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

Sequels, part 6: Vernor Vinge, F. Paul Wilson and two Prometheus-winning sequel novels good enough to spark further sequels

By Michael Grossberg

Quite a few outstanding SF/fantasy novels have inspired sequels that have won a Prometheus Award – 11, by my latest count, and more than I’d remembered or imagined.

Vernor Vinge at an SF con (File photo)

In a few especially notable cases, writers have conceived Prometheus-winning novels inspired by previous successes and subsequently inspiring worthy sequels – several of which went on to receive further Prometheus recognition at different levels.

F. Paul Wilson (Creative Commons license)

This blog post will discuss such sequel novels by two of our most widely praised and bestselling authors: Vernor Vinge and F. Paul Wilson.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence, then, that both writers have won multiple Prometheus Awards – including for several entertaining, thought-provoking and mind-expanding works set within the same future history.

Continue reading Sequels, part 6: Vernor Vinge, F. Paul Wilson and two Prometheus-winning sequel novels good enough to spark further sequels

Sequels, part 5: Exploring the broader scope of Prometheus-winning sequel novels within Poul Anderson and Ken MacLeod tetralogies

By Michael Grossberg

When a sequel novel is part of a trilogy or series, it can help broaden the scope of a narrative and its world-building while providing a bigger canvas to explore more characters and subplots in greater depth.

Poul Anderson (Creative Commons license)
Ken MacLeod (Creative Commons photo)

Two internationally acclaimed science fiction writers who achieved such goals in Prometheus-winning Best Novel sequels are Poul Anderson and Ken MacLeod.

Previous articles in this series on Prometheus-winning sequel novels explored winners by Daniel Suarez (Critical Mass), Barry Longyear (The Hook), Travis Corcoran (Causes of Separation), Cory Doctorow (Homeland), Jo Walton (Ha’Penny) and Neal Stephenson (The System of the World).

Part 5 will discuss Anderson’s The Stars are Also Fire, the 1995 Best Novel winner, and MacLeod’s The Stone Canal, the 1998 Best Novel winner.

Both sequels are key works in their respective tetralogies.

Continue reading Sequels, part 5: Exploring the broader scope of Prometheus-winning sequel novels within Poul Anderson and Ken MacLeod tetralogies

Ares: An overlooked sequel to L. Neil Smith’s Prometheus-winning Pallas


By Michael Grossberg

Did you know that a third novel belatedly has been published in the late Prometheus-winning writer L. Neil Smith’s “Ngu Family Saga” series?

The Libertarian Futurist Society recognized the first two novels in that series – Pallas and Ceres – but we didn’t become aware of the third novel, Ares, until recently.

Each of the three novels is set primarily on a different asteroid or dwarf planet in our solar system, but linked together by continuing central characters drawn from the Ngu family of pioneering solar-system settlers.

Continue reading Ares: An overlooked sequel to L. Neil Smith’s Prometheus-winning Pallas


Sequels, part 4: While few sequels surpass their originals, three Prometheus Best Novel winners by Doctorow, Walton and Stephenson offer rich rewards

By Michael Grossberg

Let’s face it: Most sequels don’t measure up to the originals. Yet, when they meet – or surpass – expectations while offering further satisfactions in their own right, sequels deserve recognition.

While quite a large number of sequel novels have been nominated for a Prometheus Award over the past 46 years, only a fraction have gone on to become Best Novel finalists. Even fewer have won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel – by my count, 10 novels, all worth reading or rereading.

That’s especially impressive, since most novels fall short in various ways, reflecting the iron law of mediocrity. As the great SF short-story writer Theodore Sturgeon put it, in what came to be called Sturgeon’s Law: “90% of everything is crap.”

Beyond the general requirements of solid storytelling, strong characters, propulsive plots and believable settings that apply to all literature, writing a sequel poses additional challenges – especially in finding and delivering the tricky balance between the fondly familiar and the excitingly fresh.

Fans of the original work tend to expect more in a sequel – more of the same pleasures they had in reading the first book, in part. Yet, whether they realize it consciously or not, fans also yearn to broaden their reading experience with new dimensions of narrative, character, setting, world-building and themes.

