Editor’s note: J. Kenton Pierce, who won the 2026 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for A Kiss for Damocles, delivered his acceptance speech Aug. 16, 2026, during the 46th Prometheus Awards ceremony.
By J. Kenton Pierce
I am deeply grateful for this tremendous honor. Giving a speech wasn’t a problem I imagined having, considering that A Kiss for Damocles was up against books by people who’ve written some of my favorite stories.
I’m no deep political or philosophical thinker. I’m just a character-driven reader, so I lean in on crafting characters I’d enjoy spending time with.
LOYAL FRIENDS, GOOD NEIGHBORS
I was that kid who’d rather spend recess with Heinlein’s Kip and Pewee (from Have Space Suit — Will Travel) and Podkayne of Mars or Andre Norton’s Dane Thorson from her Solar Queen series.
People might have noticed more than a trace of James H. Schmitz’s The Witches of Karres, particularly Goth and The Leewit, in Shai.
So I try to write loyal friends and good neighbors in the old-school, country sense. Shai is a good neighbor. The country girl with grease on her coveralls who shows up to help you bail hay or figure out why your engine’s running rough.
Good neighbors offer a hand when needed, and don’t get into your business or tell you what to do.
GRATITUDE TO LESLIE FISH
Before I get into the meat of this, I need to express my gratitude to Leslie Fish, who passed away last fall. She had won a Prometheus in 2014 for her novella “The Tower of Horses” and paired filk song, “The Horse Tamer’s daughter.”
A few years back when I only had a few short story sales under my belt, I contacted her to ask permission to use her lyrics in some of my work, and the title “Avalon is Risen” for a forthcoming novel. Like a beggar with a bowl, I humbly offered to send her samples of my work so she could decide if she wanted her name associated with my stories.
“Sure, kid, it’s free advertising! And I’d be happy to beta read some of your stuff!”
After she read A Kiss for Damocles and Warlord of Greenline Town, she gave me a critique and said that they were great and deserved to be published.
The was a real shot in the arm, but what stood out was her kindness and encouragement. I’ll always be grateful to her for that.
THE CONFLICT IN A KISS FOR DAMOCLES
When I started crafting a conflict worthy of Shai, I wasn’t really thinking about politics, financial policy, or government overreach.
I’m from coal and coke country and it bugs me that The Company Store game has been fading from the American memory. It seemed like a good source of conflict. Something grounded in reality without needing cartoon mustache-twirlers for antagonists, and it’s a part of history that’s fallen out of the curriculum.
A while back I started to wonder why the Company Store wasn’t being trotted out as an Example of Evil Capitalism these days. I think it’s because even the Media Priest Caste can’t bury the fact that every Collectivist strain of Marxism is Collectivism is just a Company Store on a national level with different slogans.
HOW THE NOVEL BECAME A SERIES
About the time Shai’s story got to Greenline Town, I noticed the opposition felt flat. Wobbly scenery, no life to it. I decided to write one scene from the point of view of Ravati Aziz, the militia captain Shai gives migraines to.
That scene turned into a day in Ravati’s life, and then a novella, and then the first novel in the Warlord of Greenline Town series.
I realized that a town run by a cabal of merchant princes would be still be a dystopia, simply a kleptocracy-flavored one. While it wouldn’t have the usual all-powerful and monolithic government, the internal power struggles tend to work out as “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
The more I fleshed out Greenline Town from Ravati’s point of view, the clearer it became it was really an emerging civilization trying to decide what direction to take. Noble, practical values butting up against all of the bad old ideas opportunists and grifters like to trot out.
HOW LIBERTY BECOMES RESTRICTED
Common sense restrictions to liberty in the name of safety. Mandatory acrifices for the other people’s greater good. The need for more decisions about daily life to be made by government-backed “professional experts” rather than “unqualified” regular citizens.
Lord knows, I was seeing plenty of real-world propaganda to provide me with inspiration.
False but accurate. It’s more important to be morally right rather than factually correct or historically accurate.
And otherwise intelligent people would have to struggle against their own normalcy bias, while the other frogs would say “You’re paranoid, the water isn’t getting any warmer. Only a conspiracy theorist thinks that a louder hiss from the gas means the heat’s being turned up.”
The real world stepped up its efforts to remind me that even if I just wanted to mind my own business, Politics would eventually make me its business.
HOW THE SF/FANTASY FIELD CHANGED
As I built the Tales from the Long Night’s setting, I watched the fantasy and sci-fi community change. The self-appointed elite started saying the quiet parts out loud.
The traditional smug condescension towards stories that entertain without being progressive polemics grew into naked contempt.
Then it bounded ahead into outright gleeful malice. People bragged with vicious satisfaction about getting writers, editors, or long-time members of fan communities disinvited from a convention for Wrongthink because of twitter tantrums and whisper campaigns.
Along with that came with the denouncements. People I knew started posted things like “XYZ is an Evilest! He said an Evilism Thing! And there are at least 57 people on my friends list who still like or follow that author! They need to fix that!”
Struggle sessions. Earnest apologies and public abasement by people who’d been cast out by their Fellow Travelers for an old tweet or a slip of the tongue.
Frankly, the field started reminding me that of episode of The Prisoner (inducted in 2002 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame) when a big, burly guy stood at a podium, degrading himself, bawling in a scripted Self Criticism and begging forgiveness. Begging to be permitted to remain in the tribe.
Being Unmutual became the greatest crime in the field of sci-fi and fantasy. Times were looking pretty dark for the field in general.
Pro markets started drying up and agents started decreeing they weren’t interested to submissions from unfavored castes, untouchable demographics, genders and sexualities.
HOW ALTERNATIVE PRESSES ARE FILLING THE GAP
I’d figured I’d have to settle for self-publishing to a readership of maybe nine people but Raconteur Press started saying “Hey, we like it!” when I submitted to their anthology calls. They started accepting my short story submissions. Then they said “I’ve heard that you’ve got some manuscripts set in the Tales from the Long Night.”
I can’t thank Ian (McMurtrie), AKA Lawdog, and his Posse enough, not just for clean contracts and transparent accounting, but giving me a chance to tell my stories without sensitivity readers or demands that I provide any sort of political fan-service.
And I’d like to thank the Libertarian Futurists again. This award means a great deal to me, personally and professionally.
It’s also forced me to shelve any lingering Imposter Syndrome and recognize that I do indeed have a Journeyman’s level of skill in the craft… and that I can’t settle for that. I intend to keep sharpening my tools a bit more with each story.
Thank you all, and special thanks to my friends at Raconteur Press. More Tales from the Long Night are coming, and I hope you enjoy them.
Until then, stay Unmutual, my friends.
ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS
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