Leslie Fish, a Prometheus-winning author, writer and musician, has passed.
Fish (1953-2025) died Nov. 29 at age 72, while in hospice care at her home.
She won a Special Prometheus Award in 2014 for her fantasy novella “Tower of Horses” and related song, “The Horsetamer’s Daughter.” Both focus on peace, freedom, community and resistance to tyranny.
Fish’s Prometheus Award was the first time – and still the only example – within the history of the awards that a song was recognized, and that a paired song and novella have received a joint award.
Like “Tower of Horses,” many of Fish’s stories and songs embody anarchist, anti-war and anti-taxation themes affirming both individualism and community.
LESLIE FISH’S SONGS
As suggested by the obit posted today on File 770, a leading sf/fantasy-industry news website, Fish was one of the pioneering and leading filk-singers and musicians in sf/fantasy fandom.
Along with The Dehorn Crew, Fish created the first commercial filk recording in 1976, Folk Songs for Folk Who Ain’t Even Been Yet, according to Wikipedia. Her second recording, Solar Sailors (1977), included the song “Banned from Argo“, a comic song parodying Star Trek which has since spawned over 100 variants and parodies.
Her song “Hope Eyrie” is regarded by some as being as close to the anthem of American science fiction fandom as is possible in such a disparate group.
Fish, winner of 10 Pegasus Awards for filk excellence, was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame in 1995.
LESLIE FISH’S STORIES
She wrote several books – including the fantasy-romance Of Elven Blood, a non-fiction work Offensive as Hell: The Joys of Jesus-Freak Bashing, and with C.J. Cherryh, A Dirge for Sabis, collected within The Sword of Knowledge trilogy.
Her dozens of pieces of published short fiction include many demonstrating her original fantasy or sf world-building, but also stories set in the Alliance/Union series of Prometheus winner C.J. Cherryh (Alliance Rising), the CoDominium universe of Prometheus winner Jerry Pournelle and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series (including “Tower of Horses.”)
TOWER OF HORSES
Basically an underdog’s inspiring tale with quite a few plot twists, according to the Prometheus Blog Appreciation review-essay about the 2014 winner, “Tower of Horses” focuses primarily on young Cath, a rural girl growing in in the country with her family, all struggling to survive without modern technology (or any knowledge of its existence) in a provincial community of farmers, ranchers and local farmer’s-market traders.
While the fantasy-oriented novella appeals to all ages, it also works well as a good example of Young Adult fiction, with its coming-of-age focus and 14-year-old central character.
As the appreciation notes, “Younger readers, in particular, should easily grasp the story’s very plain and human message that most adults simply don’t like being told what to do, especially when it comes to their own lives, property and hard-earned money.”
Fish also indirectly was part of another Prometheus-recognized work: Fallen Angels, the 1992 Best Novel winner by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn. One of the characters in the science-fiction novel is “Jenny Trout,” “clearly meant to be Fish,” according to Wikipedia.
Fish often wove pagan and anarchist themes into her music, according to her bio.
She set to music many poems by Rudyard Kipling (“As Easy as A.B.C.,” a frequent Prometheus Hall of Fame finalist), an author admired by economist and political theorist David Friedman and many other libertarians for his anti-authoritarian, individualist, anti-lynching and anti-mob-rule themes.
FISH’S PROMETHEUS BLOG INTERVIEW
Interviewed for the Prometheus Blog after winning the special award, Fish discussed science fiction, fandom, politics and the important libertarian strains within both fandom and science fiction.
“(In sf fandom), the Prometheus is now considered third after the Hugo and Nebula…. I first heard it mentioned more than 30 years ago, described as a ‘freethinkers’ literary award’ of considerable virtue, but not on a par with the Nebula or Hugo. … You’re coming up in the world of Sci-Fi, my friends!,” Fish said in that interview.
Discussing anarchism elsewhere, Fish said: “What sort of anarchist future would I like to see? There’s no reason for a government-free society to be nothing but agrarian, no reason at all that it couldn’t be industrial and space-faring.”
* Here is the first part (“Self-Reliance, Liberty and SF”) and second part (“Attending Cons and Thinking Outside the Box”) of the two-part Prometheus Blog interview with Leslie Fish.
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She used to be a regular at Arisia and Boskone Boston SF conventions in Boston. I first met her in the late 70s. She also may have been around in the 90s. I don’t recall her attending after 2000 so she may have moved to the southwest at that time.