By Michael Grossberg
J. Kenton Pierce’s A Kiss for Damocles, nominated for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel, offer space opera with young-adult appeal.
Pierce, nominated for the first time for a Prometheus Award, describes what inspired his novel and how it fits into his future history in an interview posted on the website of the book’s publisher, Raconteur Press.
Launching Pierce’s ambitious projected multi-book Tales of the Long Night saga, A Kiss for Damocles is set in a complex future where interstellar war has ravaged worlds and where the homesteaders on one planet are struggling to rebuild.
TALES OF THE LONG NIGHT
In the background of Pierce’s world-building, sometimes hidden but sometimes emerging unpredictably, are fallen empires, lost civilizations, orbiting unmanned war machines and hostile zenos.
At the center of the story is Shaifennen “Shai” Roehe, a plucky young woman who is doing her best to survive on a harsh planet after bombing from space triggered a mega-volcanic eruption that has taken centuries to clean up in order to restart agriculture.
As Shai’s simple homestead community of farmers and free traders becomes a boomtown, they reach out to other communities for “trade, not trouble,” operating on mutual respect, good will and an ethos of “mind your own business.”
Yet, major dangers and barriers remain formidable, with dangerous local lifeforms and a threat from above. Especially Damocles, an orbiting space platform whose weapons remain functional and can be triggered by any detection of emerging advanced technology on the planet.
The Pierce interview focuses on how A Kiss For Damocles fits into the larger dramatic arc of his future history, and reveals how Pierce uniquely first established his story universe in short-story anthologies published by Raconteur Press.
NOMINATION NEWS
A separate post on the Raconteur Press blog highlights the news of the recent Prometheus Best Novel nomination for A Kiss for Damocles.
“Folks, we are excited and tremendously pleased to announce A Kiss For Damocles by our own J. Kenton Pierce has been nominated by Libertarian Futurist Society members as a candidate for the 2026 Prometheus Award.
“Typically, only around a dozen books are nominated for the Prometheus Award. For Pierce’s first novel to even be nominated is a tribute to his incredible story-telling skills.”
Before launching his career as an sf writer, Pierce served ten years as an Army/Air Force reservist and worked in in biotechnology and “too much retail.” For more about Pierce, visit his Substack blog.
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