james_nicoll ([info]james_nicoll) wrote,
@ 2008-07-23 10:26:00
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Prometheus Award Winners
Via ffutures and papersky:

This year produced a tie for the Prometheus Award:

Jo Walton's Ha'Penny

Harry Turtledove's The Gladiator

Both are published by Tor Books. This is the first tie ever for this award and also the first time in the 29 year history of this award that a female author has won [1] (A number of women have won the Hall of Fame Award and by "a number", I mean the number two). Congratulations to both winners.

I assume that for the purposes of this award, Harry Turtledove will be considered some kind of left-leaning [2] Celt. Oddly, I don't think I ever saw Gladiator, let alone read it.

Rather than split the award money in two, my impression is that the two winners will each get one full ounce of gold. Sadly, this is in the shape of a coin and not a small statuette of Ayn Rand strangling Tommy Douglas.

Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange got the Hall of Fame Award.






1: Ah, you giddy Libertarians. You always know how to make the Hugos look gender balanced.

2: By the standards of the US. Yeah, yeah, bar so low we needed to dig a trench for it.

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[info]stevenagy
2008-07-23 02:45 pm UTC (link)
Nice to see Burgess still getting recognition. Talk about a modern-day visionary. He hit a home run with ACO. I'd place it in the same league as 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 for commentary about perils that can plague society.

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[info]shsilver
2008-07-23 02:46 pm UTC (link)
Actually, Harry's book is The Gladiator, not Gladiator.

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[info]shsilver
2008-07-23 02:47 pm UTC (link)
Also, The Gladiator, as with the rest of Harry's "Crosstime Traffic" series is marketed to the Young Adult audience, which may have something to do with your not having seen it.

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-07-23 02:49 pm UTC (link)
No, I've seen some of the earlier ones (The one with the slaves and the one where North America is Balkanized).

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-07-23 02:53 pm UTC (link)
And I have a vague idea that I saw a third one as well, although not the first one.

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[info]kraig
2008-07-23 03:34 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I wish I'd known that before I picked a couple of them up.

They're not horrible, but he's fairly preachy. Every single protagonist character is absolutely and utterly revolted by fur-wearing, and they always feel the need to remind themselves how other societies are different, but still, they had to TOUCH FUR and they almost BARFED. Two or three times a book. At least. Funny how they generally seem to have little trouble eating meat though.

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-07-23 04:18 pm UTC (link)
There's a Peter Hamilton where the protagonist is extremely upset to discover that the food he has just consumed did not come from a decent civilized food synthesizer but was in fact hacked out of the corpse of a once-living animal.

There's also an amusing Clarke short in which a synthetic food company attempts to drum up political opposition for another company's products by revealing what real world meat the other company is using as the basis for their most recent release.

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[info]kraig
2008-07-23 04:33 pm UTC (link)
I had meant the Cross-Time stuff in particular, but I'm not surprised about the others. Did the Hamilton story characters have difficulty with wearing the skin of dead animals? :)

Hm. Now that I think of it, I don't *think* that the characters in the Cross-Time stuff ever really expressed much distaste for leather, although I suspect they did - just not as much as fur in particular.

Call me ignorant, but do most fur coats and such not have leather as well? Or am I way off-base? I've no idea how fur coats are made, although I did quite like my gloves made of rabbit fur until they started falling apart... only ones I ever got that actually kept my fingers warm.

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(Anonymous)
2008-07-23 05:53 pm UTC (link)
I have some acquaintances who feel very strongly about fur but have no problems about leather. The argument they would make is that leather comes from cows, who are going to be killed anyway to feed the meat-eaters. Leather is not the reason for killing the animal, so it's OK. (I have no idea if leather clothing actually comes from food cows. This is what my friends believe.)

Fur, on the other hand, comes from animals who are killed only for their fur, so the fur-wearer's complicity in the animal's fate is viewed as greater.

There are also concerns about the way the animals are killed. Animals killed for their fur are believed to be killed in worse ways than food animals, because the goal is "preserve the fur", rather than "limit the animal's suffering".

