War by Other Means, a Prometheus Best Novel finalist, is the seventh volume in Karl K. Gallagher’s future history series Fall of the Censor. After several volumes focused on military conflict, War by Other Means changes its focus to diplomatic relations among the worlds fighting against the Censorate.
In doing so, it brings Wynny Landry, the wife of Marcus Landry, the protagonist of several previous books, as a new protagonist, in the role of the ambassador from her native planet, Corwynt.
The 2026 Prometheus Best Novel finalists have been announced – and Libertarian Futurist Society members are reading them, with the ultimate verdict and winners to be selected by July 4 on the final ballot.
To spark thought and discussion, raise the visibility of these works and the award and hopefully serve as a helpful guide, the Prometheus Blog is publishing thoughtful, in-depth reviews by Prometheus judges of each finalist. Some LFS members may wish to read them right away; others may prefer to wait until they’ve finished a finalist before reading the review.
Meanwhile, to whet your appetite to read each finalist and vote in the final stage of the Prometheus Awards, here are roughly equal 200-word capsule descriptions of each finalist.
And we’ve striven to avoid revealing any spoilers, so it’s safe to read them now!
Continue reading Capsule reviews of all five Best Novel finalists – with no spoilers!
Three former Prometheus winners, a frequent Best Novel finalist and a first-time nominee are competing to win this year’s Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
The Prometheus Best Novel Judging Committee, drawn from the LFS membership, has selected five 2025 novels as 2026 finalists from 14 nominated works. The Best Novel finalists, listed in alphabetical order by author, are Storm-Dragon, by Dave Freer (Raconteur Press); War by Other Means, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press); No Man’s Land, by Sarah Hoyt (Goldport Press); A Kiss for Damocles, by J. Kenton Pierce (Raconteur Press); and Powerless, by Harry Turtledove (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy.)
Pierce was nominated for the first time for a Prometheus Award, so his inclusion as a Best Novel finalist is particularly impressive in a year that many judges feel has been a superior one for freedom-themed SF/fantasy.
Continue reading Former winners, finalists compete with newcomer as Prometheus Best Novel finalists
If you were nominated for a Prometheus Award for Best Novel, would you invite the world to watch you in the moment you found out whether your novel was selected among the finalists?
Novelist John C.A. Manley was willing to do that yesterday with his editor Peter Toccalino in an interesting and wide-ranging 40-minute video discussion of this year’s Best Novel nominees and finalists.
Kudos to Johanna Sinisalo, most familiar to readers of this blog as winner of the 2017 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Sinisalo, widely hailed as one of Finland’s leading novelists, has been recognized as a finalist in Finland’s top science fiction award.
The Helsinki Science Fiction Society has announced 2026 finalists for its Tähtivaeltaja (“Star Rover”) Award for the best science fiction book published in Finland in the previous year.
By Michael Grossberg
“And the nominees are…”
Those words are familiar to just about everyone in America, since people frequently repeat them at several of the biggest annual televised awards ceremonies.
Especially at the Academy Awards, informally known as the Oscars – and still the premier annual American awards show in arts and entertainment despite its recent decline.
Yet I’d argue that such an iconic phrase is often misleading. Worse, it can lead to confusion and misperceptions about other awards – including our own.
The Prometheus Awards use the term “nominees” quite differently than the Oscars do.
What the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which sponsors and presents the Academy Awards, dubs “nominees” is actually what the Prometheus awards quite properly refers to as finalists.
That may seem like mere semantics, or a minor disagreement over labeling, but it’s an important distinction with significant differences.
In fact, finalists attain a higher level of recognition than nominees – and thus deserve greater respect and their own distinct name.
Ilya Somin will be the guest presenter and keynote speaker at the Libertarian Futurist Society’s 2026 Prometheus Awards ceremony.
A professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, a leading libertarian think tank, Somin has written several books reflecting his research and expertise on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights.
Just as relevant to our upcoming August 2026 awards ceremony – which will be hosted on Zoom and open to the public – Somin is a long-time fan of science fiction and fantasy – which he plans to focus on in his speech presenting the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
If you don’t already have the books to read of the five novels selected as 2026 finalists for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame award, here’s some helpful tips on where you can find each of them.
First published between 1932 and 2003, the five Best Classic Fiction finalists are James Blish’s The Star Dwellers, C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Adam Roberts’ Salt and Charles Stross’ Singularity Sky.
Surprisingly, it turns out the total cost of buying copies of all five novels right now – as ebooks or in print – is remarkably low. In fact, a recent price check on Amazon confirms that all five finalists can be purchased for just $5.87 total, assuming you’re willing to get most as ebooks.
Of course, if you prefer to check your local library for these titles, you should be able to borrow the books for free. Yet it’s possible one of the older and lesser-known titles may not be widely available, and anyway, some LFS members often prefer to buy their own copies to add to their home library.
In most cases, each novel is available in multiple formats – including hardback, paperback and ebook, sometimes also as an audio book.
Libertarian Futurist Society members have nominated 14 novels for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel. Of those, nine nominees were written by authors nominated for the first time for a Prometheus Award.
With so many authors new to our awards, the Prometheus Awards may be entering a more hopeful period in which a new generation is writing science fiction, fantasy and other fantastical works informed by a clear awareness of the dangers of tyranny and the benefits of freedom.
The “new” Prometheus-recognized writers include Max Harms, Andrew Knighton, John C. A. Manley, Ewan Morrison, Laura Montgomery, Ray Nayler, J. Kenton Pierce and David A. Price.
Nominated again are three Prometheus-winning authors – Dave Freer (Cloud-Castles), Sarah Hoyt (Darkship Thieves) and Harry Turtledove (The Gladiator) – and one writer, Karl K. Gallagher, whose works often have become Best Novel finalists. In addition, writer R.H. Snow has been nominated several times for Best Novel.
Just as the Prometheus Awards overlaps to some extent with the Hugo and Nebula wards in terms of the works and writers recognized, our list of Prometheus-winning writers overlaps with the Forry Awards.
C.J. Cherryh, who co-wrote the 2020 Prometheus Best Novel winner (Alliance Rising) with her partner Jane S. Fancher, is the 13th Prometheus winner to also be recognized in the Forry awards.
Cherryh recently won the 2025 Forrest J Ackerman Award for Lifetime Achievement given by the members of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. (See our previous post about Cherryh’s latest honor.)
It’s interesting to see what writers have been recognized by both the LASFS, the world’s oldest continuously active science fiction and fantasy club, and the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), established in 1982 to sustain the Prometheus Awards.
Such broad cross-recognition should be another reminder of just how embedded libertarian and anti-authoritarian ideas and values are within our popular culture – and have been, for generations, even amid various socio-economic developments and political trends, both positive and negative.
So if Cherryh is the 13th Prometheus winner to be recognized with a Forry award, who else is on that illustrious cross-checked list?
