A good number of Prometheus-winning works have been adapted into graphic novels, from Ayn Rand’s Anthem and L. Neil Smith’s The Probability Broach to the TV series The Prisoner.
One I discovered recently is Brave New World: A Graphic Novel – which is timely to mention here because Aldous Huxley’s novel is one of this year’s Best Classic Fiction finalists for the next Prometheus Hall of Fame award.
Fred Fordham adapted and illustrated Huxley’s dystopian cautionary tale into a 240-page graphic novel, published in 2022 by Harper.
The Guardian described the graphic novel as “brilliant” in its review.
Prometheus-nominated SF author Robert Kroese has launched an ambitious five-novel series about corporate law in an interstellar and entrepreneurial future.
Acceleration Clause, published April 29 in 255 pages by St. Culain Press, is the first book in Kroese’s Ransom’s Law series about a corporate lawyer struggling to find new footing after a career misstep as part of a spaceship repossession crew.
Kroese is of interest to Libertarian Futurist Society members because he was nominated for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel in 2022 for Titan: Mammon Book 1.
Locus magazine has released its Locus Awards finalists for the past year’s best science fiction and fantasy – always a good list to consider for SF/fantasy fans, including LFS members.
There are some excellent novels on the Locus shortlists, based on my own wide readings this past year as a Prometheus Awards Best Novel judge – and as a lifelong SF/fantasy fan.
It’s also an interesting list to compare to the Prometheus Awards, not only in terms of potential overlaps with same-year nominees but also what novels and novelists both awards have recognized.
War by Other Means, a Prometheus Best Novel finalist, is the seventh volume in Karl K. Gallagher’s future history series Fall of the Censor. After several volumes focused on military conflict, War by Other Means changes its focus to diplomatic relations among the worlds fighting against the Censorate.
In doing so, it brings Wynny Landry, the wife of Marcus Landry, the protagonist of several previous books, as a new protagonist, in the role of the ambassador from her native planet, Corwynt.
The 2026 Prometheus Best Novel finalists have been announced – and Libertarian Futurist Society members are reading them, with the ultimate verdict and winners to be selected by July 4 on the final ballot.
To spark thought and discussion, raise the visibility of these works and the award and hopefully serve as a helpful guide, the Prometheus Blog is publishing thoughtful, in-depth reviews by Prometheus judges of each finalist. Some LFS members may wish to read them right away; others may prefer to wait until they’ve finished a finalist before reading the review.
Meanwhile, to whet your appetite to read each finalist and vote in the final stage of the Prometheus Awards, here are roughly equal 200-word capsule descriptions of each finalist.
And we’ve striven to avoid revealing any spoilers, so it’s safe to read them now!
Three former Prometheus winners, a frequent Best Novel finalist and a first-time nominee are competing to win this year’s Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
J. Kenton Pierce (Photo courtesy of Raconteur Press)
The Prometheus Best Novel Judging Committee, drawn from the LFS membership, has selected five 2025 novels as 2026 finalists from 14 nominated works. The Best Novel finalists, listed in alphabetical order by author, are Storm-Dragon, by Dave Freer (Raconteur Press); War by Other Means, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press); No Man’s Land, by Sarah Hoyt (Goldport Press); A Kiss for Damocles, by J. Kenton Pierce (Raconteur Press); and Powerless, by Harry Turtledove (CAEZIK SF & Fantasy.)
Pierce was nominated for the first time for a Prometheus Award, so his inclusion as a Best Novel finalist is particularly impressive in a year that many judges feel has been a superior one for freedom-themed SF/fantasy.
If you were nominated for a Prometheus Award for Best Novel, would you invite the world to watch you in the moment you found out whether your novel was selected among the finalists?
Novelist John C.A. Manley was willing to do that yesterday with his editor Peter Toccalino in an interesting and wide-ranging 40-minute video discussion of this year’s Best Novel nominees and finalists.
Dave Freer’s Storm-Dragon, one of 14 works nominated for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel, has been receiving some nice reviews from readers.
One of the most appreciative reviews has come from science-fiction novelist John C.A. Manley, himself nominated in the same Prometheus category this year for All the Humans Are Sleeping. Exploring issues of consent, freedom and technocracy,Manley’s dystopian SF novel focuses on a man who refuses to enter a virtual reality simulation prepared for survivors of a nuclear apocalypse.
Left to right: Jonah Manley and his father, author John C.A. Manley with a favorite book (Image from Manley’s blog)
To put it mildly, Manley’s nominated novel is quite different from Freer’s Young-Adult-oriented nominee.
“Imagine Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn appearing in Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon, add a little of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, and you’ve got Storm-Dragon by Dave Freer,” Manley writes.
Titled “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (but with Big Spaceships and a Small Dragon),” Manley’s review begins with a confession: He’s not “a big fan” of young adult fiction – and he offers several of the best-known examples to prove it.
“But Storm-Dragon had my son and me hooked by chapter two,” Manley writes.
Singer-songwriter-actor David Bowie (Creative Commons license)
David Bowie is remembered as one of the past half-century’s greatest singer-songwriters.
Perhaps less well known was the extraordinary intelligence and eclectic literacy of Bowie, who died at 69 in 2016. He read widely, broadening his understanding and appreciation of the world and humanity, at its best and worst.
The Bowie Book Club has preserved a list of Bowie’s top-100 books that he read and ranked highest during his lifetime as major influences on his thinking, creativity and development of artistic tastes.
Among them are two Prometheus Hall of Fame winners for Best Classic Fiction: George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, inducted in 1984, and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, inducted in 2008.
Kudos to Johanna Sinisalo, most familiar to readers of this blog as winner of the 2017 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Sinisalo, widely hailed as one of Finland’s leading novelists, has been recognized as a finalist in Finland’s top science fiction award.
The Helsinki Science Fiction Society has announced 2026 finalists for its Tähtivaeltaja (“Star Rover”) Award for the best science fiction book published in Finland in the previous year.
