“Ready Player One” and “The Freedom Maze” win the Prometheus Award for best novel

Congratulations to Ernie Cline for winning the 2012 Prometheus Award for Best Novel! His book, Ready Player One, shared the prize with The Freedom Maze, by Delia Sherman. Both Cline and Sherman will receive one-ounce gold coins (what else would you expect from the Libertarian Futurist Society?).

Delia Sherman’s young-adult fantasy novel focuses on an adolescent girl of 1960 who is magically sent back in time to 1860 when her family owned slaves on a Louisiana plantation. She’s mistaken for a light-skinned slave fathered by a plantation owner. She endures great hardships, commiserates with others suffering worse, works in the household and the fields, and sees the other slaves demonstrating their humanity in the face of incredible adversity. In the process, she comes to appreciate the values of honor, respect, courage, and personal responsibility.

Ernest Cline’s genre-busting blend of science fiction, romance, suspense, and adventure describes a virtual world that has managed to evolve an order without a state in which entrepreneurial gamers must solve virtual puzzles and battle real-life enemies to save their virtual world from domination and corruption. The main characters work together without meeting in the real world until near the end of the story. The novel stresses the importance of allowing open access to the Internet for everyone.