By Michael Grossberg
Prometheus-winning author Sara Hoyt is nothing if not prolific – with quite a few novels in progress.
Currently listed on Amazon with 92 titles (including books she’s written and anthologies to which she’s contributed stories), Hoyt has written more than 50 books (including more than 40 novels) by my rough count – and counting.
According to a Mad Genius Blog post, Hoyt plans to write more novels and stories that will appear first on her fiction-focused Substack blog – with several already appearing serially, chapter by chapter.
HOYT NOVELS IN THE WORKS
Among Hoyt’s novels that she currently is serializing for paid subscribers or plans to offer soon on her Substack blog: Witch’s Daughter, Winter Prince, Chapter House and No Man’s Land, which she describes as her response to one of Prometheus Hall of Fame winner Ursula Le Guin’s best-known classics.
“I promised to serialize Witch’s Daughter and Winter Prince and have them done in a year. I promised 2 chapters each a week… So I started Chapter House, since I post chapters,” Hoyt writes.
“…Then I added No Man’s Land, the novel that apparently won’t let me write anything else unless I write a chapter a day, and which was the first novel that appeared fully formed in my head when I was 14 and also has been known as “the d*mned novel” for years because… well, it’s my answer to The Left Hand of Darkness, okay?
In a recent Mad Genius Blog article titled “Lessons from Serializing on Substack,” Hoyt discussed her intentions to offer more fiction on her Substack blog – such as by offering chapter-by-chapter installments of some novels for paying subscribers.
“For a long time I wanted to have a fiction-only blog and hopefully get the same type of engagement I had on my political blog,” Hoyt wrote.
“Because to be blunt,” she added, “encouragement to write fiction would help, since that’s what I actually set out to do with my life, and also it makes me happy (which politics don’t).”
Indeed.
Art and popular culture do have the potential to make both creators and consumers happier.
Because in free societies and in free markets, based on mutual consent, it’s a win-win situation in which everyone benefits. (If you don’t want to read a particular book or watch a particular movie, TV show, play, musical or opera, nobody compels you to do so.)
On the other hand, politics, ultimately based on the coercive force at the foundation of all governments, is a zero-sum game.
When one individual or group wins in politics, others (especially individuals and minorities) inevitably lose – as the historian-economist Murray Rothbard explained in Power and Market and as the sociologist Franz Oppenheimer documented in describing the fundamental difference between the “political means” and the “economic means” in his classic 1908 book The State.
HOYT’S REMARKABLE RANGE OF FICTION
Hoyt may be best known to LFS members and other freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans for her Prometheus-winning Darkship Thieves and its sequels. (Check out the recent Prometheus Blog post announcing her plans to write at least five more novels – perhaps 10 or more! – in her Darkship universe.)
Yet, she’s always published books across a wide variety of genres – including science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical mystery, historical fantasy and historical biography.
For instance, Hoyt’s started writing novels about Barbarella, updating the French comic series and 1968 Jane Fonda film about the sexy, powerful space adventurer.
Barbarella: Woman Untamed, Hoyt’s latest, will be published May 7 in paperback.
Most recently, Hoyt self-published Christmas in the Stars: A Collection of Christmas Storieson Nov. 20, 2023.
The 45-page collection of four holiday-themed stories is available on Amazon as a Kindle.
By the way, Hoyt proudly mentions the Prometheus Award in her brief Substack self-description:
“Best selling, Dragon and Prometheus award winner of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical fiction and whatever else crosses her mind. Also columnist.”
Check out Hoyt’s Substack column Schrodinger’s Path.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS:
* Prometheus winners: For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including 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, which now 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.
* 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.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies (including the recent 2023 ceremony with inspiring and amusing speeches by Prometheus-winning authors Dave Freer and Sarah Hoyt), Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for periodic updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, jointhe Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters! We understand that the arts and literature can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future – and in some ways can be even more powerful than politics in the long run, by better visions of the future, innovation, peace, prosperity, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, individuality and human dignity.
Through recognizing the literature of liberty and the many different but complementary visions of a free future via the Prometheus Awards, the LFS hopes to help spread better visions of the future that help humanity overcome tyranny, end slavery, reduce the threat of war, repeal or constrain other abuses of coercive power and achieve universal liberty, respect for human rights and a better world (perhaps ultimately, worlds) for all.
