News – Prometheus Blog

Prometheus-winning novelist Travis Corcoran to present first Special award for Young Adult Fiction at the Aug. 16 ceremony

By Michael Grossberg

Travis Corcoran (Photo courtesy of author)

Travis Corcoran, a two-time Prometheus-winning novelist, will present the first Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction.

Corcoran was invited to speak because he’s a passionate believer in encouraging younger generations to read – and convinced that writing good young-adult SF/fantasy can help young readers better envision more positive futures – including a future of freedom.

Corcoran will discuss the vital importance of young-adult fiction in his speech presenting that occasional category at the 46th Prometheus Awards. The roughly hourlong ceremony, open to the public via Zoom and with Ilya Somin as the keynote speaker, is set to start at 1 p.m. (Eastern time) Sunday Aug. 16.

Corcoran has praised YA fiction for its potential to offer positive portraits of young people as capable, rational and independent-minded individuals. Such characters can be admirable role models for the young, in Corcoran’s view, because they tend to be better suited for living in, and sustaining, the dynamic live-and-let-live interactions of free societies.
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“Sixteen fun facts” about Cato scholar and SF fan Ilya Somin, our keynote speaker Aug. 16 at the 46th annual Prometheus Awards ceremony 

By Michael Grossberg

Who is Ilya Somin?

Somin, our keynote speaker at the upcoming 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony is one of today’s most interesting and impactful libertarian thinkers and authors. That should become evident at the roughly hourlong ceremony, which will begin at 1 p.m. Sunday Aug. 16, 2026 (Eastern time) and will be open to the public on Zoom.

A lifelong science-fiction fan who’s written for the former Prometheus quarterly, Somin is perhaps most widely known as a Cato Institute scholar and George Mason University law professor.

But Somin has many fascinating facets to his life and career – and recently shared “16 fun facts” about himself on Reason magazine’s legal- and individual-rights-issues blog, The Volokh Conspiracy.

Continue reading “Sixteen fun facts” about Cato scholar and SF fan Ilya Somin, our keynote speaker Aug. 16 at the 46th annual Prometheus Awards ceremony 

Dave Freer’s Storm-Dragon wins first Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction

By Michael Grossberg

The Libertarian Futurist Society will present its first Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction to Dave Freer’s Storm-Dragon.

Several years ago, the LFS Board of Directors unanimously approved this new awards category in recognition of the crucial connection between literacy and liberty and the vital importance of writing fiction, including fantastical fiction, that attracts and engages young people.

Storm-Dragon, by Dave Freer, will receive the Special Award Aug. 16, 2026, at the 46th annual Prometheus Awards, along with the previously announced 2026 winners in the two annual categories for Best Novel (J. Kenton Pierce’s A Kiss for Damocles) and the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction (Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.)

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Brave New World: Huxley’s 1932 dystopian classic ranks among the oldest works to win the Prometheus Hall of Fame award 

By Michael Grossberg

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is one of the oldest works to win the Prometheus Award for Best Classic Fiction.

Published in 1932 by Chatto & Windus, Aldous Huxley’s pioneering dystopian novel has become so well-known around the world that its title has become an emblematic catchphrase signaling the dangers of authoritarianism.

Brave New World is the third-oldest work and the second-oldest novel to be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame. (The roughly hourlong Zoom ceremony, open to the public, is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Sunday Aug. 16 (Eastern time), with the Zoom link posted a week or so ahead on the Prometheus Blog.)

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Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in Aug. 16 ceremony

By Michael Grossberg

Brave New World will be inducted this year into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, based on a vote by LFS members.

With its induction Sunday Aug. 16 during the 46th Prometheus awards ceremony, Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel will be the 50th work to win this annual awards category, first presented in 1983.

Brave New World, ranked in fifth place by Modern Library on its list of the 100 Best Novels in English of the 20th century, continues to be considered among the most influential works of dystopian literature.

Continue reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in Aug. 16 ceremony

J. Kenton Pierce’s A Kiss for Damocles: First-time nominee wins Prometheus Award for debut novel over stiff competition 

By Michael Grossberg

A first-time Prometheus nominee might not be expected to win the Best Novel award, especially with a debut novel or when up against solid works by several popular and acclaimed previous winners.

