One Prometheus-nominated author hails another in John C.A. Manley’s rave review of Dave Freer’s Young-Adult-oriented Storm-Dragon

By Michael Grossberg

Dave Freer’s Storm-Dragon, one of 14 works nominated for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel, has been receiving some nice reviews from readers.

One of the most appreciative reviews has come from science-fiction novelist John C.A. Manley, himself nominated in the same Prometheus category this year for All the Humans Are Sleeping. Exploring issues of consent, freedom and technocracy, Manley’s dystopian SF novel focuses on a man who refuses to enter a virtual reality simulation prepared for survivors of a nuclear apocalypse.

Left to right: Jonah Manley and his father, author John C.A. Manley with a favorite book (Image from Manley’s blog)

To put it mildly, Manley’s nominated novel is quite different from Freer’s Young-Adult-oriented nominee.

“Imagine Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn appearing in Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon, add a little of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, and you’ve got Storm-Dragon by Dave Freer,” Manley writes.

Titled “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (but with Big Spaceships and a Small Dragon),” Manley’s review begins with a confession: He’s not “a big fan” of young adult fiction – and he offers several of the best-known examples to prove it.

“But Storm-Dragon had my son and me hooked by chapter two,” Manley writes.

Continue reading One Prometheus-nominated author hails another in John C.A. Manley’s rave review of Dave Freer’s Young-Adult-oriented Storm-Dragon

Two Prometheus Hall of Fame classics appear on the list of singer/songwriter David Bowie’s top-100 greatest books

By Michael Grossberg

Singer-songwriter-actor David Bowie (Creative Commons license)

David Bowie is remembered as one of the past half-century’s greatest singer-songwriters.

Perhaps less well known was the extraordinary intelligence and eclectic literacy of Bowie, who died at 69 in 2016. He read widely, broadening his understanding and appreciation of the world and humanity, at its best and worst.

The Bowie Book Club has preserved a list of Bowie’s top-100 books that he read and ranked highest during his lifetime as major influences on his thinking, creativity and development of artistic tastes.

Among them are two Prometheus Hall of Fame winners for Best Classic Fiction: George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, inducted in 1984, and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, inducted in 2008.

Continue reading Two Prometheus Hall of Fame classics appear on the list of singer/songwriter David Bowie’s top-100 greatest books

Swan Song and “Finnish Weird” SF: Prometheus winner Johanna Sinisalo recognized as Star Rover finalist in top Finland award


By Michael Grossberg

Johanna Sinisalo (Credit: Creative Commons photo)

Kudos to Johanna Sinisalo, most familiar to readers of this blog as winner of the 2017 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

Sinisalo, widely hailed as one of Finland’s leading novelists, has been recognized as a finalist in Finland’s top science fiction award.

The Helsinki Science Fiction Society has announced 2026 finalists for its Tähtivaeltaja (“Star Rover”) Award for the best science fiction book published in Finland in the previous year.

Continue reading Swan Song and “Finnish Weird” SF: Prometheus winner Johanna Sinisalo recognized as Star Rover finalist in top Finland award


Vernor Vinge and Terry Pratchett: A hidden connection between two Prometheus winners, one a master of serious SF, the other of satirical fantasy

By Michael Grossberg

Acclaimed SF writer Vernor Vinge (Creative Commons license)

Vernor Vinge wrote serious science fiction; Terry Pratchett wrote fantasy with a strong comical and satirical focus.

Terry Pratchett in 2012. (Creative Commons license)

Although each writer won more than one Prometheus Award for works that wove in libertarian and anti-authoritarian insights and themes, few of us tend to think of these two late great authors in the same breath, or any close to the same fiction or genre category.

While surely their respective fan bases overlap to some extent, even the hardest-core Pratchett and Vinge fans probably wouldn’t imagine that much else might link them – especially Fans of Vernor Vinge and Terry Pratchett, even if that fan base overlaps, probably don’t think of both authors together.

Yet, they had a strong connection in fiction, with one author favorably mentioning and imagining the future work of the other in a novel.

Continue reading Vernor Vinge and Terry Pratchett: A hidden connection between two Prometheus winners, one a master of serious SF, the other of satirical fantasy

Review: Sarah Hoyt’s No Man’s Land develops rich tapestry blending SF/fantasy tropes to imagine “first contact” with vast cultural, political and gender differences


By Michael Grossberg

Sarah Hoyt has always been a wonderful storyteller who frequently crosses genre boundaries with engrossing results.

With No Man’s Land, nominated for this year’s Prometheus Award for Best Novel, Hoyt has outdone herself.

Blending the tropes and appeal of science fiction and fantasy, Hoyt weaves many enticing elements into the three-volume novel. Her two deftly entwined stories encompass space opera, mystery, romance, adventure, suspense, intrigue and politics in a vivid “first contact” saga leavened with humor and humanity.

