News – Prometheus Blog

The 46th Prometheus Awards: LFS co-founder Grossberg on the value of fiction dramatizing voluntarism and cooperation as the ethical and practical alternative to coercion

Editor’s note: LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg, who chairs the Prometheus Best Novel Judging Committee, presented the 2026 Prometheus Award for Best Novel to J. Kenton Pierce for A Kiss for Damocles. This is the first in a series of posts celebrating the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, with separate articles devoted to each Aug. 16 speech by winners and presenters.

By Michael Grossberg

Since the Prometheus Award was first presented in 1979, 47 books have won Best Novel. Today, we will honor a 48th.

One of the oldest fan-based sf/fantasy awards after the Hugos and Nebulas, the Prometheus Awards are distinctive in their dual focus on both liberty and literary quality. While quite a few Prometheus-winning works have also won Hugo and Nebula awards, only the Libertarian Futurist Society annually recognizes fantastical fiction that consistently champions respect for human rights – even for that smallest oppressed minority, the individual.

Continue reading The 46th Prometheus Awards: LFS co-founder Grossberg on the value of fiction dramatizing voluntarism and cooperation as the ethical and practical alternative to coercion

By the numbers: The many reasons to watch the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony this Sunday Aug. 16 on Zoom (here’s the link) 

By Michael Grossberg

ONE Special Prometheus Award — the first for Young Adult Fiction.

TWO exciting guest speakers — leading libertarian thinker Ilya Somin, who will give the keynote speech on libertarian currents in SF/fantasy; and two-time Prometheus Best Novel winner Travis Corcoran (The Powers of the Earth, Causes of Separation), who will discuss the vital importance of Young Adult Fiction to encourage and inspire new generations of readers.

THREE Prometheus Awards — more than the usual annual two for Best Novel and the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

By the numbers alone, this Sunday’s 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony will be pretty special – with more awards and far more interesting and inspiring speakers (10) than is typical at our annual awards ceremonies.

You can watch the roughly hourlong awards show, which is open to the public, by using this Zoom link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87824388418?pwd=CsoznF4wtlLNTYvEotlIpVJkCoGb9I.1

Please log in at 1 p.m. Sunday Aug. 16 Eastern time.

Continue reading By the numbers: The many reasons to watch the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony this Sunday Aug. 16 on Zoom (here’s the link) 

Orwell’s Animal Farm and Anderson’s naked Emperor: The enduring power of parable and fable in contemporary discourse

By Michael Grossberg

George Orwell is one of only a handful of Prometheus-winning writers to remain world famous and widely read for more than one work of fiction.

Author Hans Christian Andersen (Creative Commons license)

Meanwhile, the Prometheus Hall of Fame classic that is perhaps best known around the world is Hans Christian Anderson’s fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

George Orwell. (Creative Commons license)

Perhaps still most widely acclaimed for his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell is also frequently referenced and quoted for his satirical parable Animal Farm. (Forget the poorly reviewed 2026 animated film version, which substitutes a trendy and misguided anti-corporate ideology for Orwell’s explicit anti-communist theme.)

Of the 50 works of fantastic fiction that have now been inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, Orwell’s classics and Andersen’s evocative fable rank high among the most notable and enduring.

And that’s why they are frequently referenced in contemporary intellectual debates and commentary – and will continue to be relevant for generations.

Continue reading Orwell’s Animal Farm and Anderson’s naked Emperor: The enduring power of parable and fable in contemporary discourse

You never know what you’ll find at your local bookstore (A hint: Some Prometheus-winning classics, prominently displayed)

By Michael Grossberg

The Book Loft in Columbus’ German Village (Creative Commons license)

A visit to a local bookstore brought home to me something that too many lovers of liberty tend to forget, take for granted or deny: Support for freedom, and an almost instinctive distrust of coercive and abusive authority, is deeply rooted within American society and history.

Such attitudes – while certainly not the same thing as consistent support for individual rights, non-aggression, free minds and free markets – show up nearly everywhere, including within many precincts of popular and commercial culture.

I was reminded of this truth anew the other day, when my husband and I visited The Book Loft, a famous and highly unusual bookstore in Columbus, for the first time in several years.

Continue reading You never know what you’ll find at your local bookstore (A hint: Some Prometheus-winning classics, prominently displayed)

A “Midsummer” tribute to Poul Anderson’s imagination (and a reminder of his range beyond his many Prometheus winners) 

By Michael Grossberg

Looking for an imaginative and allusive novel to add to your summer reading list?

Consider reading Poul Anderson, the first writer to receive a Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement. Anderson (1926-2001) has won seven Prometheus Awards, several posthumously. Yet the freedom-themed novels and stories that have received such recognition are only a small fraction of Anderson’s rich and wide-ranging ouevre.

A seven-time Hugo winner, three-time Nebula award winner and Grand Master (a title bestowed in 1998 by his peers in the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1998), Anderson wrote first-rate fantasy as well as science fiction.

A Midsummer Tempest, one of his best fantasy novels, recently has received a tribute in File 770, a leading online publication covering the SF/fantasy field.

“This is one of the lighter, funnier and confectionary of Anderson’s oeuvre. Some of his work can be fraught with doom, dark destiny and a vision of fighting against fate bravely but in vain. A Midsummer Tempest is the exception that proves the rule,” Paul Weimer writes in a highly appreciative review of Anderson’s 1974 novel for File 770’s occasional Memory Lane column.

