Beggar’s Sky and Will McCarthy’s projected Sky tetralogy: How our Best Novel finalists and authors are receiving broader cultural attention (Part Three)

By Michael Grossberg

Wil McCarthy has been receiving broad attention for the tetralogy launched with Rich Man’s Sky, the 2022 Prometheus Best Novel winner.

Beggar’s Sky, one of five 2025 Best Novel finalists, is the third novel in his exciting science fiction/mystery series and the direct sequel to Poor Man’s Sky.


With Prometheus Awards voting in its final weeks before the July 4 deadline, it’s worth highlighting how each of the authors of this year’s Best Novel finalists have been receiving broader cultural attention in interviews, podcasts and rave reviews.

In Part three of our ongoing series, we highlight and provide links to four interviews that McCarthy has done about his complex series, which projects the twists and turns in the industrial development and colonization of our solar system primarily through the private efforts of four billionaires.

Perhaps the most interesting and timely of McCarthy’s interviews was the one he did with Paul Semel after the publication of Beggar’s Sky.

Continue reading Beggar’s Sky and Will McCarthy’s projected Sky tetralogy: How our Best Novel finalists and authors are receiving broader cultural attention (Part Three)

Danny King’s Cancelled: How our Best Novel finalists are receiving broader attention (Part Two
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By Michael Grossberg

Buoyed by the Prometheus Award recognition for his novel Cancelled: The Shape of Things to Come, British author Danny King is receiving international attention.

As the voting period enters its last three weeks to determine the winners of the next Prometheus awards, it’s worth highlighting how King’s novel and other of this year’s Best Novel finalists have been gaining recognition and sparking discussions in the broader culture. That includes Lionel Shriver’s Mania (the focus of the previous Prometheus blog post in this series.) 

British writer Danny King (Creative Commons license)

King recently was interviewed in Australia on the Liberty Itch Podcast.

During the wide-ranging interview, King discussed the anti-authoritarian and libertarian themes of Cancelled, what inspired him to make the central character of his “utopian/dystopian” tale a “woke” lesbian woman, and the unexpected difficulty he had getting his latest novel published.

The podcast hails Cancelled as “the latest book of multi-award winning writer Danny King” and “a satirical novel set in a future world in which saying or thinking the wrong thing gets you cancelled from mainstream society.”

According to the description of that podcast (Episode 13), Liberty Itch writer Tom Volcanos ask Danny about “Cancelled, being cancelled, and writing in our brave new world where being cancelled is all too real,” according to the podcast description.

Continue reading Danny King’s Cancelled: How our Best Novel finalists are receiving broader attention (Part Two
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Lionel Shriver’s Mania: How our Best Novel finalists are receiving broader cultural attention (Part One)

By Michael Grossberg

As voting enters its final weeks to determine the winners of the next Prometheus awards, it’s worth highlighting how several of this year’s Best Novel finalists have been gaining recognition and sparking discussions in the broader culture.

That includes Lionel Shriver’s Mania, Danny King’s Cancelled, Wil McCarthy’s Beggar’s Sky, C.J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher’s Alliance Unbound, Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale, based on interviews, podcasts and publications we’ve come across. (If you become aware of columns, podcasts, interviews or other media coverage of any of our Best Novel finalists, or for that matter, our Hall of Fame finalists, please let us know as soon as possible!)

Author Lionel Shriver (Creative Commons License)

Mania, in particular, has sparked both timely commentary and podcasts, including an interesting interview with Shriver and a Substack column drawing parallels between Mania and today’s cultural-political trends.

Dutch-American writer and courageous dissident Ayaan Hirsi Ali invited Shriver, an international best-selling author, to join her on a podcast for a lengthy interview – with some relevant excerpts quoted below.

Meanwhile, on Holly’s Substack column, Holly “Mathnerd” has written a column titled “The Sound of One Window Shifting” about “the moment a satirical novel I read and enjoyed last year stopped feeling like fiction.”

That novel, of course, is Shriver’s Mania – whose satirical and cautionary themes are highlighted in the Prometheus blog review.

Continue reading Lionel Shriver’s Mania: How our Best Novel finalists are receiving broader cultural attention (Part One)

For the first time this century, the LFS raises membership dues


By Michael Grossberg

Don’t be surprised when you go to renew your LFS membership in August or September. You’ll see new dues listed on the LFS website’s Membership page.

The Libertarian Futurist Society hasn’t increased the cost of its different levels of memberships since the 1990s. But as we head into the next membership-year cycle of renewals coming up this fall, dues for all six levels of LFS memberships are going up.

The LFS board of directors approved this belated increase unanimously during its May meeting – primarily in response to the rising cost of the gold coins we present  annually with the Prometheus Awards.

The dues increases will apply to all long-standing membership levels – Basic, Full, Sponsor and Benefactor – as well as to the new higher levels of Silver Benefactor and Gold Benefactor approved during the same board meeting.

Continue reading For the first time this century, the LFS raises membership dues


New Gold and Silver Benefactor levels added to Libertarian Futurist Society memberships


By Michael Grossberg

The Libertarian Futurist Society has established two higher LFS membership levels: Gold and Silver Benefactors.

The new Gold Benefactor and Silver Benefactor levels will offer more ways for LFS members to show their support for our programs and awards.

