarianism than Heinlein.

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Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Hunger Games and other libertarian currents in science fiction and fantasy: Cato scholar Ilya Somin’s keynote speech at the 46th Prometheus Awards


Ilya Somin (File photo)

Editor’s Note: Cato Institute scholar, author and law professor Ilya Somin (also a lifelong SF/fantasy fan) gave the keynote address and presented the Prometheus Hall of Fame award at the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony. Here is the first part of his speech on libertarian currents in SF/fantasy.

By Ilya Somin

It is an honor to be here and to have a small hand in presenting this award appropriately. I’m going to devote my keynote talk to discussing the relationship between libertarianism and science fiction, broadly defined.

I will explain why libertarianism is more represented in the science fiction genre and in the closely related fantasy genre than probably in any other literary or popular culture genre. I’ll give some examples, and I’ll briefly talk about why it matters, why we should care.

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The 46th Prometheus Awards: Raconteur Press’ Ian McMurtrie makes commitment to continue publishing stories of courage, self-reliance, resilience, honor and valor

 

Editor’s note: Raconteur Press published two of this year’s three Prometheus winners: J. Kenton Pierce’s A Kiss for Damocles, the 2026 Best Novel winner; and Dave Freer’s Storm-Dragon, which received the first Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction.

Co-publisher Ian McMurtrie made these remarks Aug. 16, 2026, at the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony.

By Ian McMurtrie

Good afternoon, members of the Society, fans, ladies and gentlemen.

On behalf of Dave Freer and Kenton Pierce; on behalf of the fans, and of the staff at Raconteur Press, allow us to express our delight at our authors winning not one, but two Prometheus Awards in our inaugural year of publishing novels and Boy’s Adventure books.

We consider this honor from the members of the Libertarian Futurist Society to be solid proof that there is still a place in this jaded world for stories of courage, self-reliance, honor, resilience, and yes – valor.

In this new Golden Age of Publishing, these awards are proof that the field remains wide open to anyone with a vision, drive, and grit.

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Heinlein remembered at the LA Worldcon

By Michael Grossberg

Grand Master Robert Heinlein was remembered during LACon V, the recent World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles/Anaheim, California.

L-R: John Tilden, Marie Guthrie, Jason Aukerman, Robert James, Mike Sheffield at LACon V’s Heinlein panel (Photo courtesy of File 770 and Worldcon)

An “LA and Heinlein” panel discussion, highlighted in a File 770 post with this picture, included speakers from academia and the Heinlein Society.

“RAH has been gone for decades but he was still very much alive in the “L.A. and Heinlein” panel… It was an interesting hour of being walked through the Los Angeles years of Heinlein’s life and hearing about how he was an Influence for some of the then-fledgling writers there,” Rich Lynch wrote in his brief report.

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Two-time Prometheus winner Travis Corcoran to release his first Aristillus novel in nearly a decade


By Michael Grossberg

Science fiction novelist Travis Corcoran is gearing up to publish a new novel in his Prometheus-winning Aristillus series.

Corcoran has launched a Kickstarter campaign for Aristillus: Escape From Io, his first new Aristillus novel in almost ten years.

“The manuscript is complete,” Corcoran said.

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The 46th Prometheus Awards: Trev Huxley’s Brave New World acceptance speech about our surveillance society and the ‘designer drug’ of social media

Editor’s note: Trev and Tessa Huxley, Aldous Huxley’s grandchildren, spoke Aug. 16, 2026, at the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony to accept the award for Huxley’s classic dystopian novel Brave New World, the 50th work to be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame. This is Trev Huxley’s speech.

Trev Huxley speaking at the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony on Zoom (File photo)

By Trev Huxley

I look around today and find myself in a world that’s a combination of my grandfather’s, Aldous Huxley, Brave New World and his former student George Orwell’s 1984.

A number of years ago I sat down with a senior Facebook executive who during our discussion looked at me and said “Trev we know more about you than you know about yourself.”

