July 20, 2026: The Pegasus Nominees: A Must For The Filk Library

I'm listening right now to The Pegasus Nominees: Songs of Space, Science, and Science Fiction, a compilation by Prometheus Music. The Pegasus Awards are given annually at the Ohio Valley Filk Festival to honor the year's best in filk.

(A digression: If you don't know what filksinging is: It's music, original or set to existing tunes, springing from the world of science fiction and fantasy. Most of it is fiction-related – or, these days, media-related. Still, as most SF fans are lovers of science, some filk is about the "science" side and not the "fiction" side. And, as many of us SF fans are very silly-ass people, many of our filksongs are humorous . . . or worse.)

At any rate, the Pegasus Awards have been given every year since 1984. Almost all of the winning writers and performers are amateur, both in the sense that they don't do it for a living, and in the sense that they love it. But you never heard anything this happy, even the sad ones.

If you'd like to listen, here's the Spotify link. And if you want to drop a dime on Prometheus Music (and the performers) and "own" the music, that's a very good thing too. Buy it here.

-- Steve Jackson