Best of the blog 2024: More reviews posted than ever, including of the year’s two Prometheus Award winners


By Michael Grossberg

For the first time, the Prometheus Blog was able to post timely reviews of all five Best Novel finalists and all four Prometheus Hall of Fame finalists for Best Classic Fiction this past year.

Thanks to all the LFS members and Prometheus judges who took the time and effort to write thoughtful, insightful and illuminating reviews, just as Libertarian Futurist Society members were seriously considering the merits of the nominees and finalists and reading and ranking their favorites to help choose the 2024 Prometheus Award winners.

This enormous effort and success fulfills a long-term goal for the Prometheus Blog, established in mid-2017 as a replacement for Prometheus, the LFS’ former printed quarterly.

Our purpose in soliciting more full-length, in-depth reviews of our awards winners and contenders was twofold:

* to increase the substantive content of the blog, for both our membership and our wider public readership,

* to further enhance our annual awards-judging process by offering members more food for thought as they read and ranked the 2024 Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction finalists.

Continue reading Best of the blog 2024: More reviews posted than ever, including of the year’s two Prometheus Award winners


What Pratchett’s The Truth, Bujold’s Falling Free and Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon have in common (and why former Best Novel finalists are eligible for Hall of Fame nomination, but former winners aren’t)


By Michael Grossberg

Not all literary award-winners stand the test of time.

Most works of arts and entertainment fade – even winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the Oscars, Tonys, Grammys, Emmys, Hugo and Nebula awards. Yet when they last and take on the patina of a classic, they should be remembered and recognized.

For only the third time in the 45-year history of the Prometheus Awards, a former Best Novel finalist is being inducted into the Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Continue reading What Pratchett’s The Truth, Bujold’s Falling Free and Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon have in common (and why former Best Novel finalists are eligible for Hall of Fame nomination, but former winners aren’t)


Before voting for this year’s Prometheus Awards, check out the full slate of blog reviews of the finalists

The Prometheus Blog has now succeeded in publishing reviews of all 2024 Prometheus Awards finalists – and all the reviews have convenient links posted below.


Although selective reviews have been posted of some finalists over the years, this is the first time in perhaps half a decade or so that reviews of all Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction finalists have been written and published.

Continue reading Before voting for this year’s Prometheus Awards, check out the full slate of blog reviews of the finalists

How do the 2024 Best Novel finalists fit the distinctive focus of the Prometheus Awards?

The Prometheus Awards are distinctive among literature-oriented awards, including within the sf/fantasy field, for having a dual focus – on both overall literary quality and on libertarian/anti-authoritarian ideas.

As LFS awards press releases summarize and define our award:

“The Prometheus Awards recognize outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between liberty and power and champion cooperation over coercion as the root of civility and social harmony.

Such works may critique or satirize authoritarian trends, expose abuses of power by the institutionalized coercion of the State, imagine what forms a fully free society might take, and/or uphold individual rights and freedom for all as the only moral and practical foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, civility and civilization itself.

Here are capsule descriptions of the Best Novel finalists, explaining how each fits our awards’ distinctive focus:

Continue reading How do the 2024 Best Novel finalists fit the distinctive focus of the Prometheus Awards?

Funny is funny: How two Best Novel finalist authors have responded to Prometheus recognition

By Michael Grossberg

When life gets you down, there’s nothing better for renewing your spirit or gaining perspective than having a good sense of humor.

Receiving recognition in the Prometheus Awards usually sparks a more serious response blending pride and gratitude.

But funny is funny – and anyway, if your novel is already satirical, then why not respond in that spirit with both pride and humor to such recognition?

Continue reading Funny is funny: How two Best Novel finalist authors have responded to Prometheus recognition

Fresh crop of Best Novel finalists spans genres, with most authors recognized for first time in Prometheus history

By Michael Grossberg

Reading a novel by an author you’ve never read before can be entertaining, stimulating and surprising.

Writers tend to develop their own distinctive style, even while taking pains to vary their approach to fit different types of subjects and genres – and most readers quickly come to identify the personality, spirit and style of authors from their stories.

That’s true even if such stories otherwise recognizably fall into broadly understood and familiar types of tales – from coming-of-age adventures and first-contact sci-fi dramas to satire and anti-authoritarian dystopian literature.

