Novels

The first Lightmonthly Read hosted by Prometheus Unbound has begun!

For the month of May we will be reading and discussing,

In the Shadow of Ares (Kindle, Nook) — This young-adult first novel by Thomas L. James and Carl C. Carlsson focuses on a Mars-born female teenager in a near-future, small civilization on Mars, where hardworking citizens are constantly and unjustly constrained by a growing, centralized authority whose excessive power has led to corruption and conflict.

It appears to be available only as an ebook, so there’s no need to worry about delivery times. You can download your copy today and start reading right away. If you don’t own a Kindle or a Nook, there are free Kindle and Nook reading apps available for almost all major platforms.¹

Join us as we read and discuss In the Shadow of Ares.

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1. Except desktop Linux, but the Windows Kindle app runs just fine in WINE. Or use the Kindle Cloud Reader. ↩

In the interest of full disclosure, here are the books we received in April.

The Restoration Game Ken MacLeod Pyr	The Night Sessions Ken MacLeod Pyr	Cowboy Angels Paul McAuley Pyr
Living Proof Kira Peikoff Tor Books

Yes, that’s prominent Objectivist Leonard Peikoff’s daughter.

Brian Doherty of Reason.com was able to visit the set of Atlas Shrugged, Part II — Either-Or, based on Ayn Rand’s inspiring novel, during part of its ongoing 31 day shoot. After poor box office sales and being panned by critics, including our own Matthew Alexander (read his review), many wondered whether the second and third installments would ever be filmed. Encouraging DVD and VOD sales convinced the wealthy “rights”-holder, John Aglialoro, to persevere and a few new Randian investors to hop on board. I’m not sure whether the budget is the same, but in a risky move two things certainly aren’t: the director and the entire cast.

Yes, you read that right. The director and the entire cast from the first film were not retained for the second and third installments. The irony is not lost on those of us who both recognize that so-called intellectual property is illegitimate and are painfully aware of how fiercely most followers of Ayn Rand cling to it that copyright appears to have played a major role in this potentially devastating turnover. As one of the producers, Harmon Kaslow, himself explains,

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The unanimous winner of our vote for the first-ever Lightmonthly Read on Prometheus Unbound is:

In the Shadow of Ares (Amazon Kindle edition) — This young-adult first novel by Thomas L. James and Carl C. Carlsson focuses on a Mars-born female teenager in a near-future, small civilization on Mars, where hardworking citizens are constantly and unjustly constrained by a growing, centralized authority whose excessive power has led to corruption and conflict.

It’s available as a Kindle ebook only, so there’s no need to worry about delivery times. But there’s no reason to procrastinate either. Buy and download your copy today, via the affiliate link above, and help support our work here at Prometheus Unbound.

We’ll begin discussing the book on Tuesday, May 1st. Mark the date on your calendar!

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Earlier this month I floated the idea of starting a reading group or book club feature called The Lightmonthly Read. I think we’ve received enough interest to justify going ahead with it. The more the merrier — so if you are among those who expressed interest,  please spread the word, bring a friend.

To refresh everyone’s memory, the idea is that every month we’ll read and discuss a book that we selected the previous month. Generally I think we’ll have a nomination phase starting on the first of every month and then hold a vote, allowing a week for each phase. That should give everyone at least two weeks to acquire a copy of the book after voting is closed.

This time around, however, since next month will be the inaugrual Lightmonthly Read and we’re already 10 days into April, we’ll skip the nomination phase and go straight to voting on a short list.

Since the Prometheus Award finalists were just recently announced, we’ll choose our May read from the list of finalists — sans The Children of the Sky, because Matthew Dawson has already reviewed it, and The Restoration Game, because we’ve received a copy from Pyr that Matthew Alexander is going to review soon. That leaves the four finalists listed at the end of this post.

Discussions will take place mostly in the Prometheus Unbound forums. I’ve created a set just for the Lightmonthly Read: one forum for discussing the current month’s read, one subforum for voting on future reads, and another subforum to archive the discussions of previous month’s reads. Old threads on previous reads won’t be closed; this setup is meant to place focus on the current month’s read. To create and maintain a reading group or book club atmosphere, the Lightmonthly Read forums are members-only; you’ll have to register an account on Prometheus Unbound and be logged in to read and post in them. Anyone can register, and it’s easy.

We may occasionally hold live voice and video discussions using Google+ Hangouts or Skype.

One of the participants may be invited to write an official review of the selected book for Prometheus Unbound at the end of the month. If you’re interested, let us know at some point before the month is out. Otherwise, one of the staff will write the review.

We hope eventually to get authors involved in discussions of their work, whether they can only spare an hour in a Google+ Hangout or have time to participate in the forum over the course of a few days or even the entire month.

Authors, this is a great way to promote your work and to interact with your current and potential fans. It’s also a good opportunity for book giveaways. If you’re interested in participating in the Lightmonthly Read, let us know.

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Back in February, the Libertarian Futurist Society announced the 2012 Prometheus Hall of Fame Award finalists. Over the weekend, on March 31st, they announced the 2012 finalists for the Prometheus Award for Best Libertarian Novel.

Below is the most of the press release.

io9 picked up the press release as well; the comments offer up a predictable ton of FAIL, so you might want to read them for a good laugh or avoid them if you have a low tolerance for stupidity and ignorance.

The first finalist on the list, The Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge, was reviewed by Matthew Dawson back in February. But we still need reviews of the rest of the finalists, preferably before the winner is voted on.

As a reminder to our readers, we are open to submissions of reviews (as well as news, articles, interviews), whether you’d like to contribute regularly, irregularly, or just once.

So if you’d like to read and review one of the finalists, nominees, past winners, or another piece of fiction, we’d be happy to consider it for publication.

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