Continue reading Review: Sarah Hoyt’s No Man’s Land develops rich tapestry blending SF/fantasy tropes to imagine “first contact” with vast cultural, political and gender differences


Review: J. Kenton Pierce’s lively A Kiss for Damocles dramatizes how markets, evolving customs and laws help a post-apocalyptic colony recover without centralized authority


By William H. Stoddard

J. Kenton Pierce’s A Kiss for Damocles is a compellingly readable work of science fiction. It offers its readers an inherently dramatic situation: The struggle to survive and rebuild civilization in the aftermath of an apocalyptic war.

To add tension, remnants of the other side still linger, in the form of orbital systems waiting to strike down any resurgence of advanced technology.

Continue reading Review: J. Kenton Pierce’s lively A Kiss for Damocles dramatizes how markets, evolving customs and laws help a post-apocalyptic colony recover without centralized authority


Jo Walton on Poul Anderson: One Prometheus winner recommends another


By Michael Grossberg

It’s great to see one widely respected sf/fantasy author in praise of another. Especially when such praise reminds us of the talents and achievements of a truly grand master of sf/fantasy who has passed but is far from forgotten.

Jo Walton tips her hat to the late great Poul Anderson in her monthly book-review column for Reactor magazine.

Walton, who won her own Prometheus Award for Ha’penny, singled out the multiple-Prometheus-winning Anderson on her recommended-reading shortlist for All One Universe, his 1996 short-story anthology.

“This collection of stories and essays is just delightful—great thought-provoking stories, and mostly interesting essays, and I loved it,” Walton writes.

Continue reading Jo Walton on Poul Anderson: One Prometheus winner recommends another


“And the nominees are…” NOT the same thing as finalists! (How the Oscars differ from the Hugo and Prometheus awards, and why it matters)

By Michael Grossberg

“And the nominees are…”

Those words are familiar to just about everyone in America, since people frequently repeat them at several of the biggest annual televised awards ceremonies.

Especially at the Academy Awards, informally known as the Oscars – and still the premier annual American awards show in arts and entertainment despite its recent decline.

Yet I’d argue that such an iconic phrase is often misleading. Worse, it can lead to confusion and misperceptions about other awards – including our own.

The Prometheus Awards use the term “nominees” quite differently than the Oscars do.

What the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which sponsors and presents the Academy Awards, dubs “nominees” is actually what the Prometheus awards quite properly refers to as finalists.

That may seem like mere semantics, or a minor disagreement over labeling, but it’s an important distinction with significant differences.

In fact, finalists attain a higher level of recognition than nominees – and thus deserve greater respect and their own distinct name.

Continue reading “And the nominees are…” NOT the same thing as finalists! (How the Oscars differ from the Hugo and Prometheus awards, and why it matters)

It’s no ‘Mystery’ why libertarian author Steve Burgauer often writes science fiction 


By Michael Grossberg

Libertarian Steve Burgauer has written a dozen novels.

Libertarian SF novelist Steven Burgauer (Photo courtesy of author)

Although Burgauer writes historical and adventure novels, too – including his recently released The Mystery of the Broken Gargoyle – much of his work falls within the genre of science fiction.

Among his SF novels: The Railguns of Luna, Skullcap, The Grandfather Paradox, A More Perfect Union, Moonbeam and The Fornax Drive.

How was Burguauer first attracted to science fiction?

What makes him keep writing it?

And how does he relate such speculative fiction to the future, to progress and to liberty?

Continue reading It’s no ‘Mystery’ why libertarian author Steve Burgauer often writes science fiction 


“I am not a number. I am a free man!” – Remembering Patrick McGoohan: who conceived, co-wrote and starred in The Prisoner, a TV series ahead of its time


By Michael Grossberg

Today, March 19, is the birthday of Patrick McGoohan.

Patrick McGoohan as Number 6 in The Prisoner (Creative Commons license)

It’s a timely opportunity to remember and pay tribute to McGoohan, an iconoclastic talent who excelled as an actor, director, producer, screenwriter and creator of one of the most unusual, provocative, genre-smashing and influential TV series in history.

I’m referring, of course, to The Prisoner, inducted in 2002 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

McGoohan (1928-2009) achieved a great deal on screen in his long and well-respected career. But The Prisoner in retrospect may be his crowning and most lasting achievement.

Yet, when McGoohan conceived, wrote and starred in the short-lived series, no one quite knew how to categorize it or what to make of it.

Continue reading “I am not a number. I am a free man!” – Remembering Patrick McGoohan: who conceived, co-wrote and starred in The Prisoner, a TV series ahead of its time