Tag: Lionel Shriver

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 Novel finalist review: Danny King’s Cancelled envisions true-believer excesses of a dystopian New Britannia

By Steve Gaalema and Michael Grossberg

Oh, what a brave new world Danny King charts in Cancelled – now a Best Novel finalist.

Framed initially as a visionary utopia that fully embraces love, inclusion, social justice, and a triumphant institutionalization of progressive-left politics maybe not that far beyond current norms, this New Britannia initially might seem appealing.

Yet, cracks inevitably appear in the facade, as hidden realities are revealed in this gripping SF-enhanced dystopian fable, one of 11 2024 novels nominated for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

Continue reading Best Novel finalist review: Danny King’s Cancelled envisions true-believer excesses of a dystopian New Britannia

Best Novel finalist review: Lionel Shriver’s Mania offers cautionary tale about an alternate America denying differences in intelligence


By Michael Grossberg

Lionel Shriver, arguably the world’s greatest living libertarian novelist, has found another timely subject worthy of her illuminating insight and piercing wit.

Living up to her iconoclastic reputation, the British-American novelist finds satirical, intensely dramatic and gut-wrenchingly personal dimensions to bring to life in Mania.

The cautionary fable depicts a slightly different but recognizable contemporary world where good intentions have gone terribly astray.

Set in the recent past and present but in a wryly revealing alternate history, Mania portrays an America taken over by a new ideology: the Mental Parity movement.

Warning: Any resemblances to any cultlike trends or movements of today or just yesterday are purely intentional.

Continue reading Best Novel finalist review: Lionel Shriver’s Mania offers cautionary tale about an alternate America denying differences in intelligence


A diverse slate of firsts and lasts: 11 Prometheus Best Novel nominees offer SF and fantasy, drama, mystery and satirical cautionary tales

By Michael Grossberg

Eleven 2024 novels have been nominated for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

Writer Howard Andrew Jones (Photo courtesy of Baen Books)

Broadly embracing many forms of speculative fiction including science fiction, fantasy, dystopian cautionary tales and near-future political-tech thrillers, the diverse slate offers a wide variety and blends of genres, styles and themes – from the serious to the darkly satirical.

Two-time Prometheus winner Michael Flynn (Creative Commons license)

Most poignantly, this will be the last time that two authors are nominated for Best Novel because they’ve sadly passed away: Michael Flynn and Howard Andrew Jones.

Flynn, a two-time Prometheus winner for Best Novel, died in 2023 at 75.

Jones, a Best Novel finalist last year, died in January 2025 at 56.

Continue reading A diverse slate of firsts and lasts: 11 Prometheus Best Novel nominees offer SF and fantasy, drama, mystery and satirical cautionary tales

Author’s update: HarperCollins has published Mania, two-time Best Novel finalist Lionel Shriver’s alternate-history novel critiquing radical egalitarianism

By Michael Grossberg

Maverick bestselling novelist Lionel Shriver is at it again, skewering popular shibboleths of elite culture and critiquing false ideologies through her imaginative and insightful fiction.

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

Shriver, recognized twice over the past decade as a Prometheus Best Novel finalist, has written Mania, a new 286-page alternate-history novel published April 9 by HarperCollins Publishers.

The publisher’s description highlights a theme that seems promising from the perspective of the Prometheus Awards:

“With echoes of Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, told in Lionel Shriver’s inimitable and iconoclastic voice, Mania is a sharp, acerbic, and ruthlessly funny book about the road to a delusional, self-destructive egalitarianism that our society is already on.”

Continue reading Author’s update: HarperCollins has published Mania, two-time Best Novel finalist Lionel Shriver’s alternate-history novel critiquing radical egalitarianism

SF under assault, but ripe for rebirth: Two-time Prometheus winner Travis Corcoran’s 2022 awards-ceremony speech on the value of libertarian science fiction

The Libertarian Futurist Society invited two-time Prometheus winner Travis Corcoran to discuss the importance of libertarian science fiction in his speech as presenter of the 2022 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.

Sf novelist Travis Corcoran (Photo courtesy of author)

Here Is the text of Corcoran’s speech, delivered on Aug. 13 as part of the Zoom awards ceremony, marking the 40th anniversary of the LFS.

(Corcoran presented the Best Novel award to Wil McCarthy for Rich Man’s Sky; the Hall of Fame award went to Robert Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy,)

 

By Travis Corcoran

The state of written science fiction in 2022 is a bit like the state of western civilization: under assault from all sides, hollowed out, a pale shadow of what it once was.

The soldiers who once defended our grand city have been defeated.

There are invaders inside the gates, cavorting, aping their betters,and desecrating the ancient and sacred temples.

The great bazaars are empty and only a few small peddlers haunt the windy streets.

Most of the citizens who built the city, stone by stone, have been either felled by old age or have wandered away.  A few still act as if nothing has changed, but without the support of the great publishers and the cheers of the crowd, the performance rings hollow.

Continue reading SF under assault, but ripe for rebirth: Two-time Prometheus winner Travis Corcoran’s 2022 awards-ceremony speech on the value of libertarian science fiction

Meet the author: Lionel Shriver, a Prometheus Best Novel finalist for Should We Stay Or Should We Go

Maverick American-British writer Lionel Shriver has been recognized – again – in the Prometheus Awards.

Author Lionel Shriver (Creative Commons License)

First nominated in 2017 for The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047, which went on to become a Best Novel finalist, Shriver has been recognized as one of five 2022 Best Novel finalists for her novel Should We Stay Or Should We Go.

Continue reading Meet the author: Lionel Shriver, a Prometheus Best Novel finalist for Should We Stay Or Should We Go

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”

Review: Lionel Shriver’s alternate-reality novel Should We Stay or Should We Go highlights how government paternalism, NHS bureaucracy, runaway inflation and other statist disasters make end-of-life decisions worse

Here’s a review of Lionel Shriver’s Should We Stay Or Should We Go, which became a Prometheus Best Novel finalist:

By Michael Grossberg
Life, aging and death are difficult enough for most people to deal with, even when we strive to think and plan ahead and make the best choices we can about our senior years – including the possibilities of assisted living and even euthanasia.

Exploring those increasingly vital and common 21st-century issues in her kaleidoscopic 2021 novel Should We Stay or Should We Go, shrewd contrarian British novelist Lionel Shriver underscores how much worse the outcomes can be when oppressive laws, obtrusive welfare-state bureaucracy, socialized health care, forced medication, involuntary hospitalization, virtual imprisonment, anti-suicide laws, other bad government policies, abuses of power and even today’s dangerous trends of exploding federal debt and rising monetary inflation can damage lives further while undermining our ability to make our own decisions about end-of-life matters.

Continue reading Review: Lionel Shriver’s alternate-reality novel Should We Stay or Should We Go highlights how government paternalism, NHS bureaucracy, runaway inflation and other statist disasters make end-of-life decisions worse

More new, emerging authors recognized in this year’s large slate of Best Novel nominees

If one of the salutary effects of the Prometheus Award for Best Novel over the decades has been to help raise the visibility of new, young or emerging talent, that goal might well be furthered by this year’s larger-than-usual slate of nominees.

These 16 novels, published in 2021 and listed below, reflect a wide range of styles, from the satirical to the sorrowful and from hard sf to mythic fantasy.

Continue reading More new, emerging authors recognized in this year’s large slate of Best Novel nominees