Editor’s note: LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg, who chairs the Prometheus Best Novel Judging Committee, presented the 2026 Prometheus Award for Best Novel to J. Kenton Pierce for A Kiss for Damocles. This is the first in a series of posts celebrating the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony, with separate articles devoted to each Aug. 16 speech by winners and presenters.
Since the Prometheus Award was first presented in 1979, 47 books have won Best Novel. Today, we will honor a 48th.
One of the oldest fan-based sf/fantasy awards after the Hugos and Nebulas, the Prometheus Awards are distinctive in their dual focus on both liberty and literary quality. While quite a few Prometheus-winning works have also won Hugo and Nebula awards, only the Libertarian Futurist Society annually recognizes fantastical fiction that consistently champions respect for human rights – even for that smallest oppressed minority, the individual.
