Fiction in the news – Prometheus Blog

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

“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 

Arc Manor Books sale: Discounted ebooks through Sept. 14 of Michael Flynn’s 2025 Best Novel winner In the Belly of the Whale and other new novels 

By Michael Grossberg

Arc Manor Books, whose CAEZIK SF & Fantasy imprint published our 2025 Prometheus Best Novel winner, is having a special ebook sale.

Available through Sunday Sept. 14 at significant ebook savings are several novels by Prometheus winners – including Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale, the 2025 Best Novel winner.

“Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel last month! This epic, hard science fiction tale unfolds aboard a colossal generation ship, where a decaying aristocracy faces rebellion after a mysterious death in the abandoned “Burnout” region,” publisher Shahid Mahmud said.

Continue reading Arc Manor Books sale: Discounted ebooks through Sept. 14 of Michael Flynn’s 2025 Best Novel winner In the Belly of the Whale and other new novels 

The Day Before the Revolution: Ursula K. Le Guin story, a prequel to her Prometheus-winning The Dispossessed, recommended by Reactor Magazine 

By Michael Grossberg

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Day Before the Revolution has been highlighted and recommended by Reactor Magazine among “five SF stories in which hope survives.”

The story, available in the Le Guin short-story collection The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, should be of interested to LFS members and other freedom-loving SF/fantasy fans because it’s considered a sequel to Le Guin’s classic novel The Dispossessed, an early Prometheus Hall of Fame winner.

“Science fiction has the power to remind us that hope is valuable, and necessary,” James Davis Nicoll wrote in the Reactor column.

That insight, and sentiment, rings true to Prometheus Awards voters and fans. After all, our award in part aims to recognize worthy works of speculative fiction that in many cases do remind us that even amid troubled times and authoritarian societies, better and freer futures remain possible.

Continue reading The Day Before the Revolution: Ursula K. Le Guin story, a prequel to her Prometheus-winning The Dispossessed, recommended by Reactor Magazine 

Ursula K. Le Guin’s Prometheus-winning The Dispossessed honored and probed on its 50th anniversary 

By Michael Grossberg

Many bestsellers or award-winning books or plays or movies or record albums tend to fade over the years, but a few manage to pass the test of time.

In that latter category is Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1974 novel The Dispossessed, inducted in 1993 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.

Recently honored on its 50th anniversary with a Harper’s 50th Anniversary Edition, Le Guin’s novel contrasts two alleged utopian worlds.

One human-settled planet is anarchist (but without property rights and with mob rule and group think); the other is mostly capitalist (but with recurrent wars and extremes of wealth and poverty.)

Continue reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s Prometheus-winning The Dispossessed honored and probed on its 50th anniversary 

Male vs. female readers, and science fiction vs. fantasy: Is modern publishing targeting one more than the other?  

By Michael Grossberg

It’s an old cliche: Men prefer science fiction; women prefer fantasy. (Of course, that’s a half-truth at best: After all, many men enjoy fantasy, and many women, science fiction.)

Left to right: The planets Mars, Earth and Venus (File photo)

Yet, if men are mostly from Mars and women are mostly from Venus, how is today’s publishing world appealing to both?

Not very well, Kristin McTiernan argues on her Fictional Influence website and blog.

When McTiernan posted a video about the absence of contemporary men’s fiction, it went viral.

“I struck a nerve that resonated far beyond my usual audience,” McTiernan wrote on her Fictional Influence website.

“The comment section flooded with responses from men who felt invisible in today’s publishing landscape – readers hungry for stories that spoke to their experiences (from their perspective) without apology.”

Continue reading Male vs. female readers, and science fiction vs. fantasy: Is modern publishing targeting one more than the other?  

“Rapport: – A new Martha Wells’ Murderbot story has just been published, free to read at Reactor

If you’re a Murderbot fan, here’s some good news.

Reactor has just published a Murderbot novelette by series author Martha Wells. And it’s free to read.

