Category: Author Updates

Why former Prometheus winners aren’t eligible for Hall of Fame nomination, but former Best Novel finalists are (such as The Truth, the 2024 winner)

By Michael Grossberg

Not all literary award-winners stand the test of time.

Most works of arts and entertainment fade. Yet when they last and take on the patina of a classic, they should be recognized.

For only the third time in the history of the Prometheus Awards, a former Best Novel finalist has been inducted into the Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Terry Pratchett’s novel The Truth, first recognized by the Libertarian Futurist Society as a 2001 Best Novel finalist, has won the 2024 award for Best Classic Fiction.

Before The Truth was inducted this year into our Hall of Fame, only two other Best Novel finalists have received that rare honor: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Falling Free and Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.

Continue reading Why former Prometheus winners aren’t eligible for Hall of Fame nomination, but former Best Novel finalists are (such as The Truth, the 2024 winner)

Suarez and Pratchett: Both 2024 Prometheus Award winners earn well-deserved recognition – again

By Michael Grossberg

The third time’s the charm, as the saying goes. Yet, in the Prometheus Awards, it seems the second time around’s the charm, too.


In the 2024 Prometheus Awards, both winners are being recognized for the second time.

Daniel Suarez, winner of the 2024 Best Novel category for Critical Mass, previously won Best Novel in 2015 for Influx.

Meanwhile, the late Terry Pratchett, winner of the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction for The Truth, was first recognized by the Prometheus Awards in 2003, when he won Best Novel for Night Watch.

When recently notified of the news that he’s won the Prometheus Award a second time, Suarez responded positively but soberly:

“Authoritarianism is on the march in this world once more, and I’m convinced the first step in resisting despots is to be free in one’s own thoughts and imagination. LFS is doing great work to keep free-thinking science fiction alive, and for that I thank you,” Suarez said in an email.

Continue reading Suarez and Pratchett: Both 2024 Prometheus Award winners earn well-deserved recognition – again

Robert Heinlein: Remembering the Grand Master on his birthday

Today (July 7) is the birthday of Robert Heinlein, one of the greatest science fiction writers of the past century.

Robert Heinlein in the 1920s (Photo courtesy of Heinlein Trust archives)

In honor of his birthday, the Prometheus blog remembers and celebrates Heinlein (1907-1988), hailed by his peers as a Grand Master of science fiction and perhaps the most famous and widely read libertarian sf author of his era.

Heinlein also is the author most often honored and recognized with Prometheus Awards – a grand total of nine.

So it’s no surprise that the Prometheus Blog over its first seven years has posted 46 articles, reviews, essays, news stories or author’s updates about him – more than those about any other author.

Most of Heinlein’s works retain their story-telling power and prescient relevance, so today’s a good day to check out something by or about Heinlein.

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A Fourth of July treat: Poul Anderson on ‘Science Fiction and Freedom’

Introduction: Poul Anderson  (1926-2001) was a major American science  fiction writer. He won the Hugo Award seven times and won the Nebula Award three  times. He also won the Prometheus Award once (for The Stars Are Also Fire), the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award four times and also received our Special Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Poul Anderson (Creative Commons license)

Anderson delivered this speech March 19, 1978, at the banquet of Leprecon, a science fiction convention in Phoenix. The speech was then printed in the May 1978 issue of New Libertarian, Volume Four, Number Three. It is reprinted here with the permission of Astrid  Bear, Poul Anderson’s daughter, and is copyright The Trigonier Trust.

The Prometheus Blog is reprinting his speech here because Anderson, one of the most recognized sf/fantasy authors in the history of science fiction and of the Prometheus Awards, had something important to say then about freedom and science fiction – something still valuable to ponder today.

Continue reading A Fourth of July treat: Poul Anderson on ‘Science Fiction and Freedom’

Unmitigated Acts: Gallagher publishes second story collection (including a novelette from his Prometheus-finalist Fall of the Censor series)

By Michael Grossberg

Karl K. Gallagher, a frequent Prometheus Best Novel finalist, has published his second story collection.

Unmitigated Acts, published June 17 by Kelt Haven Press, follows the publication of Ultimate Conclusions, his first story collection (announced in April in an Author’s Update on the Prometheus blog.)

In its 235 pages, Unmitigated Acts collects 17 stories from Gallagher’s Substack blog. Perhaps most notably, Gallagher’s latest anthology includes a novelette in his multiple-Prometheus-finalist Fall of the Censor series.

Continue reading Unmitigated Acts: Gallagher publishes second story collection (including a novelette from his Prometheus-finalist Fall of the Censor series)

Three-time Prometheus winner Victor Koman to present Best Novel category at our public 2024 awards ceremony

Victor Koman, a veteran libertarian sf writer who’s won three Prometheus Awards for Best Novel, has agreed to speak and be a presenter at the 44th Prometheus Awards ceremony.

Prometheus-winning novelist Victor Koman (Courtesy of author)

Koman will present the Best Novel category at the online Zoom ceremony, tentatively planned for a Saturday afternoon in mid- to late August.

Continue reading Three-time Prometheus winner Victor Koman to present Best Novel category at our public 2024 awards ceremony

Hall of Fame finalist review: Terry Pratchett’s The Truth offers hilarious but serious comedy about the rise of newspapers and the value of a free press

By Michael Grossberg

The truth shall make you fret.

Er, that’s not quite right. I meant: “The truth shall make you free.”

And The Truth shall make you laugh, too, while sparking insights about freedom – especially freedom of the press.

Often, while recently rereading Terry Pratchett’s satirical Discworld novel, I laughed out loud. (What a pleasure in troubled times, especially for journalists like me coping with declining newspapers.)

THE POWER OF THE PRESS

The Truth, a 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame finalist, tells a smart, sly and ultimately inspirational tale of underdogs seeking the truth against formidable opposition.

Continue reading Hall of Fame finalist review: Terry Pratchett’s The Truth offers hilarious but serious comedy about the rise of newspapers and the value of a free press

Hall of Fame finalist review: Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise offers masterful social-scientific world-building in clash of cultures (including a libertarian society)

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.

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, a 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame finalist 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 Hall of Fame finalist review: Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise offers masterful social-scientific world-building in clash of cultures (including a libertarian society)

Did you know that fantasy is just as eligible as science fiction for Prometheus Awards recognition? (And that shouldn’t be news!)

By Michael Grossberg

Works of fantasy are eligible to consider for the Prometheus Awards, along with science fiction.

The Lord of the Rings, inducted in 2009 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame

Fantasy has always been eligible for nomination – which might be news to some.

Many falsely assume that the Prometheus Awards are exclusively focused on “libertarian science fiction.”

And many continue to do so, even though several notable works of fantasy have been selected this year as finalists in both annual categories for Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (the Prometheus Hall of Fame.)

Continue reading Did you know that fantasy is just as eligible as science fiction for Prometheus Awards recognition? (And that shouldn’t be news!)

Check out the Atlas Society’s animated Atlas Shrugged video

Have you seen the Atlas Society’s animated video highlighting Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged?

The video, which has received more than 600,000 viewings on You Tube, is billed as the “first-of-its-kind book trailer for Rand’s masterpiece novel.”

Continue reading Check out the Atlas Society’s animated Atlas Shrugged video