- Ken

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[info]rgovrebo
2008-07-23 06:49 pm UTC (link)
(I have no idea if leather clothing actually comes from food cows. This is what my friends believe.)

There's cow breeds optimized for milk, and there's cow breeds optimized for meat. I've never heard of leather being anything but a byproduct.

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[info]kraig
2008-07-23 06:58 pm UTC (link)
Not all leather is dead cow, but I see the point.

Not all fur comes from animals raised specifically for their pelt either, although I would suspect most does.

I don't think Turtledove never went into the reasons why his characters thought fur-wearing was evil; they just thought it was barbaric and through multiple books the protagonist teenagers felt nauseous when forced to come into contact with it.

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[info]errolwi
2008-07-24 10:19 am UTC (link)
Not all fur comes from animals raised specifically for their pelt either, although I would suspect most does.


Case in point: (Australian) possums in New Zealand are a pest that damage the ecosystem and spread bovine TB. Fur nick-knacks are readily available in tourist locations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Brushtail_Possum#New_Zealand

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[info]ninebelow
2008-07-23 02:50 pm UTC (link)
Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange got the Hall of Fame Award.

Er? Did they give a statement about this award - their homepage is apparently dangerous and my computer won't let me view it - because it doesn't seem an immediately obvious choice.

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[info]kate_nepveu
2008-07-23 02:53 pm UTC (link)
http://papersky.livejournal.com/402956.html?style=mine#cutid1

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[info]ninebelow
2008-07-23 03:02 pm UTC (link)
Thanks! So it has been nominated because it is anti-authoritarian? That seems like a stretch to make it a libertarian novel. And Alex likes to rape and murder the rich whereas libertarians like to rape and murder the poor.

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[info]andrewducker
2008-07-23 03:09 pm UTC (link)
They don't _like_ to - but if the poor aren't willing to pay for their police force then it's darn near a moral imperative for them to be raped and murdered, as a warning to others!

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-07-23 03:10 pm UTC (link)
There have been a number of winners that don't really fit the libertarian mold:

1996 - Ken MacLeod, The Star Fraction

1998 - Ken MacLeod, The Stone Canal

2003 - Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

2006 - Ken MacLeod, Learning the World

2007 - Charles Stross, Glasshouse

Are the ones come to mind first.

Don't Stross and MacLeod frequent the same pub?

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[info]ninebelow
2008-07-23 03:15 pm UTC (link)
Well, MacLeod does like to include left libertarian political thought in his novels so that is sort of understandable. But Night Watch? I thought libertarians were meant to hate paternalism?

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[info]shsilver
2008-07-23 03:35 pm UTC (link)
I've never been able to make any sense of the Prometheus Awards, but maybe I just don't understand Libertarianism.

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[info]dd_b
2008-07-23 04:42 pm UTC (link)
I'm pretty sure I don't understand modern political party Libertarianism either, despite having fairly strong libertarian political leanings.

The Prometheus awards go to books I've read and liked surprisingly often, so far. This is a good thing.

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-07-23 04:46 pm UTC (link)
Adam Smith was a Scotsman. All SF by Scotsmen is therefore seen as libertarian until proven otherwise. All other branches of the Celts [1] are presumed to be at least a bit Scottish.

1: Except maybe the ones in Brittany and Galacia. There are still Celts in Galacia, right? And I am not sure where Asturias and Cantabria would fit in but like Chabut (and for that matter, Canada), this has so far never come up.

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[info]tsm_in_toronto
2008-07-23 10:38 pm UTC (link)
"Galacia":

Galicia_(Spain) -- Celtic (Celtiberian);

Galatia -- Celtic (and, these days, Turkish);

Galicia -- Slavic (and, betimes, Austrian).

HTH




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[info]micheinnz
2008-07-24 05:07 am UTC (link)
If the Bretons are not Scottish enough, how about the Welsh and Cornish?

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[info]mindstalk
2008-07-23 04:51 pm UTC (link)
All the winners I've read make sense to me as winners.

