Wil McCarthy has been receiving broad attention for the tetralogy launched with Rich Man’s Sky, the 2022 Prometheus Best Novel winner.
Beggar’s Sky, one of five 2025 Best Novel finalists, is the third novel in his exciting science fiction/mystery series and the direct sequel to Poor Man’s Sky.
With Prometheus Awards voting in its final weeks before the July 4 deadline, it’s worth highlighting how each of the authors of this year’s Best Novel finalists have been receiving broader cultural attention in interviews, podcasts and rave reviews.
In Part three of our ongoing series, we highlight and provide links to four interviews that McCarthy has done about his complex series, which projects the twists and turns in the industrial development and colonization of our solar system primarily through the private efforts of four billionaires.
Perhaps the most interesting and timely of McCarthy’s interviews was the one he did with Paul Semel after the publication of Beggar’s Sky.
Buoyed by the Prometheus Award recognition for his novel Cancelled: The Shape of Things to Come, British author Danny King is receiving international attention.
As the voting period enters its last three weeks to determine the winners of the next Prometheus awards, it’s worth highlighting how King’s novel and other of this year’s Best Novel finalists have been gaining recognition and sparking discussions in the broader culture. That includes Lionel Shriver’s Mania (the focus of the previous Prometheus blog post in this series.)
British writer Danny King (Creative Commons license)
During the wide-ranging interview, King discussed the anti-authoritarian and libertarian themes of Cancelled, what inspired him to make the central character of his “utopian/dystopian” tale a “woke” lesbian woman, and the unexpected difficulty he had getting his latest novel published.
The podcast hails Cancelled as “the latest book of multi-award winning writer Danny King” and “a satirical novel set in a future world in which saying or thinking the wrong thing gets you cancelled from mainstream society.” According to the description of that podcast (Episode 13), Liberty Itch writer Tom Volcanos ask Danny about “Cancelled, being cancelled, and writing in our brave new world where being cancelled is all too real,” according to the podcast description.
As voting enters its final weeks to determine the winners of the next Prometheus awards, it’s worth highlighting how several of this year’s Best Novel finalists have been gaining recognition and sparking discussions in the broader culture.
That includes Lionel Shriver’s Mania, Danny King’s Cancelled, Wil McCarthy’s Beggar’s Sky, C.J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher’s Alliance Unbound, Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale, based on interviews, podcasts and publications we’ve come across.(If you become aware of columns, podcasts, interviews or other media coverage of any of our Best Novel finalists, or for that matter, our Hall of Fame finalists, please let us know as soon as possible!)
Author Lionel Shriver (Creative Commons License)
Mania, in particular, has sparked both timely commentary and podcasts, including an interesting interview with Shriver and a Substack column drawing parallels between Mania and today’s cultural-political trends.
Dutch-American writer and courageous dissident Ayaan Hirsi Ali invited Shriver, an international best-selling author, to join her on a podcast for a lengthy interview – with some relevant excerpts quoted below.
Meanwhile, on Holly’s Substack column, Holly “Mathnerd” has written a column titled “The Sound of One Window Shifting” about “the moment a satirical novel I read and enjoyed last year stopped feeling like fiction.”
That novel, of course, is Shriver’s Mania – whose satirical and cautionary themes are highlighted in the Prometheus blog review.
Here is a handy guide to viewing the Libertarian Futurist Society’s recorded programs – and a welcome to our new Videos page.
Below is an overview, with links and descriptions, of LFS panel discussions, podcasts, interviews and awards ceremonies over the past decade at various Worldcons (World Science Fiction Conventions) and NASFiCs (North American Science Fiction Conventions).
But first, take a look to your left – to the new VIDEOS link at the top of the left-side column of the Prometheus blog. Here is where you can go, from now on, to check out all LFS videos and podcasts, including each year’s Prometheus Awards ceremonies and related speeches and Worldcon panel discussions, as they are recorded and added each year. (The LFS is already looking forward to making plans to present our 2021 Prometheus Awards ceremony at DisCon II, the 79th Worldcon set to run Aug. 25-29, 2021, in Washington, D.C.)
In these LFS panels, podcasts and Prometheus award speeches, bestselling sf novelists and LFS members have discussed a wide variety of timely and timeless subjects that inspired their stories and novels.
Cory Doctorow (Creative Commons license)
Among the speakers: novelists C.J. Cherryh, Travis Corcoran, Cory Doctorow, Harlan Ellison, Jane Fancher, Sarah Hoyt, John Hunt, Ken MacLeod, Ramez Naam, Andy Weir, and F. Paul Wilson and LFS leaders Steve Gaalema, Michael Grossberg, Tom Jackson and LFS president William H. Stoddard.
C.J. Cherry (Creative Commons license)
Unlike typical awards acceptance speeches at the Oscars, Tonys, Grammys or Emmys, which tend to be laundry lists of names to thank, most Prometheus-Ceremony speeches tend to be wide-ranging, fascinating, thoughtful (and longer) explorations of ideas, ideals and libertarian themes, often combined with personal stories – and thus, rewarding to view even years later.
Here, in this overview of LFS videos, the most recent events are listed first, with brief descriptions of speakers and subjects, interesting excerpts and links.
Did you miss the live podcast of Prometheus Award authors on the Geek Gab podcast? Fear not — there are time binding options!
You can listen to it on YouTube. You also have the option of searching for it on your favorite podcasting app; search for “Geek Gab” at the iTunes store or the Google Play store.
The podcast features authors of this year’s Prometheus Award nominees, with Ken MacLeod, Andy Weir, Travis Corcoran, Karl Gallagher and John Hunt. Sarah Hoyt and Doug Casey were unable to join the podcast. Along with discussion of their books, the authors say interesting things about artificial intelligence and computer programming, about anarcho-capitalism and libertarian ethics, and reveal the most surprising elements of their books for many readers. And it turns out there’s more than one fan of Iain M. Banks in the group. All I know about the host is that he goes by “Daddy Warpig,” but he does a great job.
* Drug Lord: High Ground byDoug Casey and John Hunt (High Ground Books) * Powers of the Earth, by Travis Corcoran (Morlock Publishing)
*Torchship, Torchship Pilot and Torchship Captain, by Karl Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press) * Darkship Revenge, by Sarah Hoyt (Baen Books) * The Corporation Wars: Emergence by Ken MacLeod (Orbit Books)
* Artemis, by Andy Weir (Crown Books)
Gallagher, who organized the event, says all of the authors have agreed to take part, except for Casey and Hunt, who have schedule conflicts.
Gallagher reports, “We’ll also be on the Krypton Radio ‘Event Horizon’ but it’s not scheduled yet. The host is reading the books to prepare. That’s recorded in advance so we should be able to find a time for everyone.”