Unless they prefer to remain anonymous, Silver and Gold Benefactors will receive recognition annually on the Prometheus Blog, while Gold Benefactors also will be thanked publicly during the annual Prometheus Awards ceremony.

Continue reading New Gold and Silver Benefactor levels added to Libertarian Futurist Society memberships


Award-winning libertarian author Barry B. Longyear, R.I.P.



By Michael Grossberg

Barry B. Longyear (1942-2025) has passed.

The prolific sf author, who won the 2021 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for The War Whisperer, Book 5: The Hook, died May 6 at the age of 82.

Barry B. Longyear (Courtesy of author)

Longyear is perhaps best known for “Enemy Mine,” an sf story about a risky confrontation but ultimately life-saving friendship between a human pilot and an alien fighter stranded on a harsh and distant planet.

“Enemy Mine,” part of Longyear’s first story collection Manifest Destiny, achieved the rare feat of science fiction’s Triple Crown by winning a Hugo, Nebula and Locus Award.

According to an obituary/tribute in Mike Glyer’s File 770, “fans sealed their approval of his amazing output by voting Barry the John W. Campbell Award as best new writer in 1980 (now the Astounding Award).

Continue reading Award-winning libertarian author Barry B. Longyear, R.I.P.



For your consideration: The 2025 Prometheus Awards finalists in a nutshell (with review links and tips on where to find them)


By Michael Grossberg

With the Libertarian Futurist Society on the verge of sending Prometheus Awards ballots to LFS members, here’s a quick-reference guide to this year’s finalists.

This guide offers LFS members a timely summary of this year’s finalists in our two annual categories: Best Novel and the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Again this year, the Prometheus Blog was able to publish in-depth reviews of each of the finalists to add context and perspective on why each work deserved our recognition. So also included here, for the convenience of Prometheus voters, are links to each review.

Plus, this guide will offer tips on the availability of finalists – including links to those available free and online.

Continue reading For your consideration: The 2025 Prometheus Awards finalists in a nutshell (with review links and tips on where to find them)


In their own ways, the 2025 Best Novel finalists embody the dramatic potential of novels with epic scope


By Michael Grossberg

One aspect of fantastical fiction that can make it especially vivid and dramatic is when authors create an imaginative story with epic scope.

A work of fiction that offers such a vast and even cosmic perspective can enhance that distinctive sense of wonder that has defined some of the best science fiction or fantasy.

Each of this year’s Prometheus Best Novel finalists benefits in some ways from aspiring to and achieving great scope.

Continue reading In their own ways, the 2025 Best Novel finalists embody the dramatic potential of novels with epic scope


Sequels, part 8: More Best Novel winners (not sequels) by L. Neil Smith and Ramez Naam that inspired sequels


By Michael Grossberg

Quite a few Prometheus Award Best Novel winners, while not sequels themselves, have inspired subsequent novels that have received further Prometheus recognition.

L. Neil Smith in the 1980s (Creative Commons license)

Such winners by Sarah Hoyt (Darkship Thieves), Victor Milan (The Cybernetic Samurai) and Dani and Eytan Kollins (The Unincorporated Man) were examined in the previous post of this ongoing series about sequels.

Ramez Naam (Creative Commons license)

Let’s turn our attention here to Prometheus-winning works by Ramez Naam and L. Neil Smith. Both authors were inspired to write more than one follow-up novel to their initial Prometheus-winning novels.

While Naam framed one complex story for his near-future Nexus trilogy, Smith conceived a variety of zestful and rambunctious stories all linked within his alternate-universe North American Confederacy series.

Continue reading Sequels, part 8: More Best Novel winners (not sequels) by L. Neil Smith and Ramez Naam that inspired sequels


Sequels, part 7: Sarah Hoyt, Victor Milan and the Kollins brothers all wrote Best Novel winners (not sequels themselves) that inspired solid sequels

By Michael Grossberg

Quite a few good novels have inspired sequels that won a Prometheus Award – 11, by my latest count and all discussed in previous parts of this ongoing series.

Sarah Hoyt, the 2011 Prometheus winner (File photo)

When SF/fantasy authors conceive original stories that imagine fresh worlds and compelling characters for the first time, it’s not surprising that they occasionally choose to return to those worlds and characters for a sequel – especially if the first novel receives wide readership and acclaim.

Victor Milan

One such source of recognition is a Prometheus Award – and quite a few Best Novel winners, while not sequels themselves, have inspired sequels that have gone on to further Prometheus recognition at different levels.

Dani Kollin (File photo)

Previous posts in this series on sequels have explored two outstanding Prometheus-winning examples of this pattern: Travis Corcoran’s The Powers of the Earth and its sequel Causes of Separation; and Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother and its sequel Homeland. All four novels ended up winning the top Prometheus Award for Best Novel – a rare feat in our award’s 46-year history.

Yet, several other Prometheus-winning authors have accomplished something approaching that feat – including Sarah Hoyt, Victor Milan and the brothers and co-authors Dani and Eytan Kollins.

Continue reading Sequels, part 7: Sarah Hoyt, Victor Milan and the Kollins brothers all wrote Best Novel winners (not sequels themselves) that inspired solid sequels