Author Updates – Prometheus Blog

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

Big sale on F. Paul Wilson’s Prometheus-winning novel Sims

Sims, the 2004 Prometheus winner for Best Novel, is on sale.

The novel, by five-time Prometheus winner F. Paul Wilson, is available as an ebook for 90 percent off at both Amazon (for $1.99) and Bookbub (for $2).

One of Wilson’s most libertarian science fiction novels, Sims offers a cautionary tale about genetic engineering and the struggle of the sims, a genetically engineered cross between humans and champinees, for freedom and respect.

His central question: Should genetically enhanced creatures be viewed as animals, to be owned, or as human, with basic rights?

Wilson explores such basic libertarian issues with gripping drama in this plausible, suspenseful and well-paced scientific thriller.

Continue reading Big sale on F. Paul Wilson’s Prometheus-winning novel Sims

Masterful social-scientific world-building in clash of cultures, including a libertarian society: An appreciation of Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise, the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner 

By William H. Stoddard

One of the things Poul Anderson was known for throughout his literary career was world-building. Much of this was planetary design, based on the natural sciences, in which he started out with stellar type, planetary mass, orbital radius, and elemental abundances and worked out the geology, meteorology, and biology of a world.

Poul Anderson (Creative Commons license)

Anderson was certainly one of the masters of this, up there with Hal Clement and Vernor Vinge. But he put equal effort into social scientific worldbuilding, creating economies, polities, and cultures, and developing plots for his stories from the conflicts they gave rise to. Orion Shall Rise, winner of the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, is a nearly pure example of social scientific world-building, set not in a distant solar system but on a future Earth.

Continue reading Masterful social-scientific world-building in clash of cultures, including a libertarian society: An appreciation of Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise, the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner 

An epic social novel about conflicts and threats to liberty on a multi-generation interstellar colony ship: An Appreciation of Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale, the 2025 Best Novel winner

By Michael Grossberg

In the Belly of the Whale, the 2025 Prometheus winner for Best Novel, was Michael Flynn’s last, posthumous novel and one of his richest and most resonant.

Exploring the complex lives, jobs, relationships, challenges and conflicts aboard a large colony ship two centuries into a projected eight-century voyage to Tau Ceti, the epic 472-page novel takes some time to fully introduce its large cast of characters among 40,000 people who live in the hollowed-out asteroid ship dubbed The Whale.

Yet, patience is amply rewarded with Flynn’s plausible and intricate world-building, deep insights into social psychology and wise grasp of human nature.

In the Belly of the Whale, Flynn’s 14th and final novel, builds dramatic intensity coupled with rich and revelatory insights that freshen this seemingly familiar SF subgenre of the long colony-ship voyage. Flynn raises deeper questions than most SF writers, scientists or space-colonization enthusiasts have considered about the prospects and costs of such generations-long voyages.

Continue reading An epic social novel about conflicts and threats to liberty on a multi-generation interstellar colony ship: An Appreciation of Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale, the 2025 Best Novel winner

Video: Watch the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony, with speeches by leading libertarian thinker David Friedman and tributes to the late Poul Anderson and Michael Flynn 

How did Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress give leading libertarian thinker David Friedman the radical idea that society can develop just laws and functional legal systems without government?

What life events, travels, famous scientists and space projects helped shape the late Poul Anderson’s 1983 novel Orion Shall Rise, the 2025 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner?

How did the late Michael Flynn’s childhood lead him to become an award-winning science fiction writer?

Why does Flynn’s CAEZIK SF & Fantasy publisher view him as one of the most underestimated sf writers of his generation?

What Prometheus-winning sf/fantasy authors rank high among Friedman’s favorites – and why?

To find out, watch the recorded YouTube video of the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony:

Continue reading Video: Watch the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony, with speeches by leading libertarian thinker David Friedman and tributes to the late Poul Anderson and Michael Flynn 

Celebrating the 45th Prometheus Awards: LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg’s speech presenting the Best Novel category to Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale 

Michael Grossberg, who chairs the Prometheus Best Novel judging committee, presented the Best Novel category Aug. 30 at the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony. Here is the transcript of his speech.