Continue reading A “Midsummer” tribute to Poul Anderson’s imagination (and a reminder of his range beyond his many Prometheus winners) 

The fire this time: Ray Bradbury’s imagination endures, and marks a milestone 

By Michael Grossberg

Today, Aug. 5, 2026, is a key day in the enduring fiction of Ray Bradbury.

Ray Bradbury in 1959 (Creative Commons license)

Although perhaps most widely remembered for his Prometheus-winning novel Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury was a master of the short story. “There Will Come Soft Rains,” one of his most haunting tales, imagines a distant future following a nuclear holocaust.

That future is now in the story, published in 1950 and imagining the then-far-distant year of 2026 in early August.

Bradbury’s story imagines an automated house – now a reality in millions of homes. Hauntingly, the house continues to operate even after its suburban family has been vaporized, going up in flames in Allendale, California.

“Finally, only one wall is left, protruding from the rubble. A fading voice echoes from inside the wall: “Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is . . .”

Continue reading The fire this time: Ray Bradbury’s imagination endures, and marks a milestone 

The first Special Award for Young Adult Fiction isn’t actually the first Prometheus Award to recognize Young Adult works 

By Michael Grossberg

Dave Freer’s novel Storm-Dragon will be the first work to receive a Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction Aug. 16 at the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony. Yet, it’s far from the only example of Young Adult Fiction to be recognized in the awards’ history.

By my latest count – and including this year’s three winners – 111 works of fantastical fiction have been named as winners of a Prometheus Award since 1979. Of those works, 14 fall clearly into the Young Adult realm or are deemed accessible enough to appeal to younger readers.

Those works should be of great interest to younger readers, roughly anyone between the ages of eight and 18.

They also should spark the curiosity of parents, grandparents, teachers and other adults seeking good pro-freedom SF/fantasy to share or gift.

So which Prometheus Award winners do fit the parameters of Young Adult Fiction?

Continue reading The first Special Award for Young Adult Fiction isn’t actually the first Prometheus Award to recognize Young Adult works 

Here’s the Zoom link to watch the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, with speakers Ilya Somin, Travis Corcoran, 2026 winners Dave Freer, J. Kenton Pierce and Aldous Huxley’s grandchildren 

By Michael Grossberg

The 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony is shaping up to be one of the most interesting, thought-provoking and exciting in years.

Ten speakers from around the world have been lined up for the roughly hourlong awards show, which will present the two annual categories for Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (the Prometheus Hall of Fame) plus an occasional Special Award – the first Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction.

Here is the Zoom link to watch the awards live:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87824388418?pwd=CsoznF4wtlLNTYvEotlIpVJkCoGb9I.1

All Libertarian Futurist Society members, other SF/fantasy fans and the general public are invited to watch the live Zoom event, which will begin at 10 a.m. Pacific time (1 p.m. Eastern time) on Sunday Aug. 16, 2026.

So who are the 10 presenters, winners and other speakers?

Continue reading Here’s the Zoom link to watch the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, with speakers Ilya Somin, Travis Corcoran, 2026 winners Dave Freer, J. Kenton Pierce and Aldous Huxley’s grandchildren 

Best Novel winner J. Kenton Pierce on gratitude, good fortune, a journeyman’s skill at writing and his advice to writers 

By MIchael Grossberg

J. Kenton Pierce insists he’s no master craftsman.

“I’m a maladjusted ape with a keyboard and a lifetime subscription to Maladaptive Daydreaming With ADHD,” Pierce wrote in a July post on his Substack column Tales from the Long Night.

Yet, somehow, Pierce’s first novel A Kiss for Damocles won the 2026 Prometheus Award for Best Novel. Moreover, in this past year’s highly competitive process, Pierce’s novel beat out four other widely admired and first-rate novels ranked as finalists, each written by a well-respected previous Best Novel winner.

“I’m still having some trouble wrapping my brain around this. I’ve read in many places over the years that the conventional wisdom is thus: a writer’s first novel is mediocre at best, and even that’s considered unlikely. Yet here I am, sitting on a debut novel that’s placed ahead of authors who’ve written some of my favorites,” Pierce wrote.

Continue reading Best Novel winner J. Kenton Pierce on gratitude, good fortune, a journeyman’s skill at writing and his advice to writers 

Why a Prometheus-winning writer is relieved he didn’t win a second Best Novel award this year (and why his publisher is thrilled) 

By Michael Grossberg

One would reasonably expect any writer who becomes an awards finalist to feel disappointed if they don’t win – even in a year with especially strong competition.

Dave Freer with his 2023 Prometheus Awards Best Novel plaque for Cloud-Castles (Photo courtesy of Freer)

Thus, it seemed a bit strange to learn that Dave Freer was relieved that he didn’t win the Best Novel category this year.

Freer won his first Prometheus Award for Best Novel in 2023 for Cloud-Castles. So why wouldn’t he want to win a second for Storm-Dragon, his 2026 Best Novel finalist?

“I was actually a little worried that STORM-DRAGON would win the Prometheus,” Freer told his publisher Raconteur Press in a special awards-news update on their Substack column.

Continue reading Why a Prometheus-winning writer is relieved he didn’t win a second Best Novel award this year (and why his publisher is thrilled) 