“I think Michael was one of the most underrated authors in the genre… his work holds up to some of the best science fiction I’ve ever read.
— Shahid Mahmud, publisher of CAEZIK SF & Fantasy
Novelist Michael Flynn at an sf convention several decades ago (File photo)
Introduction: CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, a company led by Shahid Mahmud, published Michael Flynn’s last and posthumous novel In the Belly of the Whale, the 2025 Prometheus winner for Best Novel – and the first novel originally published by CAEZIK to win a Prometheus Award.
In his comments during the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony, Mahmud paid tribute to Flynn, who died in 2023 at 75 after an impressive career writing science fiction. Winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award, Flynn was nominated seven times for the Hugo Award (including Best Novel for Eifelheim) and eight times for the Prometheus Award, winning three times for Best Novel.
Arc Manor Books, whose CAEZIK SF & Fantasy imprint published our 2025 Prometheus Best Novel winner, is having a special ebook sale.
Available through Sunday Sept. 14 at significant ebook savings are several novels by Prometheus winners – including Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale, the 2025 Best Novel winner.
“Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel last month! This epic, hard science fiction tale unfolds aboard a colossal generation ship, where a decaying aristocracy faces rebellion after a mysterious death in the abandoned “Burnout” region,” publisher Shahid Mahmud said.
“He lived exactly the life he wanted to live.”
– Kevin Flynn, about his brother Michael
Two-time Prometheus winner Michael Flynn (Creative Commons license)
Michael Flynn won his third Prometheus Award for Best Novel for his posthumously published In the Belly of the Whale.
Here is the text of the eloquent, poignant and very personal acceptance speech by Kevin Flynn, brother of the late novelist, who died in 2023 at 75. The speech was recorded and presented Aug. 30, 2025, during the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony.
By Kevin Flynn
On behalf of Michael Flynn’s family, his daughter Sara, his son Dennis, his grandchildren Noelle, Zaid, and Adam, and his brothers Sean and Patrick, it is my privilege to be chosen by them to speak here today and accept this award. I know that Michael would be deeply moved by this recognition, which will serve as the capstone of his distinguished science fiction bibliography. Thank you so much for recognizing our brother’s work.
As Michael was nominated for the Prometheus Awards nine times, chosen as a Best Novel finalist eight of those times, and won the Best Novel award now for the third time, you know well of Michael’s passion for learning, for liberty, for liberation of the mind and pushing back on authority in pursuit of freedom of thought and expression.
For those of us who knew him so well, we know he would be reluctant to display his pride as publicly and shamelessly as I am going to do on his behalf. That was simply who our big brother was. But he was so much more, and I hope to use this short time to tell you what kind of human our brother was.
Mark your calendar: The45th Prometheus Awards has been confirmed for Saturday Aug. 30, with a leading libertarian thinker and novelist as a guest presenter.
The Zoom-led ceremony will run from 2 to 3 p.m. that Saturday (Eastern time) and will be open to all LFS members and the public. (The Zoom link is below.)
Among the speakers: leading libertarian thinker and fantasy novelist David D. Friedman, who will present the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction; Astrid Anderson Bear, daughter of the late sf/fantasy writer Poul Anderson, a frequent Prometheus Awards winner; CAEZIK SF & Fantasy publisher Shahid Mahmud; author Kevin Flynn, brother of the late sf novelist Michael Flynn, a three-time Prometheus winner; LFS President William H. Stoddard, and Libertarian Futurist Society co-founder Michael Grossberg.
Winning literary awards and receiving rave reviews can boost the careers of novelists, by raising their visibility and enhancing their reputation. That’s sadly no longer fully possible for the late great Michael Flynn.
Michael Flynn, a three-time Prometheus Best Novel winner (Creative Commons license)
Flynn, who died in 2023 at 75, recently was announced in an LFS press release as the 2025 winner of the Prometheus Award for Best Novel for In the Belly of the Whale.
His epic social novel, a sobering drama about challenges and conflicts among the crew on a vast colony ship two centuries into a projected eight-century voyage to settle Tau Ceti, was the last novel Flynn wrote before his death.
Published in 2024 by CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, Flynn’s novel has garnered some attention – especially an extraordinary review in Locus magazine (excerpted below) that amounts to a mea culpa for previously overlooking and underestimating Flynn.
Yet, both during his five-decade writing career and after his passing, Flynn has not garnered as much attention and appreciation from other critics and mainstream publications as I think the author and his last book deserve.
Shahid Mahmud, CAEZIK founder-publisher and a huge enthusiast for Flynn’s fiction, agrees. Mahmud tells me that he considers Flynn one of the most underestimated science fiction writers of his generation.
For the first time in Prometheus Awards history, our annual Best Novel award has gone to a posthumous work.
Novelist Michael Flynn at an sf convention several decades ago (File photo)
Michael Flynn, who died in 2023 at 75, was able to finish writing In the Belly of the Whale before his passing.
CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, a strong supporter of Flynn’s work, published Flynn’s last novel in 2024.
The epic science fiction novel, a suspenseful and insightful exploration of the complex challenges, conflicts and threats to liberty aboard a large colony ship two centuries into a projected eight-century voyage to Tau Ceti, has now won the 2025 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Two-time Prometheus winner Michael Flynn has become a Best Novel finalist again this year for In the Belly of the Whale, an epic work illuminating the complex lives, work, challenges, conflicts and threats to liberty aboard a large colony ship two centuries into a projected eight-century voyage to Tau Ceti.
Two-time Prometheus winner Michael Flynn (Creative Commons license)
Flynn previously won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel for In the Country of the Blind (in 1991) and Fallen Angels (in 1992), co-written with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
One of the most frequently recognized authors within the 46-year history of the Prometheus Awards, Flynn wrote works that were ranked Best Novel finalists seven times – a track record exceeded only by Ken MacLeod, L. Neil Smith and F. Paul Wilson.
Sadly, Flynn, who died at 75 in 2023, is no longer around to do interviews about his final, posthumous novel.
But in Part Five of our ongoing Prometheus Blog series documenting how each of our 2025 Best Novel finalists have received broader cultural recognition for their fiction, talent and imagination, we offer the next best thing: One of the best and last interviews Flynn gave before he passed.
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.
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.
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)
In the Belly of the Whale, the ambitious final and posthumous novel by two-time Prometheus winner Michael Flynn, explores the complex lives, work, challenges and conflicts aboard a large colony ship two centuries into a projected eight-century voyage to Tau Ceti.
The epic multifaceted 472-page novel takes some time to fully introduce its large cast of characters among 40,000 people who live in the hollowed-out asteroid ship dubbed The Whale. Yet, patience is rewarded with Flynn’s highly plausible and intricate world-building and wise grasp of human nature.
In the Belly of the Whale – one of 11 2024 novels nominated for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel – builds dramatic intensity coupled with rich and even revelatory insights that freshen this seemingly familiar SF subgenre while raising deeper questions than most SF writers, scientists or space-colonization enthusiasts have considered about the prospects and costs of such generations-long voyages.
