Fans of Sarah Hoyt, especially fans of her Darkship Thieves series, have reasons for thanksgiving – or at least raise their hopes of enjoying more books in that fictional universe.
Hoyt, who won the 2011 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Darkship Thieves, has revealed plans to write more (much more!) in her Darkship universe.
“No, I’m not abandoning Darkship Thieves,” Hoyt writes in a recent column on the Mad Genius Club blog.
“I have at least five more in that universe, though it might extend to ten or twenty, depending on how much I like the ‘next generation,’” she writes.
Wow. That’s a lot more Darkship novels – even more than I’d hoped for!
I, for one, can’t wait to read more stories set in Hoyt’s Darkship universe, a fascinating future set amid humanity’s colonization of our solar system.
That future, moreover, promises to be thrillingly dramatic in the sequels, based on previous novels in Hoyt’s series.
Darkship Thieves, a Heinlein-esque romantic-adventure space opera with individualist-feminist themes, offers both a plausible portrait of a functioning libertarian society in the asteroids and a very real threat to humanity from an insidious new form of tyranny on Earth.
Her other published Darkship-universe novels have all been recognized at some level by the Prometheus Awards:
* Darkship Renegades was a 2013 Best Novel finalist.
* A Few Good Men was a 2014 Best Novel finalist.
* Through Fire was a 2017 Best Novel nominee.
* Darkship Revenge was a 2018 Best Novel finalist.
* Read our Prometheus Blog appreciation of Hoyt’s Darkship Thieves, which launched the impressive five-novels-and-counting series blending science fiction, political conflicts, romance and strong characters (heterosexual and gay).
WHY THE DELAY IN DARKSHIP SEQUELS?
Hoyt, who launched her own Substack column Schrodinger Path three years ago, also hints at why there’s been a multi-year hiatus in Darkship sequels, following the four sequels she published in the years immediately after her success wth Darkship Thieves.
“At the time I started Schrodinger Path I thought I’d lost the rights to DST (Darkship Thieves) for … possibly copyright time,” Hoyt wrote.
“Which would mean anything I wrote in there just gave more reason for the publisher to hold onto them. And I’m expert at cutting off my nose to spite my face,” she wrote.
So, Hoyt waited a few years – apparently long enough for the rights to her Darkship universe to revert to her.
And in the meantime, Hoyt, once primarily a major Baen Books-published author, has increasingly shifted to self-publishing.
That’s a major trend among many sf/fantasy writers, which has only accelerated as the innovations and entrepreneurship sparked through free markets have drastically reduced the costs of publishing.
For many writers and artists (think Taylor Swift), even while they cope with new challenges in a shifting cultural and social-media landscape of arts and entertainment, the technological changes of our era offer both challenges and opportunities that benefit from the artistic control, artistic freedom, independence and self-empowerment made possible in today’s more decentralized publishing era.
* Read Hoyt’s full post on the Mad Genius Club blog.
* Read Sarah Hoyt’s lovely and lyrical ode to the Greek god Prometheus, originally published on her According to Hoyt blog.
* Read “Liberty is hard yakka,” Hoyt’s speech presenting the 2023 Prometheus Award for Best Novel to Dave Freer for Cloud-Castles.
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.