J. Kenton Pierce (Courtesy of Raconteur Press)

Yet, that’s part of the impressive accomplishment this year of J. Kenton Pierce, whose debut novel A Kiss for Damocles has won the 2026 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

The science fiction novel, published by Raconteur Press and launching Pierce’s Tales From the Long Night series, illuminates the ethics and efficacy of free trade and self-defense as a proper foundation for civilization.

This year’s award, focusing on novels published in 2025, was considered by many Libertarian Futurist Society members and Prometheus Best Novel judges to have one of the strongest lineups in many years.

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“Fly Me to the Moon” – The Smithsonian museum highlights the power of science fiction in sparking advances in air and space  

By Michael Grossberg

On a recent visit to the Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C., I was delighted to discover some recognition of the work of a Prometheus-winning author. And not just any author, but the Golden Age Grand Master who has received more Prometheus Awards than anyone else: Robert A. Heinlein.

Destination Moon, a 1950 Technicolor feature film co-written by Heinlein, is highlighted in the Destination Moon gallery (Gallery 206) at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

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Voting for the Prometheus Awards: How one LFS member ranked his Best Novel ballot (revealed on a YouTube video) on the verge of tonight’s July 4 deadline 

By Michael Grossberg

How do Libertarian Futurist Society members rank the Best Novel finalists as they fill out the final Prometheus Awards ballot?

Members typically keep their rankings private, while the LFS vote-counting committee maintains strict confidentiality about the results, aside from the announcement of the winners. Today, though, on the verge of the midnight July 4 voting deadline, one LFS member chose to post a YouTube video explaining his rankings.

It’s the latest yeoman effort by novelist John C.A. Manley, who throughout this past awards-finalist season has repeatedly helped raise the visibility of the Prometheus Awards by posting YouTube discussions of award finalists and by reviewing each Best Novel finalist on his BlazingPineCones website.

“Help promote the fiction you want to see in the world,” Manley said in his email today to BlazingPineCones subscribers.

That’s an apt statement, which helps illuminates his (and our) vision of why the Prometheus Awards is important and clarifies why Manley has invested so much time and energy this year in highlighting our award.

So how did Manley, himself a Prometheus Best Novel nominee for All the Humans Are Sleeping, rank the five Best Novel finalists?
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Reading Rand as literature: A surprising dialogue between two literary scholars about Atlas Shrugged 

By Michael Grossberg

Ayn Rand’s ideas have become so polarized and politicized that few people seem capable of appreciating her fiction on its own literary terms. It’s rare to come across an honest dialogue between two highly educated, rational and open-minded people about Rand’s Atlas Shrugged as simply a novel.

Henry Oliver and Hollis Robbins did just that in a fascinating and surprising dialogue, which I only recently discovered. Often illuminating and with fresh insights free from most conventional views of Rand and her magnum opus, their conversation is worth highlighting on the Prometheus Blog in order to bring it to the attention of LFS members and a wider group of readers.

“We are going to have a conversation about Atlas Shrugged, and we’re going to, as you say, talk about it as a novel. It always gets talked about as an ideology. We are very interested in it as a novel and as two people who love the great novels of the 19th century,” Oliver said in introducing their conversation on his Common Reader blog at common reader.co.uk.

Their wide-ranging discussion centered on Atlas Shrugged “in conversation with the great novels of the past, Rand’s greats skills of plotting, drama, and character, and what makes Atlas Shrugged a serious novel, not just a vehicle for ideology.”

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How to approach A.I. ethically: Chronicles magazine reminds us of the wisdom of C.S. Lewis and George Orwell

By Michael Grossberg

It’s always encouraging to see a Prometheus-recognized writer remembered in any contemporary article, especially about one of the hottest, most divisive and misunderstood issues of our day.

But it’s wonderful – and rare – to find two such authors remembered in the same article, especially one that quotes them with accuracy and insight.

The enduring wisdom of both C.S. Lewis and George Orwell is at the core of a sensible article about Artificial Intelligence by Benjamin M. Osborne in Chronicles magazine.

Orwell, of course, is a two-time Prometheus Hall of Fame inductee for his novels Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. Lewis, meanwhile, is again a Hall of Fame finalist this year for his 1945 science fiction novel That Hideous Strength.

So what ideas and insights by Lewis and Orwell are explored and applied in Osborn’s June 2026 article, “What Would C.S. Lewis Have Thought of AI?”

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