Tag: Best Novel

It’s your choice! How you can personalize and shape your ‘Early Reader’ selections and schedule

By Michael Grossberg

Our Early Readers program seeks more LFS members as volunteers to help enhance our annual Prometheus Awards and the nominating and judging process for the Best Novel category.

As described in the previous Prometheus Blog post, we’re looking for freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans who enjoy reading speculative fiction (broadly defined to include sci-fi, fantasy, alternate-history, dystopian literature, mythic fables, “social” sf, near-future politicial thrillers, etc.).

Our ideal Early Reader participants also should be knowledgeable about libertarian and free-market sociopolitical and economic analysis to discern whether such genre novels are good fits for the Prometheus Awards – or not.

Consistent with our nonprofit, all-volunteer libertarian organization of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans, we’ve structured our Early Readers program to maximize individual choice in several ways.

Continue reading It’s your choice! How you can personalize and shape your ‘Early Reader’ selections and schedule

Reading and reporting on Best Novel candidates: An invitation to join our ‘Early Readers’ program

By Michael Grossberg

Over the most-recent Prometheus Awards nomination and judging cycles, more Libertarian Futurist Society members have made a genuine difference by volunteering to read and report on various novels to help us determine whether any deserved Best Novel nominations.

This post aims to introduce and explain the goals of our Early Readers program – with sincere hopes that more LFS members will decide to join our efforts over this next awards cycle.

Now’s an excellent time to volunteer, since we’ve just recently begun compiling potential candidates from sf/fantasy novels already published (or to be published) during 2024.

What we’re always striving to identify, within the much larger field of sf/fantasy and speculative fiction, are the relative few novels that seem relevant to the Prometheus Awards and its distinctive dual focus, at once literary and thematic.

Continue reading Reading and reporting on Best Novel candidates: An invitation to join our ‘Early Readers’ program

The rise of newspapers, crime, corruption and the virtues of a free press: An Appreciation of Terry Pratchett’s The Truth, the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

The Prometheus Blog continues its Appreciation series with an essay-review describing how Terry Pratchett’s The Truth, the 2024 inductee into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, fits the focus of the Prometheus Award.

By Michael Grossberg

The truth shall make you free.

And The Truth shall make you laugh, while sparking a better appreciation of freedom – especially freedom of the press.

Terry Pratchett’s comic fantasy, winner of the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame award for Best Classic Fiction, tells a smart, sly and ultimately inspirational tale of underdogs seeking the truth against formidable opposition.

Continue reading The rise of newspapers, crime, corruption and the virtues of a free press: An Appreciation of Terry Pratchett’s The Truth, the 2024 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

Free-market industrialization of our solar system: An appreciation of Daniel Suarez’s Critical Mass, the 2024 Prometheus Best Novel winner

By Charlie Morrison and Michael Grossberg

A deep understanding and passion for commercial space development informs and enlivens Critical Mass, the 2024 Prometheus winner for Best Novel.

A courageous band of astronaut-entrepreneurs strive to alleviate Earth-based problems through commercial space projects in Daniel Suarez’s grippingly realistic SF thriller.

Set mostly off the Earth and around the solar system, the suspenseful, fast-paced drama follows the resourceful heroes as they strive to achieve their ambitious, unprecedented goals amid Cold War tensions, shifting global political alliances and shortsighted opposition from Earth governments.

Continue reading Free-market industrialization of our solar system: An appreciation of Daniel Suarez’s Critical Mass, the 2024 Prometheus Best Novel winner

2024 Prometheus Awards ceremony: LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg on the Best Novel track record, the power of liberty and the dangers of power

Editor’s note: The Prometheus Blog is posting the texts of the inspirational and insightful speeches presented Aug. 25, 2024, during the 44th Prometheus Awards ceremony.

Michael Grossberg, a veteran award-winning journalist and arts critic. File photo

LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg’s speech discusses the award’s Best Novel track record and introduced three-time Prometheus Best Novel winner Victor Koman, who presented the Best Novel category.

By Michael Grossberg

The Prometheus Awards, one of the oldest fan-based sf/fantasy awards after the Hugos and Nebulas, are unique in recognizing speculative fiction that dramatizes the perennial conflict between liberty and power.

That includes not only science fiction and fantasy, but also alternate history, mythology, fable, horror and near-future high-tech thrillers, so long as they explore the possibilities of a freer and better future based on voluntary cooperation and exchange instead of institutionalized coercion and tyranny.

Continue reading 2024 Prometheus Awards ceremony: LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg on the Best Novel track record, the power of liberty and the dangers of power

How SF offers a critical forum to imagine new ideas and futures: Daniel Suarez’s 2024 Prometheus Award Best Novel acceptance speech for Critical Mass

By Daniel Suarez

Two-time Prometheus-winning author Daniel Suarez Photo: Steve Payne

It is wonderful to receive this award, especially for a novel that means so much to me. 

First: my thanks to the Libertarian Futurist Society — both for the principles this Prometheus Award represents and also for awarding it to me in a pivotal year for freedom of expression in science fiction. 

Authoritarianism is on the march in this world once more, and the first step in resisting it, is to be free in one’s own thoughts and imagination. That is, after all, where sci-fi lives, and the LFS is helping to keep free-thinking science fiction alive.

Continue reading How SF offers a critical forum to imagine new ideas and futures: Daniel Suarez’s 2024 Prometheus Award Best Novel acceptance speech for Critical Mass

2024 Prometheus Awards: Best Novel presenter Victor Koman’s speech on mortality, the awards’ longevity, the diversification of publishing and the future of liberty


Victor Koman, a veteran libertarian SF writer, had the honor of presenting the Best Novel category Sunday at the 44th Prometheus Awards ceremony.

Prometheus-winning novelist Victor Koman in 2019 Photo courtesy of Koman

Who better to fulfill that role than Koman, one of very few writers to win as many as three Prometheus awards for Best Novel?

Here, for the record, is the transcript of Koman’s speech.

Continue reading 2024 Prometheus Awards: Best Novel presenter Victor Koman’s speech on mortality, the awards’ longevity, the diversification of publishing and the future of liberty


Two Prometheus Best Novel finalist authors recognized as Dragon Awards’ Best SF Novel finalists; winners to be announced at Dragon Con

The Dragon Awards, presented annually at Dragon Con in Atlanta, have announced their 2024 finals – and one of this year’s Prometheus Best Novel finalists is among them.

Plus, among its finalist competitors is an author and her series previously recognized as a Prometheus Best Novel finalist.

So congratulations to Devon Eriksen and Martha Wells!

Continue reading Two Prometheus Best Novel finalist authors recognized as Dragon Awards’ Best SF Novel finalists; winners to be announced at Dragon Con

Why former Prometheus winners aren’t eligible for Hall of Fame nomination, but former Best Novel finalists are (such as The Truth, the 2024 winner)

By Michael Grossberg

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

Most works of arts and entertainment fade. Yet when they last and take on the patina of a classic, they should be recognized.

For only the third time in the history of the Prometheus Awards, a former Best Novel finalist has been inducted into the Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.

Terry Pratchett’s novel The Truth, first recognized by the Libertarian Futurist Society as a 2001 Best Novel finalist, has won the 2024 award for Best Classic Fiction.

Before The Truth was inducted this year into our Hall of Fame, only two other Best Novel finalists have received that rare honor: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Falling Free and Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.

Continue reading Why former Prometheus winners aren’t eligible for Hall of Fame nomination, but former Best Novel finalists are (such as The Truth, the 2024 winner)

Three-time Prometheus winner Victor Koman to present Best Novel category at our public 2024 awards ceremony

Victor Koman, a veteran libertarian sf writer who’s won three Prometheus Awards for Best Novel, has agreed to speak and be a presenter at the 44th Prometheus Awards ceremony.

Prometheus-winning novelist Victor Koman (Courtesy of author)

Koman will present the Best Novel category at the online Zoom ceremony, tentatively planned for a Saturday afternoon in mid- to late August.

Continue reading Three-time Prometheus winner Victor Koman to present Best Novel category at our public 2024 awards ceremony