Sequels – Prometheus Blog

Prometheus finalist author Devon Eriksen releases audiobook of Theft of Fire (but what about the sequel?)

Theft of Fire, a 2024 Prometheus Best Novel finalist, is now available as an audiobook.

Author Devon Eriksen has announced the belated recording and availability of the audiobook, which is available on Apple Books, Google Play and Kobo.

Billed as the first novel in Eriksen’s Orbital Space series and blending hard SF, romance, mystery, suspense and even comedy, Theft of Fire offers a Heinleinesque space opera portraying a free-frontier space culture where big risks can lead to big rewards.

“Was it easy? No. Was it cheap? Also no. But thanks to the support of Kickstarter backers, the Theft of Fire: Orbital Space #1 audiobook exists, and I am so delighted to announce it now,” publicist Christine Eriksen wrote in a blog update on Eriksen’s website, devoneriksen.com

Continue reading Prometheus finalist author Devon Eriksen releases audiobook of Theft of Fire (but what about the sequel?)

Sequels, part 11: Unlike literary sequels, movie sequels and genre films don’t get as much respect at the Oscars, but that may be changing 

By Michael Grossberg

Movie sequels seem to be more common and more popular than ever in the 21st century, often dominating at the box office. Yet, they just don’t get as much respect or awards recognition as literary sequels.

Far fewer sequels have won Academy Awards than have been recognized by science fiction and fantasy’s Hugo and Prometheus awards.

Just consider how few movie sequels have won the Oscar for Best Picture compared to how often sequel novels win a top SF/fantasy award.

Within the 46-year history of the Prometheus Awards, 194 of the 505 novels nominated within the Best Novel category have been sequels – and 11 have gone on to win.

Meanwhile, as recently reported here, nine sequel novels have won the Best Novel category in the 72-year history of the Hugo Awards, voted by members of the World Science Fiction Society and presented annually at the Worldcon.

Yet, in the 97 years that the Academy Awards have been presented, only two movie sequels have won Best Picture: The Godfather Part II and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Intriguingly, both movies were key parts of the only trilogies or series to have three films nominated for Best Picture, perhaps partly reflecting the stature and impact of the overall effort.

And perhaps coincidentally, both movies dramatize libertarian and classical-liberal themes about the temptations and abuses of power.

Continue reading Sequels, part 11: Unlike literary sequels, movie sequels and genre films don’t get as much respect at the Oscars, but that may be changing 

Sequels, part 10: Like the Prometheus Awards, the Hugo awards often recognize sequels – including many of the same novels and authors

By Michael Grossberg

Within the 46-year history of the Prometheus Awards, 194 of the 505 novels nominated within the Best Novel category have been sequels, as previously reported – and 11 have gone on to win. Yet, the Prometheus Awards are not the only science fiction awards that often recognize sequels.

Quite a few have been honored by the Hugo Awards, voted by members of the World Science Fiction Society and presented annually at Worldcons.

By my count, the Hugos have honored sequels nine times in the Best Novel category. Interestingly, quite a few of those authors also have been recognized in the Prometheus Awards – including Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, C.J. Cherryh and Vernor Vinge. In several cases, both awards have recognized writers for the same works.

This overview of such recognition reminds us of the frequent overlap between the Hugos and the Prometheus awards while shedding light on the popularity and appeal of sequels.

Continue reading Sequels, part 10: Like the Prometheus Awards, the Hugo awards often recognize sequels – including many of the same novels and authors

Sequels, part 9: By the numbers, Prometheus Awards history is full of Best Novel sequels

By Michael Grossberg

Throughout the 46-year history of the Prometheus Award, 505 novels have been nominated for Best Novel.

That’s a surprisingly large number, at least to me – and a cumulative total that I don’t believe has been calculated and reported before, or at least not in many years.

Yet, when I counted them up recently, I was even more surprised by the number of Best Novel nominees that turn out to be sequels. (Quite a few were hard to identify as sequels, by the way, until I researched each title – with some so obscure, and not immediately recognizable as sequels when nominated and read by Prometheus judges and LFS members, because many work fine as stand-alone stories without any obvious indications of previous works.)

Can you guess how many Best Novel nominees have been sequels?

Continue reading Sequels, part 9: By the numbers, Prometheus Awards history is full of Best Novel sequels

The Day Before the Revolution: Ursula K. Le Guin story, a prequel to her Prometheus-winning The Dispossessed, recommended by Reactor Magazine 

By Michael Grossberg

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Day Before the Revolution has been highlighted and recommended by Reactor Magazine among “five SF stories in which hope survives.”

The story, available in the Le Guin short-story collection The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, should be of interested to LFS members and other freedom-loving SF/fantasy fans because it’s considered a sequel to Le Guin’s classic novel The Dispossessed, an early Prometheus Hall of Fame winner.

“Science fiction has the power to remind us that hope is valuable, and necessary,” James Davis Nicoll wrote in the Reactor column.

That insight, and sentiment, rings true to Prometheus Awards voters and fans. After all, our award in part aims to recognize worthy works of speculative fiction that in many cases do remind us that even amid troubled times and authoritarian societies, better and freer futures remain possible.

Continue reading The Day Before the Revolution: Ursula K. Le Guin story, a prequel to her Prometheus-winning The Dispossessed, recommended by Reactor Magazine 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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 