Guess who’s at LibertyCon this weekend? Three of this year’s Prometheus Best Novel finalists, just for starters

By Michael Grossberg

Quite a few authors and publishers recognized by the Prometheus Awards are participating at LibertyCon this weekend.

Left to right: Prometheus Best Novel finalists J. Kenton Pierce, Sarah Hoyt and Karl K. Gallagher at LibertyCon 38 (Photo courtesy of Gallagher)

LibertyCon 38, which continues through June 28 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, has attracted a majority of this year’s Prometheus Best Novel finalists.

That includes Karl K. Gallagher (War by Other Means), Sarah Hoyt (No Man’s Land) and J. Kenton Pierce (A Kiss for Damocles) – who just sent us a photo of themselves at the con “for proof.”

Hoyt, a frequent Prometheus finalist, won the 2011 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Darkship Thieves.

Gallagher is also a frequent Best Novel finalist, with six of the seven novels in his ongoing Fall of the Censorate series (including Storm Between the Stars, Seize What’s Held Dear and Swim Among the People) becoming finalists. He initially was honored as a Best Novel finalist for his Torchship trilogy.

Pierce was nominated for the first time for our award this past year for A Kiss for Damocles, but has already been nominated a second time (see below) for another novel in his Tales from the Long Night series.

PROMETHEUS-RECOGNIZED PUBLISHERS

Baen Books and Raconteur Press, two publishers with Prometheus-recognized authors (the latter including Pierce), are also at LibertyCon in force.

For instance, Pierce, Rick Cutler and Nick Nethery will participate at noon Sunday June 28 in the Raconteur Press Authors Read Sci Fi! panel.

Pierce will read a bit from his just-published novel, Stormjammer. It’s the latest work in his ambitious Tales of the Long Night series (which includes A Kiss for Damocles and The Warlord of Greenline Town, recently nominated for next year’s Prometheus Award.

OTHER LIBERTYCON GUESTS

Other notable LibertyCon guests include Wil McCarthy, the 2022 Prometheus Best Novel winner for Rich Man’s Sky; Devon Eriksen, a 2024 Prometheus Best Novel finalist for Theft of Fire; Michael Z. Williamson, a 2006 and 2017 Prometheus Best Novel nominee; Laura Montgomery, a 2026 Prometheus Best Novel nominee; John Ringo, a 2012 Prometheus nominee; and David Webber, a multiple Prometheus Best Novel nominee.

Will McCarthy (Photo courtesy of Baen Books)

Among the top-billed guests: Nicholas Sansbury Smith (Literary Guest of Honor), John Kovalic (Artist Guest of Honor), Dr. Beckey McCauley Rench (STEM Guest of Honor), and S.M. Stirling (Special Guest of Honor).

Also attending are prolific authors Charles Gannon, and Jody Lynn Nye, Baen Books editor/publisher Toni Weisskopf, editor/author Sean CW Korsgaard, and libertarian author/gaming publisher Steve Jackson.

The convention, which limits attendees to 1000 to ensure more intimacy and author-fan interactions, is taking place at the Chattanooga Marriott Downtown, connected to the Chattanooga Convention Center.

For more information, visit www.libertycon.org

ABOUT THE LFS AND THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS

Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction,  join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer international association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.

Libertarian futurists understand that culture matters. We believe that literature and the arts can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future. In some ways, culture can be even more influential and powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.

* Prometheus winners: For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced  Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website. This page includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of the 106 works that have won a Prometheus since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.

* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.

* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.

* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to the latest Prometheus Blog posts.

Published by

Michael Grossberg

Michael Grossberg, who founded the LFS in 1982 to help sustain the Prometheus Awards, has been an arts critic, speaker and award-winning journalist for five decades. Michael has won Ohio SPJ awards for Best Critic in Ohio and Best Arts Reporting (seven times). He's written for Reason, Libertarian Review and Backstage weekly; helped lead the American Theatre Critics Association for two decades; and has contributed to six books, including critical essays for the annual Best Plays Theatre Yearbook and an afterword for J. Neil Schulman's novel The Rainbow Cadenza. Among books he recommends from a libertarian-futurist perspective: Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist & How Innovation Works, David Boaz's The Libertarian Mind and Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *