SPFBO X Finalist Announcement
30 October 2024
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Book Review, Books, By A Silver Thread, Finalist Announcement, Rachel Aaron, SPFBO X, updates, writing
For those who don’t know about SPFBO (the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off) – this is a competition created and run by Mark Lawrence. The competition is now in its tenth year and you can find more about all the other entrants and judges over on Mark Lawrence’s blog.
The Critiquing Chemist and I have now completed all our reading for Stage 1 of the competition and are ready to announce our finalist. I’m not going to drag this out, I intend to post a wrap up soon so, with that in mind, lets get straight to our chosen finalist.
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Congratulations to Rachel Aaron. Here’s my review for By a Silver Thread.
Sincere thanks to all the authors that took part.
#SPFBO 9 Finalist Announcement
What is SPFBO 9? This is a competition where authors of self-published fantasy can enter their work. The objective to find a winner out of the 300 entries submitted. Ten judges (or judging teams) each receive 30 entrants. Each judge/team will eventually submit one finalist to the second round where a winner will eventually be decided upon. Check out Mark Lawrence’s post here to look at this year’s entrants, judges and allocations list.
Our batch of 30 books was split equally between myself and the Critiquing Chemist’s team. We have both now completed our reading, we chose three semi finalists each and we have read each others choices. So, today is tough decision time. And, I can say, all these semi finalists were so good. I really enjoyed them and have no hesitation recommending them all, which certainly made choosing just one even more difficult.
However, I’m not going to prolong the announcement – details of the semi finalists can be found below. We went back and forth with debate and our chosen finalist for SPFBO 9 is:
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A Rival Most Vial by RK Ashwick is a wonderful cosy fantasy that we thoroughly enjoyed. Congratulations to the author.
My condolences to the other authors. We had six superb SFs this year – all quite different. Here are my reviews for the others.
The First and Last Demon by Hiyodori. This is a unique story, really engaging and quite compelling and I loved the twist in the tale. It’s quite insular with a very small cast of characters but is a standalone that leaves no threads hanging. I literally read this in two sittings because I had to have answers.
Twicetime by Carol Carman. This story was like my very own personal ‘pick me up’. It was such good fun. I simply don’t know why this book isn’t receiving oodles more attention. I loved it and can’t wait to read my next book by Carol Carman.
Dream of Death City by PJ Nwosu. Wow, what a fantastic imagination this author has. This world is dramatically painted in reds and golds. The way of life is harsh. I love the ideas on display and the two central characters are easy to get on board with. A must read. I want more.
Under the Lesser Moon by Shelly Campbell. This book is a difficult read and undoubtedly not for everyone but I thought it was brilliant to be honest. It’s a cruel world, bad things happen (really bad things) but there is hope as well and the ending had me immediately rushing to see when or whether the next book was released.
The Many Shades of Midnight by CM Debell. Another standalone. A story with epic scope but told from a much smaller perspective and focused primarily on the characters. Lovely writing and a fascinating world not to mention a lovely character in the apprentice surgeon.
Finally, don’t forget to stop over to the Critiquing Chemist to read their thoughts.
#SPFBO Finalist Announcement
Stage 1 of the SPFBO competition is almost complete and today Team LB=TC2 will announce their Finalist. For more information about the competition and to keep an eye on the finalist board check out this link.
I’m not going to drag this post out, I know that this is a nerve wracking time for the authors and so I’m going to cut to the chase. After much deliberation the Finalist for LB=TC2 is (also, check out the Critiquing Chemist’s review here):
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Our four Semi Finalists:
My congratulations to Tim Hardie. Commiserations to the other authors. There were no easy choices with this group but unfortunately there can be only one.
Thanks to all the authors who took part for making this competition possible.
