For IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Mar 25, 2018

PROMETHEUS AWARD FINALISTS CHOSEN FOR BEST NOVEL

Works by Casey/Hunt, Corcoran, Gallagher, Hoyt, MacLeod, Weir recognized as Prometheus finalists for 2018 award

The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced finalists for the Best Novel category of the Prometheus Awards, which are presented annually at the World Science Fiction Convention.

Here are the six finalists for the 38th annual Prometheus Award for Best Novel:

• Drug Lord: High Ground by Doug Casey and John Hunt (High Ground Books) – The near-future adventure thriller offers an unconventional hero challenging the government's War on Drugs by promoting a new rationality/lucidity drug that lets people see through deception, fake news and government propaganda – thereby posing a dire and unforgiveable threat to politicians, bureaucrats and the very foundations of corruption and unjust power. (Note: Drug Lord, Volume 2 in the co-authors' projected seven-part High Ground series, is the sequel to Speculator, nominated the previous year for the Prometheus Award.)
• The Powers of the Earth, by Travis Corcoran (Morlock Publishing) – An ungoverned lunar settlement whose eonomy developed while Earth's leaders ignored and denied its existence, struggles to retain its independence from Earth's meddling bureaucracy in this story about colonists fighting to keep what they built. (Note: This finalist is the first volume of The Aristillus Series; the sequel Causes of Separation will be published in May 2018.)
• Torchship, Torchship Pilot and Torchship Captain , by Karl Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press) – The space-opera - tightly written and plotted enough to count as one three-part novel –follows the adventures and intrigues of a smart but secretive woman who signs on as pilot of a free-enterprising interstellar freighter and becomes a player in humanity's survival in a dangerous region of space with conflicting planetary governments and solar-system-devouring artificial intelligences that threaten the divided human colony worlds.
• Darkship Revenge , by Sarah Hoyt (Baen Books) – This rapid-paced adventure dramatizes the heroism of an angry mother who risks herself, her child and kidnapped husband to fight a bio-engineered plague, genetically modified tyrants, and a fearful slavery centuries from now on and around Earth. (Note: This book is the latest in the Darkship series, which began with the 2011 Prometheus winner Darkship Thieves and continued with Darkship Renegades, a 2013 Prometheus finalist, and A Few Good Men, a 2014 Prometheus finalist.)
• The Corporation Wars: Emergence by Ken MacLeod (Orbit) – In the suspenseful but humor-laced conclusion to The Corporation Wars trilogy, MacLeod weaves a cyberpunk-style A.I.-versus-human space opera that explores the foundations of self-awareness, autonomy, rights and liberties as newly sentient "freebots" battle for colonial-planet survival in a multi-sided interstellar 32nd-century war against real and virtual threats from different camps of humans and rogue freeboots. (Note: The Corporation Wars: Dissidence and The Corporation Wars: Insurgence were 2017 Best Novel finalists.)
• Artemis, by Andy Weir (Crown Books) – In this second novel by the bestselling author of The Martian, Weir offers a noir adventure and near-future heist thriller set on humanity's first and only lunar colony, a market-oriented city in which a poverty-stricken but resourceful young smuggler must use her guts and skills to survive and thrive while discovering a dark conspiracy that threatens the colony's freedom and future.

Thirteen 2017 novels were nominated by LFS members for this year's award. (Note: Under a recently adopted new LFS award-eligibility rule, similar to one recently added for the Worldcon's Hugo Awards, two or more novels can be nominated together as basically one novel if the judges determine that the books are so tightly linked and plotted, with continuing characters and a unifying conflict and theme, that they can be best read as one work.)

The other 2017 nominees, alphabetized by author: Walkaway, by Cory Doctorow (Tor Books), The Alexander Inheritance by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett (Baen Books), Luna: Wolf Moon: A Novel by Ian McDonald (Tor), Autonomous, by Annalee Newitz (Tor), The Braintrust, by Marc Stiegler (LMBPN Publishing), Change Agent, by Daniel Suarez (Dutton, a Penguin Random House imprint) and The Genius Plague, by David Walton (Pyr Books)

The Prometheus Award, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), was established and first presented in 1979, making it one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf.

Presented annually since 1982 at the World Science Fiction Convention, the Prometheus Awards include a gold coin and plaque for the winners – with a one-ounce gold prize for Best Novel and smaller gold coins for the Prometheus Hall of Fame (for Best Classic Fiction in all written and broadcast/on-screen mediums) and the occasional Prometheus Special awards. For close to four decades, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between Liberty and Power, favor cooperation over coercion, expose the abuses and excesses of coercive government, critique or satirize authoritarian ideas, or champion individual rights and freedoms as the mutually respectful foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, mutual respect and civilization itself. The Prometheus Award finalists for Best Novel are selected by a 10-person judging committee. Following the selection of finalists, all LFS upper-level members have the right to read and vote on the Best Novel finalist slate to choose the annual winner.

For a full list of past Prometheus Award winners in all categories, visit www.lfs.org. Membership in the Libertarian Futurist Society is open to any science fiction fan interested in how fiction can promote an appreciation of the value of liberty. For more information, contact LFS Publicity Chair Chris Hibbert (publicity@lfs.org)

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