Fiction in the news – Page 2

Orwell’s Prometheus-winning Animal Farm being adapted into an animated film  

One of the best known and most enduring Prometheus Hall of Fame winners for Best Classic Fiction has finally been adapted into an animated film.

Actor-director Andy Serkis has worked for years to bring to the screen a new animated film version of George Orwell’s fable Animal Farm, a Prometheus Hall of Fame inductee for Best Classic Film. Serkis’ film, which has been screened overseas at a film festival, is not yet available to watch in the United States.

Orwell’s cautionary and satirical fable focuses on a group of anthropomorphic farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to achieve a fully egalitarian society where all the animals are equal. Ultimately, the rebellion is betrayed, with a pig named Napoleon becoming dictator of the farm, which ends up in a far worse state than before.

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Why we post articles about references in popular culture to Prometheus-winning classics, from Orwell’s 1984 to Anderson’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” 

By Michael Grossberg

Not all literary works that win major awards continue to be widely read and influential, years or decades later. Yet, from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four to Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” those that do are worth noting, for they often reflect important aspects of our era’s intellectual currents and popular culture.

In that context, the number of Prometheus-winning works that commonly are referenced by prominent columnists, essayists and authors continues to be impressive.

Of the more than 100 novels, stories, films and other works of fantastical fiction that have won a Prometheus award for Best Novel or Best Classic Fiction (our Hall of Fame) since the first prize was presented in 1979, more than a dozen are written about frequently in magazines, newspapers, Substack columns, books or referenced in movies, plays and other realms of popular culture.

Among the many Prometheus-winning authors most commonly written about – sometimes with a purely literary focus but more often used as resonant reference points for 21st century commentary – are George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Ayn Rand, J.RR. Tolkien, Neal Stephenson and Hans Christian Andersen.

Continue reading Why we post articles about references in popular culture to Prometheus-winning classics, from Orwell’s 1984 to Anderson’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” 

What leading libertarian theorist and novelist David Friedman thinks of Lois McMaster Bujold, L. Neil Smith, J. Neil Schulman, Robert Heinlein and other Prometheus-winning authors 

By Michael Grossberg

David Friedman (Creative Commons license)

David Friedman, a guest presenter at the 45th Prometheus Awards show, is a regular reader of science fiction and fantasy – and the prominent economist and leading libertarian theorist has been influenced in his thinking by several Prometheus-winning authors.

So it’s interesting to hear Friedman’s views on a variety of sf/fantasy writers, which he shared in response to questions at the end of the Aug. 30, 2025, awards ceremony.

In addition to Poul Anderson (the 2025 Hall of Fame winner for Orion Shall Rise), Robert Heinlein, Jerry Pournelle and Vernor Vinge (Prometheus-winning writers that Friedman discussed during his main speech), Friedman offered comments and insights on the novels of Prometheus winners Lois McMaster Bujold, L. Neil Smith, J. Neil Schulman, C.J. Cherryh (highlighted in a previous blog), Heinlein and other sf/fantasy writers.

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Why leading economist, libertarian theorist and novelist David Friedman admires Prometheus winner C.J. Cherryh 

By Michael Grossberg

Even after all of the inspiring, thought-provoking and occasionally poignant or amusing speeches by presenters and acceptors, the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony was worth watching through the very end of its 48 minutes.

David Friedman (Photo provided by Friedman)

During the post-ceremony Q&A discussions of the live Zoom event (recorded and later posted on YouTube), guest Hall of Fame presenter David Friedman offered interesting and revealing comments on a wide variety of science-fiction novelists – including Poul Anderson, the 2025 Hall of Fame winner for his novel Orion Shall Rise; Robert Heinlein, Jerry Pournelle and Vernor Vinge.

A leading economist and libertarian theorist and author of half a dozen non-fiction books, Friedman’s views are worth quoting – especially because he understands the challenges of writing fantastical fiction from his own experience as a Prometheus-nominated writer of three fantasy novels: Harald, Salamander and Brothers.

Here is what Friedman had to say about C.J. Cherryh, among half a dozen sf authors that he commented on in the post-ceremony question period.

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“Every Day is a Good Day” – Tom Jackson’s new book offers a 50th anniversary tribute to Robert Shea, co-author with Robert Anton Wilson of the Prometheus-winning Illuminatus! trilogy

By Michael Grossberg

Marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Prometheus-winning Illuminatus! trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, Hilaritus Press has published a book honoring Shea by journalist Tom Jackson, a veteran LFS member and Prometheus Awards judge.

Jackson, who edits the Robert Anton Wilson Illumination blog celebrating the fiction and non-fiction of Shea and Wilson, edited Every Day is a Good Day, an anthology of Shea’s writings.

Subtitled “Robert Shea on Illuminatus!, Writing and Anarchism,” the anthology book has “quite a bit about the Libertarian Futurist Society in it,” Jackson said.

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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.

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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.”

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