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<\/a>The two-time Prometheus-winning author, who won for Best Novel in 2018 for The Powers of the Earth<\/i> and again in 2019 for its sequel Causes of Separation<\/i>, hasn\u2019t published a major work of fiction in several years.<\/p>\nBut that\u2019s about to change.<\/p>\n
One of the first novels published by Ark Press, a new SF publisher, will be Corcoran\u2019s Red State Mars.<\/i><\/p>\n
Scheduled for publication May 29, 2026, Red State Mars<\/em> is billed as \u201ca sweeping epic of Mars\u2019s fight for freedom\u2014an unforgettable saga of war, family, and civilization on the red frontier.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n CORCORAN\u2019S RED STATE MARS According to Corcoran, Ark Press also is planning a limited-edition, higher-end printing that will include high-resolution maps of Mars as the end papers.<\/p>\n Here is the publisher\u2019s description of the novel:<\/p>\n \u201cFor generations, the Newcastles, Mackenzies, Atkinses, Hyltons, and Hollinses have endured the hard red soil of Mars\u2014surviving by individual grit, intense family loyalty, and free market trade. Scarred by World War III and Earth\u2019s long, violent aftermath, they built farms, raised domes, forged alliances, and carried old grudges to a new world. Together, the Martians have forged a frontier society that is complex, ornery, and rooted in the freedom of the Texas soil from which many of the clans sprang.<\/p>\n Trade with the nearby Chinese enclaves brought prosperity for a time. But as Beijing\u2019s reach lengthens, trade becomes tribute\u2014and tribute becomes force.<\/p>\n When Chinese armored columns grind across Karl\u2019s Ramp and convoys are torn apart in the Chaos, Mars is plunged into war. Robinson City\u2019s dome falls in fire and blood. The Burrows holds out under siege until supply convoys break through beneath burning skies. At Lowell and Meltwater, city shields collapse and the red Martian soil melts and flows like blood as the Martian plains are seared with plasma fire.<\/p>\n The clans face an empire pressing down from above and rivalries tearing them apart from within. Senators brawl in council halls, mobs surge through the streets, and old feuds erupt\u2014even on the football field. Out of devastation, a fragile coalition is born: uneasy, volatile, but fierce enough to strike back. Freightliners become fortresses. Drones become weapons. Family honor hardens into resistance.<\/p>\n From isolated domes to the vast Martian plains to the black sky above, war sparks into revolution and a desperate struggle to forge a nation on an alien world men now call home.<\/p>\n A vast chronicle of clans and civilizations, of families too proud to yield, too divided to trust, and too determined to be ruled.\u201d<\/p>\n Corcoran wove in explicitly libertarian themes and rhetoric into The Powers of the Earth<\/i> <\/a>and Causes of Separation<\/i> – both part of his Aristillus series, which includes several published stories and novellas and two planned upcoming novels.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pro-freedom\/anti-tyranny themes are less explicit in the foreground than in the Aristillus novels (i.e. characters don\u2019t discuss them), but it’s baked into the worldview and illustrated by the story,\u201d Corcoran said in an email.<\/p>\n Still, Corcoran says Red State Mars<\/i> is a \u201cdeeply political\u201d novel.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are multiple different family “tribes” (subcultures) on Mars circa 2150 and they have to work together, despite their political differences, to fight Chinese totalitarian aggression,\u201d he said in an email interview.<\/p>\n Among the subcultures depicted on Mars: Pacific North West \/ \u201cSpaceX “gray” culture sysadmins and programmers (Mackenzies),\u201d Texan “new south” social \/ political elites,\u00a0 Appalachian Scots Irish \u201cworking class hell raisers,\u201d and upper-middle-class Mexicans in northeastern Mexico.<\/p>\n With its mix of subcultures provoking both cooperation and tribal tensions, Red State Mars is influenced and inspired in part, Corcoran said, by Poul Anderson\u2019s Orion Shall Rise<\/a>,<\/em> inducted this past year into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n His setting and world-building is also interesting.<\/p>\n \u201cRed State Mars <\/i>is set a century after World War III, which destroyed both the Chinese Communist Party and the current American political system. In the wake of the war, a new and even worse Chinese polity – the Unitary Sovereign State of China – arises, as does a better American polity – a minimalist state hewing close to the original American ideals,\u201d Corcoran said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut this new American state can’t defend its borders from Chinese-backed raiders as well as it might like, and so a band of Texans abandons Earth for Mars…but the Unitary Sovereign State of China is expansionist, and eventually harries them even there. The Texan colonists have to overcome cultural factionalization and mistrust born of elitism and anti-elitism to establish a governance structure in order to fight back against an adversary that uses Brave New World style genetic engineering to enslave its subject populations.\u201d<\/p>\n Red State Mars i<\/i>sn\u2019t the only Corcoran novel likely to see publication this year. He\u2019s also writing other novels, including several with a Young Adult focus, he said. So stay tuned – and return to the Prometheus Blog for more author’s updates, including about Corcoran.<\/p>\n For further reading<\/strong><\/p>\n Check out the Prometheus Blog appreciation <\/a>by William H. Stoddard of Corcoran’s The Powers of the Earth<\/em> and Causes of Separation<\/em>.<\/p>\n *\u00a0Join us!<\/b> To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, \u00a0join<\/a> the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer international association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n Libertarian futurists understand that culture matters. We believe that literature and the arts can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future. In some ways, culture can be even more influential and powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.<\/p>\n * Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/b>For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 including in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced \u00a0Prometheus Awards page<\/a>\u00a0on the LFS website. This page includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards\u2019 distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.<\/p>\n *\u00a0Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/a><\/p>\n * Read \u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/a> an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/i>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n * Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society\u2019s Facebook page<\/a> for comments, updates and links to the latest Prometheus Blog posts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Michael Grossberg This year should be a notable one for author Travis Corcoran. The two-time Prometheus-winning author, who won for Best Novel in 2018 for The Powers of the Earth and again in 2019 for its sequel Causes of Separation, hasn\u2019t published a major work of fiction in several years. But that\u2019s about to … Continue reading Two-time Prometheus winner Travis Corcoran has a busy schedule of upcoming books, starting with his 2026 novel Red State Mars<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,10,2664],"tags":[2662,122,2776,135,42],"class_list":["post-10332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-updates","category-news","category-travis-corcoran","tag-ark-press","tag-causes-of-separation","tag-red-state-mars","tag-the-powers-of-the-earth","tag-travis-corcoran"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-2GE","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10332"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10373,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10332\/revisions\/10373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nThe 606-page novel, available for pre-order now on Amazon, will cost $29.95 in hardback and $14.95 for the Kindle ebook.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>But his Red State Mars<\/i> is geared for a different audience.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>ABOUT THE LFS AND THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS<\/b><\/p>\n