By Michael Grossberg

The Prometheus Awards, one of the oldest-sustained annual fan-based sf/fantasy awards after the Hugos and Nebulas, are unique in recognizing fantastical fiction that dramatizes the perennial conflict between liberty and power.

Since the Prometheus Award for Best Novel was first presented in 1979, 46 novels have won this annual category. Today, we will honor a 47th.

This year’s five finalists represent a diverse range of fiction by authors who appreciate how freedom makes possible and helps sustain peace, prosperity, progress, civility and social harmony – while its absence increases the risk of war, tyranny and other abuses of power.

Continue reading Celebrating the 45th Prometheus Awards: LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg’s speech presenting the Best Novel category to Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale 

Celebrating the 45th Prometheus Awards: LFS President William H. Stoddard’s speech introducing the Prometheus Hall of Fame and guest presenter David Friedman

Libertarian Futurist Society president William H. Stoddard emceed the 45th Prometheus Awards and introduced the Prometheus Hall of Fame category for Best Classic Fiction, which was presented by libertarian luminary and Prometheus-nominated fantasy novelist David Friedman.

LFS President William H. Stoddard (Photo by Carol Stoddard)

The August 30, 2025 awards ceremony, presented live via Zoom on August 30, 2025, was recorded and later posted on Youtube. Here is the text of Stoddard’s speech:

By William H. Stoddard

The Prometheus Hall of Fame award was established in 1983.

Initially we gave it to two classic works of libertarian science fiction each year. Our first two winners were virtually inevitable choices: Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the book that established libertarian science fiction as a recognized genre, and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the fictional treatment of libertarian ideas that brought large numbers of people into what became the libertarian movement.

The next year’s award went to two classic dystopias, George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

Since then we’ve settled down to one winner a year, and opened the award not merely to novels but to work in any narrative or dramatic form. Such works become eligible 20 years after their original publication.

To present this year’s award, we have the honor of having David Friedman as a guest speaker.

Continue reading Celebrating the 45th Prometheus Awards: LFS President William H. Stoddard’s speech introducing the Prometheus Hall of Fame and guest presenter David Friedman

The Diamond Age: Neal Stephenson’s first Prometheus finalist for Best Novel hailed as prophetic and timely cautionary tale 

By Michael Grossberg

“The only person who might have envisioned a future as outlandish as our present is the Seattle-based author Neal Stephenson.”

Neal Stephenson in 2019 (Creative Commons license)

That’s the interesting and notable view of British-American historian Niall Ferguson, expressed in his Time Machine column on Substack.

To back up his thesis, Ferguson offers a detailed argument revolving around Stephenson’s 1995 science fiction novel The Diamond Age.

Along with his earlier breakthrough cyberpunk (or post-cyberpunk) novel Snow Crash (1992), The Diamond Age put Stephenson on the map as a visionary writer to watch – and read.

Continue reading The Diamond Age: Neal Stephenson’s first Prometheus finalist for Best Novel hailed as prophetic and timely cautionary tale 

Celebrating the 45th Prometheus Awards: Michael Flynn’s publisher Shahid Mahmud’s acceptance speech about one of our most underrated sf authors 

“I think Michael was one of the most underrated authors in the genre… his work holds up to some of the best science fiction I’ve ever read.
— Shahid Mahmud, publisher of CAEZIK SF & Fantasy

Novelist Michael Flynn at an sf convention several decades ago (File photo)

Introduction: CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, a company led by Shahid Mahmud, published Michael Flynn’s last and posthumous novel In the Belly of the Whale, the 2025 Prometheus winner for Best Novel – and the first novel originally published by CAEZIK to win a Prometheus Award.

In his comments during the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony, Mahmud paid tribute to Flynn, who died in 2023 at 75 after an impressive career writing science fiction. Winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award, Flynn was nominated seven times for the Hugo Award (including Best Novel for Eifelheim) and eight times for the Prometheus Award, winning three times for Best Novel.

Continue reading Celebrating the 45th Prometheus Awards: Michael Flynn’s publisher Shahid Mahmud’s acceptance speech about one of our most underrated sf authors 