LGBTQ+ Indie Debut Novel Hits Best-seller Status

In the late evening of May 3rd, 2019, an independently published LGBTQ+ novel called In the Shadow of Prometheus became the best-selling new work of literature on Amazon. It is the debut novel of L. Farnsworth Colson, a Yale alum. Written half-way between the style of a modern philosophical novel and the thrilling epics of pop-culture like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Avengers; the book has been lauded by advance readers almost as much as it has surprised them.

“From the title, to its artistry, to L. Farnsworth’s bold vision—it’s a great work,” Jacopo della Quercia, author of License to Quill, wrote. Other readers have pointed towards the crisp literary prose and John Sumrow’s 23 chapter illustrations as reasons for the novel’s astounding early success.

The story takes place in the 23rd century, after the fall of the major nation states of the present day. The future it presents is utopic, and emblematic of its efficacy (and heart) is the  protagonist, Oni Anagonye, an eager and ambitious ‘Vanguard’ charged with protecting the well-being of the world and its people both through law and in peacekeeping. Fighting an insurgency which kills for the nostalgia of the old world order, and a mystical entity which makes claims as to its own divinity—the girl just can’t seem to catch a break. It will take all her cunning to save the world from these forces which conspire to unravel all it has gained.

The author of Prometheus has openly stated that his motivation for writing the book was the lack of such projects out there for public consumption. In a PhD track program, he delayed his doctoral studies with the belief that wisdom is the birthright of all, and not just  the privileged who are lucky enough to learn from an intellectual elite; a caste which partially predicates its authority on its removal from the real, lived experiences of society.