Editorial

Under the new eligibility rules for the LFS's Hall of Fame award, a far greater variety of works are open to consideration. This year's five finalists partially reflected this openness, including a literary anthology, Jerry Pournelle's The Survival of Freedom, which won, and a dramatic work, Melinda Snodgrass's "The Measure of a Man," which was an episode on Star Trek: The Next Generation. But these nominees offer only the first hint at the range of new works open to recognition.

Short stories, as well as novels, are now open to nomination. Rudyard Kipling's "As Easy as A.B.C." offers a radical vision of the future that is also a powerful commentary on Kipling's own time; a Hall of Fame Award might help it gain more readers, as it richly deserves. More recent stories such as Robert Heinlein's "Requiem," Poul Anderson's "The Man Who Came Early" and "Starfog," and Connie Willis's "Even the Queen" also deserve to be considered.

We have had our first nomination of a dramatic work, but other such works are also deserving. To start with, there is the entire series The Prisoner, a compelling dramatic statement about resistance to authority that still has many fans both within the libertarian community and elsewhere. Really the entire series deserves recognition, but if the Hall of Fame Committee prefers to recognize single episodes, several could easily be chosen. Individual episodes of other shows, such as the Twilight Zone classic "To Serve Man," could also be considered.

Moving to dramatic works at greater length, Brazil offers a dystopian vision of political oppression as compelling as many literary dystopias. The Man Who Fell to Earth also deserves a libertarian audience for its portrait of a technological innovator attacked by a government seeking economic stability.

Popular music has mostly been influenced by conventional left-liberal viewpoints, but Rush's music has been a welcome exception; their album 2112 consciously evokes Ayn Rand's dystopian novella Anthem. And many libertarians have admired the classic Who album Who's Next for the survivalist "Baba O'Reilly," the hymn to transportation "Going Mobile" (reminiscent of Kipling's slogan "Transportation is civilization" in "As Easy as A.B.C."), and the critique of revolutionary politics "Won't Get Fooled Again," among other songs. Individual songs may still be too small to consider, but Creedence Clearwater's "Who'll Stop the Rain" may ring a few libertarian bells with "Five year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains."

Finally, at least one comic book series (since published as a graphic novel) actually was considered for the Prometheus Award: V for Vendetta, Alan Moore's story of a one-man revolution against a future British tyranny.

The new rules free the Hall of Fame judges to consider such works; let them profit from their freedom!