All my SPFBO reviews are posted below:
- Deathborn by CE Page
- Graves Robbed, Heirlooms Returned by Ashley Capes
- Stranded by Rosalind Tate
- One of Us by ML Roberts
- Berserker by Dimitrios Gkirgkiris
- Stone Magus by Stephanie C Marks
- Book of Secrets by Claudia Blood
- Dragonbirth by Raina Nightingale
- Carrion by Alyson Tait
- Iarraindorn by Phil Dickens
- Rising Shadows (The Pillar of Creation, #1) by Phillip Blackwater
- By the Pact by Joanna Maciejewska
- Little White Hands by Mark Cushen
- Out of the Dust by Joe Coates
- The Throne of Ice and Ash by JDL Rosell
- Ten Thousand Stitches by Olivia Atwater
- Hall of Bones by Tim Hardie
- Subversive by Colleen Cowley
#SPFBO : Finalist announcement
28 October 2020
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Finalist Announcement, SPFBO, Threadlight #1, Voice of War, Zack Argyle
300 books 10 Judges 1 winner
The 1st of June marked the start of the sixth Self Published Fantasy Blog Off (details here.) My Introductory post is here.
You can find my updates for batch 1, batch 2, batch 3, Batch 4 and Batch 5 by clicking on the links.
So, today I will announce my finalist. To be honest, this has been a very difficult choice to make. I had four semi-finalists chosen and all are very good reads that I highly recommend. I can say that in my deliberations each of these books has been my finalist at some point and I think they would all be worthy of moving forward to Stage 2. That being said, I had to make a choice and so without further ado my finalist this year is:
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Voice of War (Threadlight #1) by Zack Argyle (check out the new cover)
My three semi finalists are:
My congratulations to Zack Argyle, commiserations to all the other authors who took part. I had a fantastic batch of books and the decisions this year have been ridiculously difficult due to the excellent. I highly recommend the three SFs and in fact I still have a couple of other books to complete and review that I will post at a later stage.
Good luck to all the finalists moving forward.
My reviews for all four books are below:
#SPFBO Semi Finalists and Finalist Announcement
Today sees, for me, the completion of Stage 1 of the SPFBO competition. I’ve really enjoyed the first stage and I have to say I had some incredible books in my batch.
Firstly, the following books are the ones I’ve completed fully and reviewed (I’ve provided mini reviews for my other books as I went along.
Cry Havoc by Jack Frey
Healer’s Ruin by Chris O’Mara
The Lore of Prometheus by Graham Austin-King
From the Shadows of the Owl Queen’s Court(Yarnsworld #4) by Benedict Patrick
Never Die by Rob J Hayes
Sir Thomas the Hesitant and the Table of Less Valued Knights by Liam Perrin
Vortex Visions by Elise Kova
The Blade Within by Jackson Lear
River of Thieves by Clayton Snyder
From the above I have chosen five Semi Finalists, to be fair to the authors I would stress that all of these books were very good and I definitely recommend them all. And in fact I am hoping to be able to go back and read fully some of the other books from my batch – time allowing.
My five semi finalists:
And this is where the really tough decision kicked in and kicked me to the floor (not at all dramatic)!
I’m not going to deny that it’s been very difficult to choose a finalist. The nine books above were all very good and I recommend them – narrowing that list down to semi finalists was tough enough – going further and choosing just one – well, it was stressful and if it made me feel like that then I can’t even begin to imagine how all the authors feel.
Basically I narrowed my choice down to three. I made a list of all sorts of pros and cons and was then left with two choices – which I really couldn’t choose between.
I don’t always score my books but I rated different aspects of both books in this case to try and find a score for each and see if that would help. Even with that in mind it’s been difficult to stick to one decision and there has been lots of to ing and fro ing and a tiny bit of dithering. In the end I’ve chosen my finalist but I would stress that this was a really difficult decision.
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My finalist:
My congratulations to the author 😀
I would also like to put forward under the ‘Senlin Safety Net’:
My apologies to the other authors from my batch. I’ve had a fantastic time reading all these books and I wish that I could choose more than one but that’s the nature of the competition. Thank you so much to all the authors for taking the time to enter and for taking the risk to put forward your work. You definitely get my round of applause.
Books and travelling with Lynn 