Besides the late great Michael Flynn, Arc Manor Books has published quite a few other Prometheus-winning authors – including Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, L. Neil Smith, Harry Turtledove and Jack Williamson.
Two of Arc Manor’s major imprints are CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, launched in 2020 with a “new” previously unpublished novel by Robert A. Heinlein, and Phoenix Pick, which reprints classic SF and Fantasy “from the ashes” of other publishing houses, with some new titles.
Thus, the Maryland-based small-press, created by Shahid Mahmud in 2006 to utilize the exciting new emerging technologies being developed in the publishing marketplace, should be better known, especially by Libertarian Futurist Society members and other freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
ARC MANOR’S AWARD-WINNING IMPRINTS
Through his CAEZIK SF & Fantasy and Phoenix Pick imprints as well as through Arc Manor, Mahmud has published works of science fiction and fantasy that have won the Nebula Award, World Fantasy Award, Prometheus Award, and IBPA’s Franklin Award and have been nominated for the Hugo and Sidewise awards.
That’s an impressive track record for such a relatively young publisher.
THREE PROMETHEUS WINNERS
Looking over its current slate of books and back list on the Arc Manor website, the publisher is offering Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale, the 2025 Prometheus Best Novel winner; Smith’s novel Pallas, which won the 1994 Prometheus Award for Best Novel and James Hogan’s The Multiplex Man, which won the 1990 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
It’s nice to see that all three works are explicitly described on the Arc Manor website as Prometheus Best Novel winners.
HOGAN, HEINLEIN AND ANDERSON
Also available are Hogan’s novels Code of the Lifemaker and The Immortality Option, and Flynn’s collection The Forest of Time and Other Stories.
The first book to be published in 2020 under the new Arc manor imprint of CAEZIK SF & Fantasy was a rediscovered Heinlein novel, The Pursuit of the Pankera, which went on to become a Locus magazine national bestseller.
Among the other Heinlein books available from the publisher are Double Star, Expanded Universe, Friday, The Number of the Beast and Podkayne of Mars.
Anderson’s works reprinted under Phoenix Picks at Arc Manor include The Burning Bridge and Security.
L. NEIL SMITH’S LEGACY
Mahmud had a long working relationship with Smith, and is today the major publisher of the late libertarian-sf novelist (1946-2021). Smith won three Prometheus Best Novel awards for The Probability Broach, Pallas and The Forge of the Elders and received a Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2016.
Other Smith novels, almost all Prometheus nominees or finalists, available from Arc Manor include Ceres, (the sequel to Pallas and Book II of the Ngu Family Saga), Tom Paine Maru, The Venus Belt, Brightsuit MacBear, The Crystal Empire, Blade of p’Na, Their Majesties’ Bucketeers, Taflak Lysandra and Sweeter Than Wine.
Also available: Smith’s nonfiction book Down With Power: Libertarian Policy In a Time of Crisis.
NIVEN AND POURNELLE’S OATH OF FEALTY
Oath of Fealty, by Niven and Pournelle, might be especially timely to read or reread, since it was recently discussed by leading libertarian theorist David D. Friedman.
Friedman, an economist, law-and-economics professor and Prometheus-nominated novelist. Friedman commented on one of the themes and lessons of Oath of Fealty in his speech as guest presenter of this year’s Prometheus Hall of Fame award.
Friedman discussed the impact of the works of Heinlein, Niven, Pournelle and Poul Anderson on the evolution of his libertarian views and economic theories during the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony, presented live Aug. 30, 2025, and recorded for posting on YouTube and the LFS website’s Videos page.
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ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS AND THE LFS
* 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 more than 100 past winners 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.