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[info]mindstalk
2008-07-23 04:47 pm UTC (link)
_The Stone Canal_ features a living example of anarcho-capitalism in all its flawed glory; it's beautifully libertarian, I don't know why James included it. _The Star Fraction_ has libertarian sympathies, and a balkanized UK for what that's worth. _Learning the World_ had no obvious human government, just civil society and markets, and the Alien Space Bats might have been more libertarian than the norm, I forget. _Glasshouse_, well, anti-surveillance state stuff, maybe. Like _Ha'penny_.

I don't remember paternalism in Practhett's _Night Watch_. I do remember a comment on how taking knives and swords away from everyone just meant that only the criminals would have swords. Also, dictatorship and state torture run amok.

1: Ah, you giddy Libertarians. You always know how to make the Hugos look gender balanced.

Hey, it's not their fault Ken MacLeod isn't a woman!

I haven't read the books but can guess why _Ha'penny_ won. What does the Turtledove have going for it?

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[info]ninebelow
2008-07-23 05:10 pm UTC (link)
Well, I get a strong whiff of paternalism from all the Discworld novels. I think they at least implicitly endorse the benevolent dictatorship of the Patrician as better than other alternatives. Night Watch is very much a case Vimes knows best.

I do remember a comment on how taking knives and swords away from everyone just meant that only the criminals would have swords.

Aha, this is it! Yes, this must be the reason.

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[info]mindstalk
2008-07-23 05:21 pm UTC (link)
Well, the Patrician is better than the alternatives they have readily available. No one's democratic. The Patrician seems to have been building or encouraging the growth of a civil society, though. Rule of Law, newspapers, post office and Mint, economic over military power, immigration. Some sort of democracy, with an electorate larger than the pool of Guild leaders, might be a logical endpoint. And the books rejected having the Rightful and Good and Oh So Charismatic King take over.

Aha, this is it! Yes, this must be the reason.

Not necessarily *the* reason. I recall now that Night Watch also had popular rebellion against the dictatorship, and a grumpy paean to the importance of grubby trade in feeding the city.

Honestly, people seem surprised every time a book less didactic than L. Neil Smith's stuff wins, when there are common themes of markets, freedom, and individualism, either presented directly or through the effects of their absense.

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-07-23 05:30 pm UTC (link)
Hey, it's not their fault Ken MacLeod isn't a woman!

This is something that can be addressed with modern technolgy.

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[info]mindstalk
2008-07-23 05:34 pm UTC (link)
But it would be unlibertarian to apply it without Ken's consent.

Now, for a suitable price...

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[info]fridgepunk
2008-07-23 07:30 pm UTC (link)
Wouldn't we have to first deregulate his gender, then the market would adjust it as appropriate to ensure gender equality?

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[info]alexx_kay
2008-07-23 04:07 pm UTC (link)
_A Clockwork Orange_ was mysteriously truncated in its original US release (which the movie was, in turn, based upon). The book as written has a concluding chapter which quite changes the message of the work.

From memory (so perhaps somewhat inaccurate): Alex, having become free of the aversion therapy, resumes his life of delinquency... for a while. But it doesn't have the same spark it used to. Eventually, he runs into one of his old droogies in a diner, who has settled down, gotten a job, and gotten married. Alex envies him, and decides to get his own life in order. As a free person, he decides to grow up and join society. That can be read as a libertarian-friendly message.

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[info]dd_b
2008-07-23 04:39 pm UTC (link)
That was not, in fact, in the version of the book I read.

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[info]mindstalk
2008-07-23 04:48 pm UTC (link)
...wow.

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[info]ninebelow
2008-07-23 05:00 pm UTC (link)
Well, I'm in the UK so I've read it as Burgess intended it. I prefer the US version though (as depicted in the film.) Ending on the slyly ironic line that "I was cured all right." is brilliant.

And isn't "growing up and joining society" the exact opposite of libertarianism?

