By Michael Grossberg
A first-time Prometheus nominee might not be expected to win the Best Novel award, especially with a debut novel or when up against solid works by several popular and acclaimed previous winners.
Yet, that’s part of the impressive accomplishment this year of J. Kenton Pierce, whose debut novel A Kiss for Damocles has won the 2026 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
The science fiction novel, published by Raconteur Press and launching Pierce’s Tales From the Long Night series, illuminates the ethics and efficacy of free trade and self-defense as a proper foundation for civilization.
This year’s award, focusing on novels published in 2025, was considered by many Libertarian Futurist Society members and Prometheus Best Novel judges to have one of the strongest lineups in many years.
Among the five finalists were three novels written by Prometheus winners.
PROMETHEUS WINNER DAVE FREER
Also published by Raconteur Press was Storm-Dragon, by Dave Freer.
Freer, a resident of Tasmania and the first author from the Southern Hemisphere to win a Prometheus Award, won the 2023 Best Novel award for Cloud-Castles.
PROMETHEUS WINNER SARAH HOYT
Another finalist was No Man’s Land (Goldport Press), an ambitious three-part novel by Sarah Hoyt that launches her new epic space-opera series Chronicles of Lost Elly.
A six-time Prometheus nominee, Hoyt won the 2011 Best Novel award for Darkship Thieves.
Her Darkship series includes the direct sequels Darkship Renegades, a 2013 Prometheus Best Novel finalist; A Few Good Men, a 2014 Best Novel finalist; Through Fire, a 2017 Best Novel nominee; and Darkship Revenge, a 2018 Best Novel finalist.
PROMETHEUS WINNER HARRY TURTLEDOVE
Another 2026 Best Novel finalist was Powerless (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy), by Harry Turtledove, a 2008 Best Novel winner for The Gladiator.
An acclaimed master of alternate history, Turtledove has been nominated eight times for a Prometheus award.
His first Best Novel nomination came for Ruled Britannia in 2004, with additional Best Novel nominations for Opening Atlantis (in 2009), Liberating Atlantis and The United States of Atlantis (both in 2010) and Joe Steele in 2016.
In addition, Turtledove has been nominated more than once for the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Between the Rivers, a 2025 Hall of Fame finalist.
FREQUENT BEST NOVEL FINALIST KARL K. GALLAGHER
Rounding out this year’s Best Novel finalists was War by Other Means (Kelt Haven Press), Book 7 in Karl K. Gallagher’s frequently nominated Fall of the Censors future-history series.
Gallagher has been nominated seven times for a Prometheus Award, and each time, his nominated works have become Best Novel finalists.
His first Prometheus nomination came in 2018 for his Torchship trilogy (Torchship, Torchship Pilot and Torchship Captain), grouped together because the three short novels told one complete story from beginning to end.
Storm Between the Stars, which launched his Fall of the Censor series, became a finalist in 2021. Series sequels Between Home and Ruin and Seize What’s Held Dear became finalists in 2022, Captain Trader Helmsman Spy in 2023 and Swim Among the People in 2024.
That’s pretty strong competition this year, with each author having built up their own following of fans (including LFS members), for a writer who’s never before been recognized within the Prometheus Awards.
OUR NEWEST PROMETHEUS WINNER: J. KENTON PIERCE
So why did Pierce win this year for A Kiss for Damocles?
Perhaps some of the reasons why become clear by reading the capsule description written by LFS members when his novel was first selected as a finalist in April:
The novel is set on a colony planet where humans in towns and homesteading communities are struggling to recover centuries after a catastrophic attack and volcanic cataclysm that set back and severely limits their use of advanced technology.
At the story’s heart is Shai, a young homesteader facing harsh frontier conditions, corrupt Townie politicians, dangerous native species, and sinister forces amid still-functional A.I.-powered orbiting war machines.
Pierce celebrates the self-reliance and resilience of self-regulating frontier communities that survive and evolve based on the hard-won realities of voluntarism, mutual respect and cooperation.
But this is also a cautionary tale about the deceptive ideals of a command-and-control politics and the perennial tendency toward abuse of power, reflected in the Townies’ push for higher taxation, fiat money and state takeover of education to indoctrinate new generations.
Narrating from her wry but hopeful perspective, Shai becomes a leader in her community’s struggles to defend their freedom, preserve their heritage and restore their world.
Visit the Prometheus blog for a full review of A Kiss for Damocles that illuminates in more detail how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.
Or, as Raconteur Press described the novel when posting an email Friday congratulating Pierce upon winning the award:
“A Kiss for Damocles launched Pierce’s “Tales from the Long Night” universe and introduced readers to Shaifennen Roehe, a young homesteader on Hesperides Colony. Shai becomes an unlikely catalyst for her world’s political and civilizational restoration: not the “chosen one,” just someone in the right place, with the right instincts, at the right moment.
“The novel is the first entry in an expanding series that now includes The Warlord of Greenline Town, the newly released Stormjammer, two novellas, and multiple short stories across many Raconteur Press anthologies.”
RACONTEUR PRESS RESPONDS TO THE RECOGNITION
Raconteur Press’ publisher Ian McMurtrie took pride in their double recognition in this year’s Prometheus Awards.
“Rita and I were joyous at the news that not one, but two novels published by our little press were nominated for the Prometheus Award this year, McMurtrie said in a July 10 Substack post.
“Pierce’s debut novel winning is thrilling, but not surprising. He has built a genuinely crunchy universe, with characters living hard lives and making hard choices. We are proud of him, and doubly proud that our press has achieved this honor in its second year of publishing novels,” McMurtrie said.
Pierce wasn’t standing alone in the Award lineup, either, the Press post noted. Dave Freer’s boy’s adventure book Storm-Dragon was a Prometheus finalist as well.
“That makes two nominated authors from one small press in its first year of publishing novels and Boys’ Adventure fiction.”
For more information about Raconteur Press, check out their Substack column.
A Kiss for Damocles is available in paperback and ebook at Amazon and in paperback at IngramSpark.
As the Best Novel winner, Pierce will receive a plaque with a gold coin.
WATCH THE AUG. 16 PROMETHEUS AWARDS CEREMONY
The 46th annual Prometheus Awards will be presented online Sunday afternoon Aug. 16, 2026, in a zoom awards ceremony open to the public.
This year’s hourlong ceremony, tentatively scheduled for 2-3 p.m. Eastern time and emceed by LFS President William H. Stoddard, will feature a guest speaker: Lifelong science-fiction fan Ilya Somin (George Mason University law professor, Cato Institute scholar and author), who will present the Hall of Fame award.
Updates will be posted on the Prometheus Blog over the next several weeks about additional speakers and the full ceremony line-up.
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.
