Beggar’s Sky and Will McCarthy’s projected Sky tetralogy: How our Best Novel finalists and authors are receiving broader cultural attention (Part Three)

By Michael Grossberg

Wil McCarthy has been receiving broad attention for the tetralogy launched with Rich Man’s Sky, the 2022 Prometheus Best Novel winner.

Beggar’s Sky, one of five 2025 Best Novel finalists, is the third novel in his exciting science fiction/mystery series and the direct sequel to Poor Man’s Sky.


With Prometheus Awards voting in its final weeks before the July 4 deadline, it’s worth highlighting how each of the authors of this year’s Best Novel finalists have been receiving broader cultural attention in interviews, podcasts and rave reviews.

In Part three of our ongoing series, we highlight and provide links to four interviews that McCarthy has done about his complex series, which projects the twists and turns in the industrial development and colonization of our solar system primarily through the private efforts of four billionaires.

Perhaps the most interesting and timely of McCarthy’s interviews was the one he did with Paul Semel after the publication of Beggar’s Sky.

Continue reading Beggar’s Sky and Will McCarthy’s projected Sky tetralogy: How our Best Novel finalists and authors are receiving broader cultural attention (Part Three)

In their own ways, the 2025 Best Novel finalists embody the dramatic potential of novels with epic scope


By Michael Grossberg

One aspect of fantastical fiction that can make it especially vivid and dramatic is when authors create an imaginative story with epic scope.

A work of fiction that offers such a vast and even cosmic perspective can enhance that distinctive sense of wonder that has defined some of the best science fiction or fantasy.

Each of this year’s Prometheus Best Novel finalists benefits in some ways from aspiring to and achieving great scope.

Continue reading In their own ways, the 2025 Best Novel finalists embody the dramatic potential of novels with epic scope


Exploring the appeal and challenge of sequels with four Prometheus nominees: Machine Vendetta, Shadow of the Smoking Mountain and Best Novel finalists Alliance Unbound and Beggar’s Sky


By Michael Grossberg

Sequels are increasingly popular these days – especially within the fantastical or speculative genres of science fiction and fantasy.

Among this year’s recently announced five Prometheus Best Novel finalists are two sequels: Alliance Unbound and Beggar’s Sky.

Of the 11 2024 SF/fantasy novels nominated for this year’s 45th Best Novel award, four are sequels – including Shadow of the Smoking Mountain and Machine Vendetta.

Each sequel navigates a tricky balance between the fresh and the familiar.

Each can be enjoyed by newcomers as a stand-alone book. Yet, each is enriched by previous world-building and continuing characters that makes them rewarding for the author’s ongoing fans.

How each novel builds on its predecessors, or in some cases departs from them, varies in ways that help illuminate the appeal of sequels and their challenges.

Continue reading Exploring the appeal and challenge of sequels with four Prometheus nominees: Machine Vendetta, Shadow of the Smoking Mountain and Best Novel finalists Alliance Unbound and Beggar’s Sky


The Best Novel finalists range from exciting visions of humanity’s challenging possible futures in space to cautionary dystopian tales on Earth

By Michael Grossberg

This year’s five Prometheus Best Novel finalists plausibly imagine everything from dystopian Earth scenarios sparked by authoritarian true-believer cults to more positive but challenging interstellar futures for humanity.

C.J. Cherryh, left, and Jane Fancher (Photo courtesy of Jane Fancher)

Works published in 2024 by C.J. Cherryh & Jane S. Fancher, Michael Flynn, Danny King, Wil McCarthy and Lionel Shriver will be competing for the 45th Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

Two-time Prometheus winner Michael Flynn (File photo)

First presented in 1979, the Prometheus Awards have recognized hundreds of authors and a dizzying variety of works. This year’s slate of finalists embrace the old and the new.

Of these authors, British writer Danny King is new to our award, being recognized for the first time as a Best Novel finalist.

British writer Danny King (Creative Commons license)

Lionel Shriver, a Portugal-based American writer who’s lived in Nairobi, Bangkok, Belfast and London, is being recognized for the third time as a Best Novel finalist.

Author Lionel Shriver in 2006 Photo: Walnut Whippet, Creative Commons license

Wil McCarthy, and writing partners Cherryh and Fancher, each previously won a Prometheus Award, while Flynn (1947-2023) is a two-time previous Best Novel winner being recognized posthumously for what may be his last work.

