Quite a few outstanding SF/fantasy novels have inspired sequels that have won a Prometheus Award – 11, by my latest count, and more than I’d remembered or imagined.
In a few especially notable cases, writers have conceived Prometheus-winning novels inspired by previous successes and subsequently inspiring worthy sequels – several of which went on to receive further Prometheus recognition at different levels.
This blog post will discuss such sequel novels by two of our most widely praised and bestselling authors: Vernor Vinge and F. Paul Wilson.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence, then, that both writers have won multiple Prometheus Awards – including for several entertaining, thought-provoking and mind-expanding works set within the same future history.
Each writer also deservedly has been recognized with a rare Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement (bestowed on only four writers over the past 46 years) after receiving recognition in both of our annual award categories for Best Novel and the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.
VINGE’S MAROONED IN REAL TIME/PEACE WAR SAGA
Vinge, winner of five Prometheus Awards, won his first for Marooned in Real Time, the 1987 Best Novel winner.
A novel of cosmic vision, Marooned is set in both the distant future and a past in which libertarian values had triumphed in a market-oriented and anarchistic future California.
Marooned is the sequel to The Peace War, a 1985 Prometheus Best Novel finalist setting up the science fictional premise of the “bobble,” a perfectly spherical impenetrable force field that traps whatever it encloses.
Marooned further explores that premise – especially the revelation that bobbles eventually open and the people trapped inside didn’t die but went into temporal status until their bobbles burst, making them essentially one-way time machines.
Once Vinge worked out one of his ingenious and plausible world-building scenarios, he tended to use it in multiple novels and stories.
During their investigation of a bobble-related murder, a policeman from an era of private-enterprise law enforcement, aided by Della Lu, the former military officer from The Peace War, must deal with survivals of authoritarian political systems of the past.
That includes the New Mexico government that figured in Vinge’s story “The Ungoverned,” the 2004 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner.
All of the above are worth reading or rereading – either in tandem or months/years apart – to enjoy Vinge’s imagination and ingenious extrapolation of a great SF premise that offers a fruitful framework for a gripping and suspenseful narrative revealing humanity at its best and worst.
Meanwhile, in one of the best examples of the New Space Opera, Vinge’s other Best Novel winner is A Deepness in the Sky, the 1999 sequel and loose prequel to his Hugo-winning 1992 novel A Fire Upon the Deep (1992).
For more about Marooned in Real Time, read the Prometheus Blog appreciation.
WILSON’S LANAGUE FEDERATION SERIES
Wilson, winner of six Prometheus awards, won his first for Wheels within Wheels, an SF murder mystery that’s notable as the first Prometheus winner in 1979.
Wilson’s novel is part of his LaNague Federation trilogy, which includes Healer and An Enemy of the State, both inducted in the 1980s into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
Set within the same interstellar future as humanity has spread out across the stars, Wheels within Wheels is only loosely linked to Healer, first published in 1976. So one might argue that the first Prometheus winner is sort of a sequel, though not a direct one.
More plausibly, Wheels within Wheels is worth reading as a fully separate and self-contained story within Wilson’s imaginative but plausible future-history series.
Its murder mystery takes place against the background of imperialist central State toppled by a decentralized libertarian social order that unleashes an era of peace, prosperity, progress and broad respect for individual rights.
Both Wilson’s wisdom and insight about the strengths and weaknesses of human nature and his profound understanding of the subtle and not-so-simple implications and emergent social order created by what Adam Smith called “the simple system of natural liberty” are woven into his compelling LaNague Federation saga.
Two other novels set in the same future history but not formally part of the trilogy are Wilson’s Dydeetown World (1989) and The Tery (1990).
“The Complete LaNague” (published in 2013 as an omnibus under that title) incorporates all five novels, along with the stories “To Fill the Sea and Air,” “The Man with the Anteater,” “Higher Centers,” “Ratman” and “Lipidleggin’,” the latter story inducted in 2021 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.
For more about the LaNague Federation trilogy, which I consider one of the best trilogies in science fiction and one of the most libertarian, read the Prometheus Blog appreciations of Healer, Wheels within Wheels and An Enemy of the State.
For more about sequels and the Prometheus Awards, read Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 of this ongoing series.
Note: Previous parts of this series on Prometheus-winning sequel novels have explored winners by Poul Anderson (The Stars Are Also Fire), Travis Corcoran (Causes of Separation), Cory Doctorow (Little Brother, Homeland), Barry Longyear (The Hook), Ken MacLeod (The Star Fraction, The Stone Canal), Neal Stephenson (The System of the World), Daniel Suarez (Critical Mass) and Jo Walton (Ha’Penny).
For further reading: Other sequels that have won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel are discussed in Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 and Part 5 this Prometheus Blog series exploring the popularity and appeal of sequels.
ABOUT THE LFS AND PROMETHEUS AWARDS
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
Libertarian futurists understand that culture matters. We believe that literature and the arts can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future.
In some ways, culture can be even more influential and powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.
* Prometheus winners: For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including in 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. This page 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 on both quality and liberty.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* 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.
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