It was a bit of a boast, but not one that was a very hollow boast. They at the time were acquiring every commercially known database that they could get their hands on and compiling with the data they collected to create a profile of everyone in their network.

We now live in a society where surveillance has gotten into such an extreme level that the Chinese government virtually knows everything about everyone that lives there and can track them everywhere in real time. That’s the 1984 downside of my reality.

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The 46th Prometheus Awards: Tessa Huxley on her grandfather Aldous Huxley and the relevance today of Brave New World, the 2026 Hall of Fame winner


Editor’s note: Tessa Huxley, Aldous Huxley’s granddaughter, spoke Aug. 16, 2026, at the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony to accept the award for Huxley’s classic dystopian novel Brave New World, the 50th work to be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.

By Tessa Huxley

For some reason I felt the need to reread Brave New World in February of this year, long before Michael Grossberg wrote to my brother and I regarding the Prometheus Award. Like many of you, I am sure, I had read it as a teenager and again in my late 20’s and in my 30’s.

What really struck me in February was just how incredibly relevant the book is today, in 2026.

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The 46th Prometheus Awards: Dave Freer’s Storm-Dragon acceptance speech about reaching and inspiring young readers



Editor’s note: Dave Freer won the first Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction for his novel Storm-Dragon, published by Raconteur Press. Speaking from his home in Tasmania, Australia, Freer delivered this acceptance speech Aug. 16, 2026, via Zoom during the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony.

“Reading is vital – to civilization, to liberty, to everything we wish for our species, especially for our young.” – Dave Freer

By Dave Freer

Author Dave Freer at his home desk in Tasmania Photo courtesy of author

Good afternoon everybody. For me that is actually ‘good predawn’ because it is 3 AM here. Like many authors I’ve kept a notebook next to the bedside so I could, on waking, hastily write down the gifts of the muse that sorted themselves into brilliance while I slept.

Unfortunately, the morning usually revealed gems like: ‘Orglvard at speed, with minchins and porgies.’  which I am sure meant something at the time, and was quite brilliant. I hope I am a little more awake than that, but I am not betting on it. I plead forgiveness in advance.

Firstly: Thank you all for awarding the Special Prometheus prize for Young Adult Literature to my book Storm-Dragon.

I am delighted to accept it. It’s flattering for me, but that is really rather beside the point. The real delight is that the Prometheus – an award which is a reliable indicator ‘you will love the book’ has put its mark on a YA SF-novel.

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The 46th Prometheus Awards: Special Awards presenter Travis Corcoran on wonder, adventure, liberty, culture and the vital need for Young Adult Fiction


Travis Corcoran (File photo)

Travis Corcoran,  a guest speaker at the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, was introduced by LFS President William H. Stoddard with these words:
“The Best Novel and Hall of Fame awards are given annually. But the LFS also gives Special Awards, not every year, but when there’s a deserving recipient. A few years ago, we established the category of Special Awards for Young Adult Fiction. This year, for the first time, we’re giving such an award.
“To present this award, we have invited Travis Corcoran to speak. Corcoran received our Best Novel award in 2018 and 2019 for the two volumes of his Aristillus series, The Powers of the Earth  and Causes of Separation; this year he has published a new novel, Red State Mars. He currently serves as a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. We look forward to hearing what he has to say about young adult fiction and about this year’s honoree.”

By Travis Corcoran

There’s a strange thing about systems – they have state, and often state comes in two or more types, which trade off against each other.

Pendulums have both kinetic energy and potential energy.  When a pendulum is dead still, it’s at its highest altitude, and when it’s moving rapidly, it’s at its lowest. Social phenomena can also have state that’s traded back and forth – hobbies and subcultures often reach their absolute peak at exactly the point when growth has fallen to zero. …but there’s no law of conservation of energy in subcultures – a hobby can lose both size and energy at the same time!

Ham radio, bowling leagues – many hobbies have suffered from losing both “altitude” and “speed” at the same time.  Deadly in an airplane as a private pilot, and equally deadly to a subculture. …deadly in a subculture like science fiction, generally, or libertarian science fiction, more specifically.

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