If you’re a lifelong SF/fantasy fan like me, you want a good novel or sequel to expand your imagination and deepen the intensity of your identification, empathy and emotion while reading it. This blog post will describe three sequel novels by Prometheus-winning writers that in my view fulfill such hopes.

Continue reading Sequels, part 4: While few sequels surpass their originals, three Prometheus Best Novel winners by Doctorow, Walton and Stephenson offer rich rewards

Sequels, part 3: Many have been nominated, but only a select few have won a Prometheus award for Best Novel


By Michael Grossberg

How often are sequels nominated for Best Novel? And of those, how many go on to become Best Novel finalists? Or winners?

A lot, actually – and more than I initially recalled.

In this ongoing Prometheus Blog analysis of the number of sequels that have won over 46 years in the Best Novel category, I discovered several surprising patterns.

The subject of sequels is timely, with four sequels of the 11 2024 novels nominated this year for Best Novel and two sequel novels going on to become Best Novel finalists.

That sounds like a lot, but it’s not anywhere close to a Prometheus Awards record.

Continue reading Sequels, part 3: Many have been nominated, but only a select few have won a Prometheus award for Best Novel


Sequels, part 2: How many have won a Prometheus Award? You might be surprised…


By Michael Grossberg

Just how many sequels have won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel?

More than you might expect, as I recently discovered.

Continue reading Sequels, part 2: How many have won a Prometheus Award? You might be surprised…


Exploring the appeal and challenge of sequels with four Prometheus nominees: Machine Vendetta, Shadow of the Smoking Mountain and Best Novel finalists Alliance Unbound and Beggar’s Sky


By Michael Grossberg

Sequels are increasingly popular these days – especially within the fantastical or speculative genres of science fiction and fantasy.

Among this year’s recently announced five Prometheus Best Novel finalists are two sequels: Alliance Unbound and Beggar’s Sky.

Of the 11 2024 SF/fantasy novels nominated for this year’s 45th Best Novel award, four are sequels – including Shadow of the Smoking Mountain and Machine Vendetta.

Each sequel navigates a tricky balance between the fresh and the familiar.

Each can be enjoyed by newcomers as a stand-alone book. Yet, each is enriched by previous world-building and continuing characters that makes them rewarding for the author’s ongoing fans.

How each novel builds on its predecessors, or in some cases departs from them, varies in ways that help illuminate the appeal of sequels and their challenges.

Continue reading Exploring the appeal and challenge of sequels with four Prometheus nominees: Machine Vendetta, Shadow of the Smoking Mountain and Best Novel finalists Alliance Unbound and Beggar’s Sky


Best Novel finalist review: Cherryh and Fancher’s Alliance Unbound dramatizes the crucial fact of scarcity as merchant ships pursue voluntary trade amid authoritarian threats


By William H. Stoddard

Alliance Unbound is the sequel to Alliance Rising, which won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel in 2020. It appears that this may be the second volume of a trilogy, as the final pages leave important issues unresolved.

Taken together, these novels form a prequel to Cherryh’s Alliance/Union series, one of the larger future histories in the past few decades. (It began in 1981 with Downbelow Station, which won her first Hugo Award for best novel.)

The crucial fact driving its events is scarcity. 

There are only three planets with biospheres: Earth, Pell’s World, and Cyteen. Orbital habitats in other solar systems — notably Alpha Station, located at Barnard’s Star, where Alliance Rising was set — are ultimately dependent for supplies, especially biomass, on those three systems; Alliance Rising’s plot turned on Earth’s starving Alpha Station of resources to advance its own goals, and a key point in Alliance Unbound is the discovery of nearly priceless Earth goods on Downbelow Station, which orbits Pell’s World.

Cherryh and Fancher’s characters are well aware of such issues of scarcity and value, being interstellar merchants who spend their lives going from solar system to solar system, with holds full of high-value cargo and computer memories full of equally valuable data.

Continue reading Best Novel finalist review: Cherryh and Fancher’s Alliance Unbound dramatizes the crucial fact of scarcity as merchant ships pursue voluntary trade amid authoritarian threats