{"id":4096,"date":"2022-01-31T17:37:02","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T23:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lfs.org\/blog\/?p=4096"},"modified":"2025-06-19T20:30:36","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T01:30:36","slug":"author-update-part-2-a-preview-of-travis-corcorans-next-two-novels-in-his-prometheus-winning-aristillus-series-and-a-possible-story-anthology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/author-update-part-2-a-preview-of-travis-corcorans-next-two-novels-in-his-prometheus-winning-aristillus-series-and-a-possible-story-anthology\/","title":{"rendered":"Author update, part 2: A preview of Travis Corcoran\u2019s next two novels in his Prometheus-winning Aristillus series (and a possible story anthology)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note:<\/em> Here is the latest author’s update about Travis Corcoran, and a follow-up to a previous blog post. (Submissions of news and updates from other Prometheus-recognized authors – whether nominees, finalists or winners – are welcome and will be considered for publication.)<\/p>\n

By Michael Grossberg<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Prometheus-winning author Travis Corcoran recently shared some glimpses into the subjects and themes of two of his upcoming sf novels.<\/p>\n

Right and Duty\u00a0<\/em>and Absolute Tyranny\u00a0<\/em>respectively will be the third and fourth novels in Corcoran\u2019s four-part Aristillus series.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Travis Corcoran wins his first Prometheus Award Photo: Courtesy of author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The novels will continue the story in the future-history series that Corcoran launched with The Powers of the Earth<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and its sequel Causes of Separation,<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>set partly on the Earth but mostly in a functioning-with-challenges anarcho-capitalist colony on the Moon. Both novels won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel, with Powers <\/em>winning in 2018 and Causes\u00a0<\/em>winning in 2019.<\/p>\n

Corcoran reports that he is working simultaneously on both the third and fourth novels in the series, \u201cwhich are still very libertarian in background,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n


\nDescribing the initial books in the series on his blog, Corcoran writes: \u201cThe Aristillus Series is a pair of science fiction novels about anarchocapitalism, economics, open source software, corporate finance, social media, antigravity, lunar colonization, genetically modified dogs, strong AI\u2026 and really,\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0big guns.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For the next two books in the series, though, Corcoran says the focus will shift more towards issues of what Corcoran has dubbed \u201centryism,\u201d which he defines as the political take-over of institutions.<\/p>\n

Right and Duty\u00a0<\/em>and Absolute Tyranny\u00a0<\/em>also will draw analogies, he said, between \u201cIT hacking, subcultures taking over \u2018overcultures,\u2019 digital physics, and \u2018AI escape\u2019 (a powerful entity with time to burn overcoming barriers) in the foreground.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commonality of all of these is prying at seams and weaponizing small
\nflaws in architecture – for good or for ill,\u201d Corcoran said.<\/p>\n

Because the next two Aristillus novels are \u201cenormously complex,\u201d they\u2019re going to take some time to complete, perhaps years, Corcoran said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For instance, he said that he is grappling with weaving together \u201c15 distinct parallel threads\u201d in the novels. Among them: Earth politics, Aristillus politics, labor law, digital physics, constructed languages (what he dubs “conlangs”), the economics of interplanetary trading, conspiracy theories, hacking, consumer economics, and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re straining my abilities as a writer, but I’m making forward progress, albeit slowly,\u201d Corcoran said.<\/p>\n

A POTENTIAL ARISTILLUS ANTHOLOGY<\/strong>
\nMeanwhile, as he continues writing future Aristillus novels and LFS members and other fans continue to wait to read them, Corcoran has conceived a \u201cback-burner project\u201d that could give fans something else in the same future history to read while we\u2019re waiting for the next novel to be published.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Corcoran revealed to the LFS that he has been talking to several \u201cwriter-friends\u201d about contributing to a collection of short stories exploring the Aristillus future universe. No publication date has been set yet for that anthology, but we\u2019ll keep you posted here.<\/p>\n

Other interested authors, even those as yet unacquainted with Corcoran, who might want to contribute to the anthology are welcome to contact him, Corcoran said. (The best way to contact him is through his blog.)<\/p>\n

For more Corcoran updates, check out future posts on this Prometheus blog or on the author\u2019s own Morlock Publishing blog.<\/a><\/p>\n

Read the previous Prometheus blog post<\/strong> <\/a>about two other books that Corcoran published in 2021.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

* Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society\u00a0<\/strong>(LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans, and help nominate, judge and vote to select Prometheus Award winners.
\nLibertarian futurists believe upholding and advancing culture is even more important, in the long run, than politics in spreading positive visions of the future, achieving a flourishing society based on cooperation instead of coercion and a better, free-er world (perhaps eventually, worlds) for all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

* Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an essay in the June 2020 issue of the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the modern genre.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: Here is the latest author’s update about Travis Corcoran, and a follow-up to a previous blog post. (Submissions of news and updates from other Prometheus-recognized authors – whether nominees, finalists or winners – are welcome and will be considered for publication.) By Michael Grossberg Prometheus-winning author Travis Corcoran recently shared some glimpses into the … Continue reading Author update, part 2: A preview of Travis Corcoran\u2019s next two novels in his Prometheus-winning Aristillus series (and a possible story anthology)<\/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":[32,10,2605,2664],"tags":[148,1406,1404,1402,136,122,1412,1410,1405,1411,1407,146,597,1403,1409,147,1408,503,135,42],"class_list":["post-4096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-updates","category-news","category-sequels","category-travis-corcoran","tag-absolute-tyranny","tag-ai-escape","tag-anarchocapitalist-colony","tag-anthology","tag-aristillus-series","tag-causes-of-separation","tag-conspiracy-theories","tag-constructed-languages","tag-digital-physics","tag-interplanetary-trading","tag-it-hacking","tag-lunar-colonization","tag-lunar-colony","tag-morlock-publishing","tag-open-source-software","tag-right-and-duty","tag-subcultures","tag-the-moon","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-144","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096","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=4096"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9424,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096\/revisions\/9424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}