FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 12, 2026

First Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction goes to Dave Freer’s Storm-Dragon

The Libertarian Futurist Society (www.lfs.org), a nonprofit all-volunteer international organization of freedom-loving science fiction fans, has announced a Special Prometheus Award for 2026 – our first Special Award specifically presented for Young Adult Fiction.

The LFS Board of Directors unanimously approved this new awards category in recognition of the crucial connection between literacy and liberty and the vital importance of writing fiction, including fantastical fiction, that attracts and engages young people.

Storm-Dragon, by Dave Freer, will receive the Special Award Aug. 16, 2026, at the 46th annual Prometheus Awards, along with the previously announced 2026 winners in the two annual categories for Best Novel (J. Kenton Pierce’s A Kiss for Damocles) and the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction (Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.)

The Special Prometheus Award Winner for Young Adult Fiction
Storm-Dragon, published by Raconteur Press, centers on a boy who saves and adopts an intelligent alien pet on an ocean-dominated colony planet with dangers both alien and human.

In the spirit of Robert Heinlein’s Red Planet and Farmer in the Sky and Alan Dean Foster’s Flinx novels, the story centers on two resourceful middle-school boys: Skut, a native of the planet, and Podge, part of a family of refugees who’ve arrived on a starship. As they make friends, the boys confront class bullies and repressive teachers, cope with mob behavior and navigate the ocean’s tricky shores.

In the process, they interact and communicate more with their orphaned young “dragon,” an electrosensitive six-limbed alien creature who may be more intelligent and formidable than it appears.

Aimed primarily at ages 8 to 18 and avoiding explicit ideology, the novel gradually expands to include parents, administrators and other adults enmeshed in the colony town’s increasingly corrupt politics, which threatens livelihoods through onerous regulations, taxes and property confiscations. Ultimately, a violent invasion from human raiders threatens the colonists’ broader rights.

With a strong career background in fishing and oceanography, Freer focuses more on the plausible ecology and boy-centered adventures than the politics of this plausible frontier planet, while allowing his live-and-let-live, peace and freedom themes to emerge naturally.

Visit the Prometheus blog for a full review of Storm-Dragon that illuminates how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

This year’s recognition for Storm-Dragon marks the first Special Award presented by the LFS since 2017. But it’s not the first recognition for Dave Freer, who won the Prometheus for Best Novel in 2023 for Cloud-Castles.

Young Adult Fiction and the Prometheus Award

While Storm-Dragon is the first work to receive a Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction, it’s not the only example of Young Adult Fiction to be recognized in the Prometheus Awards.

Five works that have won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel fall into the Young Adult Fiction category or have strong appeal and accessibility for younger readers: Homeland, by Cory Doctorow (the 2014 winner); The Freedom Maze, by Delia Sherman (2012); Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow (2009); The Gladiator, by Harry Turtledove (2008); and Learning the World, by Ken MacLeod (2006.)

Four Young Adult Fiction works have been inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame: Alongside Night, by J. Neil Schulman (the 1989 winner); Red Planet, by Robert Heinlein (1996); “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” by Hans Christian Andersen (2000); and Citizen of the Galaxy, by Heinlein (2022).

Plus, the novella Tower of Horses and the related filk song “The Horsetamer’s Daughter,” both by Leslie Fish and very accessible to young adult readers, received a 2014 Special Award.

Other Prometheus-winning works that may appeal to younger readers include Ayn Rand’s Anthem, a 1987 Hall of Fame winner; and George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the 2011 Hall of Fame winner.

All Young Adult Fiction works recognized at some level by the award are listed on a special page of the LFS website devoted to a Prometheus Award Young Adult Honor Roll.

The Special Prometheus Awards
Ten works have received Special Awards since this occasional category was first presented in 1998 to Free Space, the first explicitly libertarian science fiction anthology.

Also receiving Special Awards: two other SF anthologies (Give Me Liberty and Visions of Liberty), two films (Serenity and V for Vendetta), two graphic novels (Alex + Ada and The Probability Broach: The Graphic Novel) and a webcomic (Freefall). All Special Award winners receive a plaque with a gold coin.

Unlike the two annual Prometheus awards for Best Novel and the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction, Special Prometheus Awards are occasional. Such special awards focus on outstanding pro-liberty science fiction or fantasy in any narrative or dramatic form outside the parameters of our annual categories.

This year’s recognition for Storm-Dragon marks the first Special Award presented by the LFS since 2017. But it’s not the first recognition for Dave Freer, who won the Prometheus for Best Novel in 2023 for Cloud-Castles.

The 46th Awards Ceremony
The 46th Prometheus awardswill be presented online Sunday afternoon Aug. 16, 2026, in a zoom awards ceremony open to the public.

This year’s hourlong ceremony, tentatively scheduled for 2-3 p.m. Eastern time and emceed by LFS President William H. Stoddard, will feature two guest speakers:

* Two-time Prometheus Best Novel winner Travis Corcoran (The Powers of the Earth, Causes of Separation) will present the Special Prometheus Award for Young Adult Fiction and discuss the importance of reaching out to new and younger generations with quality science fiction and fantasy.

* Lifelong science-fiction fan Ilya Somin (a George Mason University law professor, Cato Institute scholar and author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration and Political Freedom and Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter), will present the Hall of Fame award.

Updates will be posted on the Prometheus Blogover the next several weeks about additional speakers and the ceremony line-up.
Prometheus Awards History and Focus
The Prometheus Award, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), was 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.

Among the wide array of Prometheus-winning writers: Hans Christian Anderson (“The Emperor’s New Clothes”), Poul Anderson (Trader to the Stars), Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451), Lois McMaster Bujold (Falling Free), Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange),  C.J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher (Alliance Rising), Harlan Ellison (“Repent Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman”), E.M. Forster (“The Machine Stops”), Robert Heinlein (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress), Sarah Hoyt (Darkship Thieves), Ursula K. Le Guin (The Dispossessed),  Sinclair Lewis (It Can’t Happen Here),  Ken MacLeod (The Stone Canal), George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-Four), Terry Pratchett (Night Watch, The Truth), Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged), Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon), J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), Kurt Vonnegut (“Harrison Bergeron”), Jo Walton (Ha’Penny) andF. Paul Wilson (An Enemy of the State.)

The Prometheus Awards recognize 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, and/or critique or satirize authoritarian systems, ideologies and assumptions.

Above all, the awards strive to recognize speculative fiction that champions individual rights, based on the moral/legal principle of non-aggression as the ethical and practical foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, mutual respect, civility and civilization itself.

All LFS members have the right to nominate eligible works for all categories of the Prometheus Awards, while publishers and authors are welcome to submit potentially eligible works for consideration using the form linked from the LFS website’s main page at www.lfs.org

For more information, visit lfs.org or contact LFS Publicity Chair Chris Hibbert (publicity@lfs.org).

Michael Grossberg