Editor’s note: Dave Freer won the first Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction for his novel Storm-Dragon, published by Raconteur Press. Speaking from his home in Tasmania, Australia, Freer delivered this acceptance speech Aug. 16, 2026, via Zoom during the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony.
“Reading is vital – to civilization, to liberty, to everything we wish for our species, especially for our young.” – Dave Freer
By Dave Freer
Good afternoon everybody. For me that is actually ‘good predawn’ because it is 3 AM here. Like many authors I’ve kept a notebook next to the bedside so I could, on waking, hastily write down the gifts of the muse that sorted themselves into brilliance while I slept.
Unfortunately, the morning usually revealed gems like: ‘Orglvard at speed, with minchins and porgies.’ which I am sure meant something at the time, and was quite brilliant. I hope I am a little more awake than that, but I am not betting on it. I plead forgiveness in advance.
Firstly: Thank you all for awarding the Special Prometheus prize for Young Adult Literature to my book Storm-Dragon.
I am delighted to accept it. It’s flattering for me, but that is really rather beside the point. The real delight is that the Prometheus – an award which is a reliable indicator ‘you will love the book’ has put its mark on a YA SF-novel.
REACHING OUT TO YOUNGER READERS
That puts that valuable imprimatur of ‘a great read’ onto Storm-Dragon. That is important to me. But that is trivial to what I hope it means to ten-year-old boys. This Award means it will reach more of them.
Look, mostly younger readers don’t know what a Prometheus Award means, and they don’t care. I hope they will, after this. But it is really the people who do respect and value the award – the adults, who are likely to put the book in their way. That is why I am utterly delighted by the book being given it.
“MESSAGE-FICTION” PRO AND CON
You see: Storm-Dragon was a book designed for a specific purpose, with a particular end in mind. It was that quite despicable thing, which, honestly has damaged reading in general, and YA/middle grade in particular. I confess: Storm-Dragon IS ‘Message-fiction’.
Yes: Message fiction – which, I suspect, handled as it often is with the dexterity of a steam-shovel for micro-surgery, has put more people, particularly young boys, off reading than anything else.
So: knowing that full-well, and regarding the message-dripping offerings of much of modern children’s and young adult publishing like Hakarl…
HAKARL, AN ICELANDIC DISH OF BASKING SHARKS
Ah. A digression: I must explain Hakarl, to those of you lucky enough not know it. Hakarl is an Icelandic dish made from basking sharks, which are toxic, because of the level of vitamin A.
Traditionally it was caught in autumn, buried under the beach shingle for winter, dug up, cut into rubbery jelly blocks that tastes like it smells, which is a delectable combination fermented fish and ammonia-floor cleaner. It’s not poisonous any more, I just wished it was when I had to eat it politely. I believe you can get used to it, especially with enough Brennvin. But it’s probably not the ideal choice for an introduction to food…
THE MESSAGE: READING IS FUN!
So: what talked me into fiction that’s first purpose was to promote a message? I’m well known for saying that messages have to be so disguised that readers get them without even being aware of it, that if it detracts from the book, it is the message that must go.
It was what that message was. It’s a message I believe passionately in, that I believe I have promoted all my life, that I believe is of vital importance to our species. Yeah, like most jokers, when you peel the layers back, I’m a very serious guy. This is something that is fundamental importance. This is Prometheus’s gift of fire.
The message is: READING IS FUN.
READING FICTION ESPECIALLY IS AWESOME.
Neil Postman — talking about Brave New World — put it thus: What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. We are already going there. If the younger generation doesn’t read, their children won’t.
I believe this with the passion of a crusader. Everyone who can read, should. And the only way to make sure it does happen is to make it a pleasurable experience, you can’t wait to try again – unlike my experience of Hakkarl.
THE PROBLEM: YOUNG BOYS AREN’T READING
The problem – and the reason for my writing this book, and Raconteur starting this line – is that we have a real situation where young boys aren’t reading. Young girls – in opinion — aren’t reading enough… and they’re reading twice what boys read. Fiction in particular suffers.
But why is this even relevant? Everything is video, these days, right? And fiction? Bah.
I believe it is vital – to civilization, to liberty, to everything we wish for our species, especially for our young. Reading shapes the way we think. Not the content (that too, but it is near irrelevant).
It shapes the way we CAN think, which opens our capacity to think. It requires translating and assembling symbols into words, words into concepts, images — things in themselves far bigger than the little word. It’s a process the brain uses to process and store information, but more importantly, to create from.
READING, THINKING IS VITAL TO CIVILIZATION
Reading is training this, the younger a child starts, the easier it becomes and more building blocks they have. It is also compound interest for there on in.
It is a genie repressed in illiterate societies. It is a genie that, once freed, cannot ever be put back. Those who champion freedom must champion reading, and particularly reading fiction, because that trains the mind in taking symbolic logic into creating what is not. That is what drives us, makes us human, gives us dreams. That will give us the stars.
Without that we’re little more than sheep.
With it, we have a key to being far more.
HOW HEINLEIN, VANCE, DE CAMP INSPIRED FREER
For me, Heinlein Juvies, Jack Vance’s Blue World, Sprague de Camp’s Lest Darkness Fall were the key to loving fiction.
That’s why I wrote Storm-Dragon in the style of Heinlein Juveniles (particularly Farmer in the Sky) and with the fascinating biology of Vance’s worlds, and problem solving of Sprague de Camp. I added as much of a fast-moving story, with clear black-and-white heroes, villains and motivations as I could.
There is little introspection. There are parents who are normal and good guys, and fathers, as in Farmer in the Sky, who are role models. I did this with deliberate intent because I believe these are things boys want in their books. They were certainly the things I wanted at ten years old… and still do.
Oh… and I really wanted a ‘telepathic’ miniature dragon that could deliver 500 volt shocks and was Snarky by name and nature and could take bites out of you, and delighted in mischief.
THE GIFT OF FIRE, STOLEN FROM THE GODS
I want this book to be read. I want it to inspire authors to follow a similar recipe, because this works.
I want boys to read this and go on devouring books for the rest of their lives, to start writing them, themselves.
To get their children reading – maybe on Mars or the Asteroids… or moving toward the stars. To take that gift of fire stolen from the gods, and build the furnaces of the heavens.
It is my dream to pass that torch on, and I’d like to thank Raconteur Press for backing me in this, and the Libertarian Futurist Society for giving this book their vote of confidence.
Thank you all very much.
ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS
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