Novelist Wil McCarthy (Photo courtesy of Baen Books)

In brief, here are this year’s Best Novel finalists, in alphabetical order by author:
* Alliance Unbound, by C.J Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher (DAW)
* In the Belly of the Whale, by Michael Flynn (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy)
* Cancelled: The Shape of Things to Come, by Danny King (Annie Mosse Press)
* Beggar’s Sky, by Wil McCarthy (Baen Books)
* Mania, by Lionel Shriver (HarperCollins Publishers)

Continue reading The Best Novel finalists range from exciting visions of humanity’s challenging possible futures in space to cautionary dystopian tales on Earth

Best of the blog 2024, part three: Reviews of Naomi Kritzer’s controversial Liberty’s Daughter, Wil McCarthy’s first-contact sequel Beggar’s Sky, Sandra Newman’s Orwell-inspired Julia, and Salman Rushdie’s liberal/libertarian novel Victory City


By Michael Grossberg

While most reviews published on the Prometheus blog tend to focus on our Best Novel or Best Classic Fiction finalists or winners, other works deserve attention, too.

As time permits, and when nominated (or nominatable) works capture our attention and stimulate both enjoyment and further thoughts, we strive to bring it to the attention of Libertarian Futurist Society members and the wider public by writing about it – hopefully, in ways that make it clear how the work is relevant to Prometheus Award themes.

Here are excerpts from four such novels of note that we reviewed in 2024 – and that continue to deserve recognition and wide readership:

Continue reading Best of the blog 2024, part three: Reviews of Naomi Kritzer’s controversial Liberty’s Daughter, Wil McCarthy’s first-contact sequel Beggar’s Sky, Sandra Newman’s Orwell-inspired Julia, and Salman Rushdie’s liberal/libertarian novel Victory City


Best Novel finalist review: Wil McCarthy’s Beggar’s Sky offers psychedelic first-contact story exploring economic vs. political power on the frontiers of science

By Rick Triplett

Wil McCarthy’s novel Beggar’s Sky is a first-contact story.

The actual contact, though, is more picturesque than philosophical in this sequel to Poor Man’s Sky, itself the sequel to Rich Man’s Sky, McCarthy’s 2022 Prometheus winner for Best Novel.

The 2024 sequel – which has been nominated for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel – takes place within the larger context of an ongoing space race sparked by four Earth billionaires pushing to expand space industry and humanity to new frontiers beyond our solar system.

Continue reading Best Novel finalist review: Wil McCarthy’s Beggar’s Sky offers psychedelic first-contact story exploring economic vs. political power on the frontiers of science

The Prometheus Interview: 2022 winner Wil McCarthy on Rich Man’s Sky, Heinlein and his return from hiatus

SF author Wil McCarthy, the 2022 Prometheus Best Novel winner for Rich Man’s Sky, took a long hiatus from writing science fiction, but now he’s back – and happy to answer a few questions about his work.

In the first part of this two-part interview, McCarthy explains why he went on hiatus, admires Robert Heinlein and reads the leading libertarian magazine Reason every day.

SF writer Wil McCarthy Photo courtesy of author

Q: You’ve written quite a few sf novels and stories. Why did you go on hiatus and what have you written since you returned?

A: I took a long hiatus from writing to run a tech start-up, among other things. When I came back, the first thing I did was write two novellas, the second of which ended up winning the AnLab award.

Then I wrote two novels, the second of which is Rich Man’s Sky, so it’s nice to see people actually taking notice.  It’s a nice way to ease back in.

Continue reading The Prometheus Interview: 2022 winner Wil McCarthy on Rich Man’s Sky, Heinlein and his return from hiatus

Real-world entrepreneurship advancing humanity across our solar system: An Appreciation of Wil McCarthy’s Rich Man’s Sky, the 2022 Prometheus Best Novel winner

By Michael Grossberg

Rich Man’s Sky, the 2022 Prometheus winner for Best Novel, brims with the excitement, adventure, uncertainties and anxieties of real-world entrepreneurship.

Wil McCarthy’s kaleidoscopic novel, which thrillingly ventures beyond our Earth to chart the exploration, colonization and industrialization of our solar system, realistically and insightfully portrays the inevitably messy and risky progress of free men and women pursuing various goals through the cooperation of free markets.

Yet, the 291-page Baen Books novel – which launches a projected trilogy – also perceptively contrasts markets, warts and all, with the grimier and darker realities of politics – which unlike the voluntary transactions of the marketplace, unavoidably involves various forms and degrees of coercion, outright violence or the threat of violence and thus leads to some benefiting unjustly at the expense of others.

Continue reading Real-world entrepreneurship advancing humanity across our solar system: An Appreciation of Wil McCarthy’s Rich Man’s Sky, the 2022 Prometheus Best Novel winner

Author update: Wil McCarthy writing sequels to Best Novel finalist Rich Man’s Sky

Rich Man’s Sky, one of five 2022 Best Novel finalists currently competing for the Prometheus Award, will have a sequel.

Actually, two!

Continue reading Author update: Wil McCarthy writing sequels to Best Novel finalist Rich Man’s Sky