All of the above subcategories of science fiction are reflected in this year’s crop of just-announced finalists for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

Furthermore, of the five novels selected as finalists from 15 nominations by LFS members, four were written by authors who never before have been nominated for a Prometheus Award during its 43-year history.

Welcome to the Prometheus Awards competition, C.J. Carey, Dave Freer, Gordon Hanka and John Van Stry!

Continue reading Fresh crop of Best Novel finalists spans genres, with most authors recognized for first time in Prometheus history

Author update: Karl K. Gallagher continues writing his Fall of the Censor series

Author Karl K. Gallagher, a frequent Prometheus Awards nominee and Best Novel finalist, is keeping busy and catching up with an ambitious writing schedule – including a new novel just published: Captain Trader Helmsman Spy.

This is the fourth novel in the Fall of the Censor series for the Texas-based writer, currently a 2022 Best Novel finalist for two different novels (the second and third) in that series.

Captain Trader Helmsman Spy, published  May 9, 2022 by Kelt Haven Press, focuses on an exploratory mission to gather more information about the authoritarian Censorate in the ongoing series about a complex interstellar conflict between two long-separated but newly connected sets of human-colonized solar systems – one relatively free and peaceful, blending diverse cultures through mutual trade, and the other near-totalitarian in its murderous control of many planets and Orwellian cancellation of history and culture.

Continue reading Author update: Karl K. Gallagher continues writing his Fall of the Censor series

Meet the author: Nobel-Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro, a Best Novel finalist for Klara and the Sun

A Nobel-Prize-winning author has written a novel chosen as a Best Novel finalist – a notable and interesting intersection of two literary awards with quite different focuses.

Kazuo Ishiguro in 2017 (Creative Commons license)

Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, writes mostly “mainstream” fiction that often conveys a wistful sense of loss and missed connections.

Klara and the Sun, Ishiguro’s latest novel about the ambiguous status of an intelligent and curious A.F. (Artificial Friend), was recently named by Libertarian Futurist Society judges as one of five 2022 Best Novel finalists.

Continue reading Meet the author: Nobel-Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro, a Best Novel finalist for Klara and the Sun

The 2022 Best Novel finalists reflect a few interesting “firsts”

Even after building up a relatively consistent track record over 43 years, the Prometheus Awards can surprise by venturing here and there into new territory and new authors.

This year’s interesting and varied slate of five Best Novel finalists, selected from 16 nominees by LFS members serving as judges on the Best Novel finalist-selection committee, happens to reflect several intriguing “firsts” or rarities in the history of the awards.

Here are the five finalists, all published in 2021 and contenders for the 2022 Prometheus Award, to be presented online in August at a time and place to be announced:
Between Home and Ruin, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press, 227 pages)
Seize What’s Held Dear, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press, 244 pages)
Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Faber and Faber, 321 pages)
• Rich Man’s Sky, by Wil McCarthy (Baen Books, 291 pages)
Should We Stay Or Should We Go, by Lionel Shriver (Harper Collins, 266 pages)

Just from looking over the finalists list, can you guess any of those “firsts?

As a sort of fun “pop quiz,” why not take a moment to ponder that – before clicking over to the jump page of this blog, which has the answers.

Continue reading The 2022 Best Novel finalists reflect a few interesting “firsts”

Burgeoning tech options of modern publishing – online, audio and print – made possible the Prometheus Award slate of 2021 Best Novel finalists

By Michael Grossberg

The 2021 Prometheus Awards slate of Best Novel finalists, just announced, reflects an interesting first in the four-decade-plus history of the award.

See if you can identify this first – hint: a reflection of a long-term trend in modern publishing – from scanning this list of the finalist novels, their authors and publishers:

Who Can Own the Stars?  by Mackey Chandler (Amazon Kindle)
* Storm between the Starsby Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press)
* The War Whisperer, Book 5: The Hook, by Barry B. Longyear (Enchanteds)
* Braintrust: Requiem, by Marc Stiegler (LMBPN Publishing)
* Heaven’s River, by Dennis E. Taylor (An Audible Original, print and ebook editions The Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency)

Continue reading Burgeoning tech options of modern publishing – online, audio and print – made possible the Prometheus Award slate of 2021 Best Novel finalists