Titled “Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy,” Wells’ new novelette can be read as a stand-alone but related story for those who have read Artificial Condition, the second book in The Murderbot Diaries.

Many Libertarian Futurist Society members have read Wells’ Prometheus-nominated series about a rogue security robot who secretly gains free will – especially her first four books including Artificial Condition.

So the new story should be of great interest, and also easy to read in context.

Continue reading “Rapport: – A new Martha Wells’ Murderbot story has just been published, free to read at Reactor

Apple TV’s entertaining adaptation of Wells’ Murderbot stories reflects their libertarian themes of free will, anti-slavery and bodily autonomy

By Michael Grossberg

It’s not that often that a Prometheus-award-recognized novel or story is adapted to the large or small screen.

So it’s newsworthy, as well as something of a relief, to report that the Apple TV+ new streaming series of Murderbot is pretty entertaining.

Martha Wells’ Murderbot stories and novels have won Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards, and have been nominated for the Prometheus Award, where her first set of novellas was recognized as a Best Novel finalist. So hopes were high for the TV series, which began streaming in May.

Based on the suspenseful and intelligent half-hour episodes of its first season, Apple TV’s series seems faithful to Well’s acclaimed series of novellas and novels about a rogue security robot who secretly gains free will.

Continue reading Apple TV’s entertaining adaptation of Wells’ Murderbot stories reflects their libertarian themes of free will, anti-slavery and bodily autonomy

Achieving personhood, escaping slavery and defending bodily autonomy: Why Martha Wells’ bestselling Murderbot series appeals to libertarian SF fans 

By Michael Grossberg

Martha Wells, author of the Murderbot series (Creative Commons license)

Martha Wells’ Murderbot novellas and novels have become bestsellers and award-winners.

Besides winning Hugo and Nebula and Locus awards, various works in the series also have been recognized with Prometheus Award nominations, resulting in the first four linked novellas being selected together as a Best Novel finalist.

The Murderbot series has now been adapted into an Apple TV+ streaming series starring Alexander Skarsgard.

Why are these stories so popular – not only with SF fans in general but libertarian SF fans in particular?

Continue reading Achieving personhood, escaping slavery and defending bodily autonomy: Why Martha Wells’ bestselling Murderbot series appeals to libertarian SF fans 

TOR publishes three-volume set of Martha Wells’ Prometheus-nominated Murderbot novellas

By Michael Grossberg

Good news for Murderbot fans: All of the novellas in Martha Wells’ acclaimed, bestselling and Prometheus-nominated series about a self-aware robot have been bound together in paperback for the first time.

The three-volume set – accessibly but unimaginatively titled The Murderbot Diaries Vol. 1, 2 and 3 – has been published by TOR Books, to capitalize on the Apple TV new TV series based on the stories.

The set includes all four Murderbot novellas that were combined into one 2019 Prometheus Best Novel nomination and went on to be selected among that year’s finalists: All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy.

Network Effect, a full-length Murderbot novel, also was nominated for a Prometheus Award in 2021 in the Best Novel category.

Continue reading TOR publishes three-volume set of Martha Wells’ Prometheus-nominated Murderbot novellas

Two-time Prometheus winner George Orwell honored in United Kingdom with Royal Mint coin, but “Big Brother is (still) watching you” 

By Michael Grossberg

Great Britain’s Royal Mint is honoring George Orwell – also worth celebrating today on the anniversary of his birthday June 25, 1903 – with a new coin, 75 years after his death in 1950.

Best known for his Prometheus-winning classics Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, the British novelist and essayist will be celebrated with a new £2 coin.

In the Orwellian spirit of the well-known Nineteen Eighty-Four catch phrase that “Big Brother is watching you,” coin artist Henry Gray created a coin design that appears to be an eye, but at its center is actually a camera lens surrounded 360 degrees by the famous phrase.

Continue reading Two-time Prometheus winner George Orwell honored in United Kingdom with Royal Mint coin, but “Big Brother is (still) watching you” 