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.)
It’s understandable and legitimate when a novelist promotes their own work. After all, most do – and in our highly competitive and decentralized era of print and digital publishing and self-publishing, any author would be foolish not to invest significant time and energy beyond their daily writing to raise their visibility.
So it’s all the more impressive when a Prometheus-winning novelist, responding to a routine query to find out if any of their novels in the works might fit our award’s distinctive focus, brings up on her own the work of an up-and-coming novelist previously unknown to us.
Sarah Hoyt (File photo)
That’s what Sarah Hoyt did recently in bringing Holly Chism and her latest novel to our attention.
Writer Holly Chism (Creative Commons license)
“Holly Chism is one of the great, unappreciated authors of our generation. Her work reminds me a lot of Clifford Simak’s,” Hoyt said.
Hoyt, a four-time Prometheus Best Novel finalist and the 2011 Best Novel winner for Darkship Thieves, has recommended in particular Chism’s novel Light Up the Night.
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 Influencewebsite 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.”
Ark Press,a new publisher, aims to offer science fiction and other genre fiction that appeals to fans of “authentic storytelling.” “We’re done with boring, heavy-handed fiction that lectures instead of entertains,” said Tony Daniel, editor-in-chief of Ark Press.
“Our goal is to bring back fiction worth reading—stories that ignite the imagination, celebrate the human spirit, and reflect the values and experiences of everyday Americans.”
“Whether it’s gripping adventure tales, hard-hitting thrillers, thought-provoking sci-fi, crime, and mystery, or heartfelt stories of triumph and resilience, Ark Press aims to deliver works that inspire, entertain, and connect with readers across the country, not just the coasts,” Daniel said.
Among the first works to be published by Ark Press, in 2026, are contracted but as-yet-unannounced novels by Prometheus winner Travis Corcoran and Prometheus nominee Larry Correia.
Valued Libertarian Futurist Society member and former Prometheus Awards judge Jeff Schulman has died.
Jeff Schulman (Photo courtesy of family)
Schulman, who died unexpectedly July 18, 2025, served for years as a judge on the Prometheus Best Novel judging committee, which reads and evaluates a wide variety of candidates and nominees to select the annual slate of Best Novel finalists.
Known for his kindness, brilliance, creativity and openness to new ideas and new technology, Jeff had a passion for liberty, for the advancement of civilization and for the Libertarian Futurist Society.
Winning literary awards and receiving rave reviews can boost the careers of novelists, by raising their visibility and enhancing their reputation. That’s sadly no longer fully possible for the late great Michael Flynn.
Michael Flynn, a three-time Prometheus Best Novel winner (Creative Commons license)
Flynn, who died in 2023 at 75, recently was announced in an LFS press release as the 2025 winner of the Prometheus Award for Best Novel for In the Belly of the Whale.
His epic social novel, a sobering drama about challenges and conflicts among the crew on a vast colony ship two centuries into a projected eight-century voyage to settle Tau Ceti, was the last novel Flynn wrote before his death.
Published in 2024 by CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, Flynn’s novel has garnered some attention – especially an extraordinary review in Locus magazine (excerpted below) that amounts to a mea culpa for previously overlooking and underestimating Flynn.
Yet, both during his five-decade writing career and after his passing, Flynn has not garnered as much attention and appreciation from other critics and mainstream publications as I think the author and his last book deserve.
Shahid Mahmud, CAEZIK founder-publisher and a huge enthusiast for Flynn’s fiction, agrees. Mahmud tells me that he considers Flynn one of the most underestimated science fiction writers of his generation.
Orion Shall Rise, a 1983 novel by Poul Anderson, has won the 2025 Best Classic Fiction award and will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
Poul Anderson (Creative Commons license)
Published by Timescape and first nominated for the Prometheus Award in 1984, when it became a Best Novel finalist, Orion Shall Rise explores the corruptions and temptations of power and how a free society might survive and thrive after a post-nuclear-war apocalypse on a largely depopulated Earth.
For the first time in Prometheus Awards history, our annual Best Novel award has gone to a posthumous work.
Novelist Michael Flynn at an sf convention several decades ago (File photo)
Michael Flynn, who died in 2023 at 75, was able to finish writing In the Belly of the Whale before his passing.
CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, a strong supporter of Flynn’s work, published Flynn’s last novel in 2024.
The epic science fiction novel, a suspenseful and insightful exploration of the complex challenges, conflicts and threats to liberty aboard a large colony ship two centuries into a projected eight-century voyage to Tau Ceti, has now won the 2025 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Reactor has just published a Murderbot novelette by series author Martha Wells. And it’s free to read.
Titled “Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy,” Wells’ new novelette can be read as a stand-alone but related story for those who have read Artificial Condition, the second book in The Murderbot Diaries.
Many Libertarian Futurist Society members have read Wells’ Prometheus-nominated series about a rogue security robot who secretly gains free will – especially her first four books including Artificial Condition.
So the new story should be of great interest, and also easy to read in context.
It’s not that often that a Prometheus-award-recognized novel or story is adapted to the large or small screen.
So it’s newsworthy, as well as something of a relief, to report that the Apple TV+ new streaming series of Murderbot is pretty entertaining.
Martha Wells’ Murderbot stories and novels have won Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards, and have been nominated for the Prometheus Award, where her first set of novellas was recognized as a Best Novel finalist. So hopes were high for the TV series, which began streaming in May.
Based on the suspenseful and intelligent half-hour episodes of its first season, Apple TV’s series seems faithful to Well’s acclaimed series of novellas and novels about a rogue security robot who secretly gains free will.
In that latter category is Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1974 novel The Dispossessed, inducted in 1993 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