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[info]alexx_kay
2008-07-23 06:20 pm UTC (link)
Being *forced* to join society (as Alex effectively is earlier in the book) is the opposite of libertarianism. But doing so out of *free will* is a different matter entirely. Libertarianism is all about the right to chose, and that includes the right to make conventional choices just as much as nonconventional ones.

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[info]scifantasy
2008-07-23 05:14 pm UTC (link)
That's pretty much how I recall the twenty-first chapter...and it bugs me.

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(Anonymous)
2008-07-23 08:03 pm UTC (link)
The missing droog is Pete, the only one of the four who hasn't reappeared up until now.

Interestingly, Burgess wrote the long version first, but when his American publisher truncated it he decided that he liked that version every bit as well -- even though it completely changed the meaning of the book. (I can't think of another time that's happened, although I'm sure it has.)

Burgess wrote later that the long version, with its possibility of redemption, is the "[John F.] Kennedy version" while the short version, with is dark return and inevitability of human evil, was the "Nixon version".


Doug M.

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[info]tekalynn
2008-07-24 12:27 am UTC (link)
IIRC that Burgess said that the American publisher thought that the twenty-first chapter ruined the cool and edgy feeling of the book, so they cut it. This was the only version that Kubrick had read, so the movie follows it.

Burgess wanted that last chapter to be there to show that Alex reached his majority (twenty-one) and grew up, rather than clinging to perpetual adolescence.

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[info]dd_b
2008-07-23 04:38 pm UTC (link)
Alex, you may remember, is not a *hero*; people saying the book is a good book should not be automatically assumed to be supporting Alex's actions!

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[info]ninebelow
2008-07-23 04:57 pm UTC (link)
I was being slightly tongue in cheek...

No, Alex is not really the hero and although I like the book a great deal that doesn't mean I endorse his actions. However, there are pretty much just two characters in the novel: Alex and the State. Alex is pretty libertarian whereas the State is, erm, the State.

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[info]austin_dern
2008-07-27 04:04 am UTC (link)

Oh, now. It's not like it's the State's fault that Alex failed to pay his Free Will bill for the month.

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[info]mindstalk
2008-07-26 05:43 pm UTC (link)
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.

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[info]whswhs
2008-08-16 07:05 am UTC (link)
It seems that a number of people find the LFS's criteria for giving awards puzzling. Since I'm the Vice President of the LFS, the acting chair of the Hall of Fame committee, and a member of the Best Novel committee (note that these committees DO NOT select the winner; they select the five finalists, who are voted on by the membership generally), I might be able to shed light on this.

Point one: The award is given to the novel, not to the author. It has never been a requirement that the author be an avowed libertarian.

Point two: The novel is for "best libertarian science fiction novel." We look for a book that is science fiction (or fantasy, or another genre that could be called "sf-in-the-broad-sense"), that is libertarian, and that is well written (we don't want to give awards to books that will cause nonlibertarians to say, "Only a libertarian could get any enjoyment out of this!").

Point three: We consider the following types of books to be adequately relevant to libertarianism: Books that portray an imagined society freer than ours; Books that portray an authoritarian or oppressive society and caution against it; Books that portray a movement toward increased freedom; Books that deconstruct nonlibertarian sfnal ideas. In recent years: Learning the World; Ha'Penny and Night Watch; The System of the World and The Gladiator; Psychohistorical Crisis.

A Clockwork Orange falls into category two, if that's not obvious.

I hope this is some help.

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[info]mindstalk
2008-08-16 09:25 am UTC (link)
Hi William!
I anticipate this being a yearly ritual. The Prometheus gets awarded, people marvel, you and I get to point out libertarians not actually having political correctness, at least here, whatever their other potential faults... should I make a point of notifying you next year, so you can be more timely? :)

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[info]whswhs
2008-08-16 01:51 pm UTC (link)
Actually, the LFS is discussing putting up a public Web page that explicitly discusses our criteria, so that anyone who's perplexed can go there. Though I'm sure there will still be people who would rather comment on our lack of rationale than actually look at our rationale.

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