The Prometheus Award, 2025

 

Folks, 

I know I'm late with this. I know you know. We've been updating what was Dad's childhood home (something Dad and I intended to do in the summer of 2023 before everything went very, very sideways) and the computer was put away somewhere safe from all of the dust and debris, and I still don't know where the mouse is, so I'm using (aka struggling with) the trackpad on the laptop. 😫

In any case, we're pleased to announce that Dad's final work, In the Belly of the Whale, has won the Prometheus Award for Best Novel, 2025, which is presented by the Libertarian Futurist Society or LFS. The awards ceremony will, per LFS, be online via Zoom in late Aug or early Sept and I'll be sure to update you later than they will as soon as my brother and I figure this out. 😶 I'm sorry to say I don't know much about the other books that were nominated or their authors, but I'm sure they were thoughtful, provoking works. 

With this, Dad becomes one of five authors to have won this award three times and the first to win posthumously. Dad was previously bestowed this honor in in 1991 for In the Country of the Blind and in 1992 for Fallen Angels with Larry Niven and David Pournelle. The other four authors, by the way, were Cory Doctorow, Victor Koman, Ken MacLeod and L. Neil Smith. Michael Grossberg, of the LFS, talks about the Locus review of In the Belly of the Whale in a recent blog post here.

My father would have been touched and humbled by the honor of having his work recognized. He put so much work into researching and creating his worlds. The cabinets in his office were covered with maps and index cards with notes written on them. The file cabinets in his office and in another room were literally filled to bursting with articles and research on a myriad of topics that he used to incorporate into his stories. When he died, he had something like 89 tabs open on his browser. He wanted every detail just right, so he could create that immersive world for you, his readers.

For you to have recognized his effort, his artistry, his life's passion is a great honor not only to my dad, but to me, my brother, Dad's brothers, and our extended family.

Thank you.

In the Belly of the Whale Reviews

 Hi All

The National Space Society reviewed Dad's last work, In the Belly of the Whale. Take a read here, and don't forget you can buy the book anywhere books are sold (including Amazon, B&N, Indigo, etc).

It was also reviewed in Locus by Paul DiFilippo as a TOF Spot reader graciously informed me. Check it out here. DiFilippo refers to the large cast of characters that Dad created and it reminds me that Dad, like a certain very famous SF/mainly Fantasy writer, was a gardener of a writer, except that he created English ornamental gardens. Characters, plot lines and details were researched, planned and plotted out to the smallest detail. His office walls and cabinet doors were covered in print outs, maps, and index cards of research and notes he was attempting to keep in order as he wrote. He wrote something set in Milwaukee during the time period he and Mom met and researched for - days, weeks? - over the color of the street signs in that time period. As if one of you, his readers, would clock that if he got the wrong color and let the world know. Maybe you would have!

Like a certain very famous SF/mainly Fantasy writer, this immense dedication to detail and characters sometimes meant he got caught up in that and fell behind in the writing, I'm sure much to any given editor's irritation. But that was Dad. If you brought home algebra homework, he was known to start looking at it to help you and then get up from the table and wander off with your algebra book to compare it to some math book he had in his office while you haplessly sat there. The question, "What did you do in school today?" could lead to a 45 minute lecture if you'd had a social studies or history class that day, complete with Dad pulling books related to the day's lesson off the shelf and handing them to you. 

Additional Reviews: John Purvis III at writing on the Medium

She Treads Softly

In The Belly of the Whale - Now Available

 

 

Dear Readers,

Dad's final (? maybe?) work is now available at Amazon, B&N, and many other fine retailers. I compiled a list a few posts back - here it is.

New Story from Michael F. Flynn

 Greetings All. 

 

Mike (Dad) has a new story in the July/August edition of Analog. I know Analog is available on Kindle store and Analog themselves also sell digital editions. It may also be available at your local bookseller. Check it out!  It's a story called "Mandarins," an idea he and Harry Turtledove were bouncing around some years (decades?) ago between themselves. Their joint work never came to fruition, but before he died, Dad worked on it himself and sent it in and now Dad's left you all with this little amuse bouche.

Gloria Estefan Was Wrong

 

It's not the rhythm that's going to get you. 

It's the bots. 

I've turned comment moderation on for The TOF Spot because it was overrun with spam comments. I just don't have the time or the energy to be on here daily like Dad was (lol or weekly or...) and I guess since the blog isn't really maintained anymore, the bots are just throwing up trash comments on his more popular posts. I've just spent time deleting them all, and there's still more to go through. 

It's offensive to me personally that they're posting on his death announcement, even though I know it's a bot and not necessarily malicious in that sense. They were also all over that Ptolemaic Smackdown post, which I know was a more popular one of his.

Anyway, I set it up to notify if there's a new comment so ... let's see how terrible this is. If I get a ton of notifications of spambots then ah well. But maybe the closed comments will turn the bots away in search of a recipe blog instead.

In The Belly of the Whale: Publisher's Weekly Review & Pre-Order Links

 Hello Fans of Michael Flynn.

I am pleased to let you know that Dad's novel In the Belly of the Whale will be released by CAEZIK on July 16, 2024. It has received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, which you can read here. Publisher's Weekly calls it "thought-provoking" and "an impressive and original epic."

If you're wondering where and how you can get your hands on it, no worries! Several retailers already have pre-order links available for you.Of course folks outside of the US know your booksellers better than I do - I just went with what I could find.

US Retailers

Amazon Pre-Order

Barnes & Noble Pre-Order

Powell's Pre-Order 

Books-A-Million Pre-Order 

Oblong Books in Upstate NY Pre-Order 

 Canadian Retailers

Indigo Books Pre-Order

Australian Retailers

Mighty Ape Pre-Order 

UK Retailers

WH Smith Pre-Order 

Swedish (I think) Retailer

Science Fiction Bookhandeln 

German Retailer

Lehmann's Pre-Order

Wonder and Anticipation, the Likes of Which We Have Never Seen

 

Hello family, friends and fans of Michael F. Flynn.  

It is with sorrow and regret that I inform you that my father passed away yesterday, Sept 30, 2023. 

He was sleeping peacefully in the home that he loved. His father built the home 70 years ago and my dad had an outsized attachment to it. Many happy memories of his childhood and of his parents, and his brothers, especially Dennis, were contained herein.  

If you met or corresponded or conversed with Dad then you know that he was interested in a great many things in the world. If he asked you a question about something, it was because he really wanted to know, he wasn't just being polite.  He liked to take the "devil's advocate" position in debates and arguments, especially political ones, much to the annoyance of my mother and probably many others. Dad was looking for a robust exercise in intellectual and rhetorical swordplay; he just didn't always see that sometimes people just want to have a conversation without being en garde.

He had the ultimate dad sense of humor, and had an endless supply of terrible jokes, puns, and groaners, even when he was in the hospital in July. In "real life," he was a very easy going person. I could probably count on one hand the number of times I have heard my dad yell or curse.

At his death, he had a lot of tabs open on his browser, on a variety topics. He always sought to learn about different things. Some of it was for his writing, some for the extensive family research he has always done, and some of it was just because he wanted to learn more about the universe, the planet we live on, and the people around him. 

So if you take anything away from your time reading his works, his blog, interacting with him on social media or elsewhere, forget the politics and social commentary and the devil's advocacy, but take away that he was someone who just wanted to learn and engage with others, and keep that piece with you in your lives. 

- His Daughter.