SF writer par excellence, Boing Boinger, lecturer and gentleman Cory Doctorow has won this year’s Prometheus Award, given by the Libertarian Futurist Society for science fiction which explores notions of liberty and freedom. Cory’s acclaimed Young Adult novel Little Brother, which has youngsters becoming grassroots activists in the face of governments endlessly curtailing civil liberties and intruding into our privacy ‘to protect us’ after terrorist attacks.
I know Cory has long been a campaigner against exactly this sort of government scare-mongering and use of fear to pass laws unchallenged which greatly interfere with the very liberties we are supposedly trying to defend and that Little Brother has inspired a lot of youngsters around the globe to tackle the surveillance society (it doesn’t hurt for kids to learn not to always take a government’s justification for their actions as gospel in my opinion), so this must be the cherry on the cake for him to win the Promethean, especially on the very first time he was nominated for the award. JRR Tolkien’s mighty classic Lord of the Rings was inducted to the Hall of Fame; the award will be given out at Worldcon. Cory joins previous winners such as Ken MacLeod, his sometime writing partner Charlie Stross, Vernor Vinge, TerryPratchett, Neal Stephenson and Larry Niven – some seriously heavyweight science fiction literary company. (via SF Awards Watch)
Tue, Jul 7, 2009
Awards, Books