For the past few months I’ve been taking part in the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off.  This idea was hit upon by Mark Lawrence and brings together 10 bloggers, each undertaking to read 25-27 books submitted by self published authors with a view to putting forward one book from their pile.  The 10 books that are then put forward will then be read by each blogger and scored and eventually an overall winner will be hit upon.  The full details are here.

In today’s post I’m announcing my overall winner.  I’m probably doing things a little back to front here because I haven’t reviewed the book yet (or a number of the other books that I actually completed).  This is simply because I focused on completing the task in front of me and in particular on finding my ‘one’ book.

I can say that this has been a very difficult challenge for me for a number of reasons.  I hate being critical – I really do!  And yet I have a list of books and only one to take forward.  This certainly acted as a motivation in making me focus.  Also, I think writing a book and putting your labour of love forward for an event such as this must be really tough and I appreciate that and don’t want to discourage anybody.

What I can say about the books submitted on my list – I had some enjoyable reads here – in fact probably more than I expected (which was something of an eye opener and a revelation)  Maybe I wasn’t as open minded about self published books as I thought and in that respect I think this challenge has been a learning curve.

In terms of the reading I didn’t complete all the books and this wasn’t necessarily because I didn’t enjoy them but more because I already knew that they would not be the book I put forward for one reason or another.  In total I completed 10 books – I’ve already written a short review for a couple of those plus a full review for one of the others.  The others I intend to write reviews for over the next few days starting with my finalist.  I think I gave all the books submitted a very fair chance but at the end of the day the book I chose just stood out for me as up until that point I was undecided about which book I had enjoyed the most.

I would like to thank all the authors who submitted books for this challenge and hope that none of you are discouraged at all, at the end of the day I had to be fairly hard in terms of elimination.  Put simply, some of the books were not my style, or maybe felt aimed at a younger target audience and some I had issues with the writing style that didn’t particularly work for me.

My finalist for this round:

The Weight of a Crown by Tavish Kaeden – review to follow.

The other books that I read fully but have not yet reviewed:

1. Iduna by Maya Michaels
2. The Duchess of the Shallows by Neil McGarry & Daniel Ravipinto
3. Forging Divinity by Andrew Rowe
4. In the Dark by Melody Taylor
5. Thief of Hope by Cindy Young-Turner
6. Blade of the Broken by Jake Scholl

The following three books I’ve already either reviewed or given a short write up of.

• Naming the Bane by Kal S Davian
• Klondaeg the Monster Hunter by Steve Thomas
• His Own Good Sword by Amanda McCrina review here

I’m currently taking part in the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off – details of which are here.  I’m going to write a few updates as I go along regarding the books I’ve so far attempted.  Some of the books just simply won’t be my cup of tea but I’m going to give a short write up for those because they may work for others and try and make sense of why they didn’t work out for me. Some I might not finish  Some I might finish but won’t necessarily be carrying them foward.  There are 27 books on my list, I won’t be fully reviewing all of them but I want to be fair to the books and the authors so will give some kind of synopsis plus links to the books and, if it was a book that didn’t work for me, try and outline briefly why not.

Books read so far:

1. Amanda McCrina – His Own Good Sword – review here
2. Wayne Miller – The Dung Ball Chronicle – DNF
3. Steve Thomas – Klondaeg the Monster Hunter
4. Jack Kerr – Tommy Black and the Staff of Light – DNF
5. T.C Pearce – Into the Aether – DNF
6. Kal S Davian – Naming the Bane

His Own Good Sword by Amanda McCrina – This was my first read and a good start.  My review is above.

The Dung Ball Chronicle by Wayne Miller 

Unfortunately I didn’t finish this particular story.  It’s an unusual tale and I’ve cut and paste part of the description from Goodreads: ‘The narrator is John Densch, a frustrated husband, father and low-level technocrat who starts the whole ball rolling with a joke about a “bog monster.” We meet his wife, Doreen, who wants so badly for John to move beyond the imaginary ensnaring him, but finds that everything comes with a price; Bollum, a voice in young John’s head that told him tales of alien abduction and of a technological utopia for humanity, albeit one with an expiration date; and Derek, an abductee trapped on Bug World, at first a character in Bollum’s tales, but in time an alternate existence for John.’

As I said this was an unusual story.  Unfortunately it just didn’t quite work for me, it could be a mood thing on my part but I was simply unable to become absorbed in the story and I was doing that thing where, when you’re not really loving your current read, you become really ambivalent about picking the book back up.  I must admit I don’t like giving up on a story but sometimes you simply have to acknowledge that the book isn’t working for you and that was the case here.  I probably read about a quarter of the story.

Klondaeg the Monster Hunter by Steve Thomas

Klondaeg is a dwarf with revenge on his mind.  When he was a young dwarf his parents were killed by a monster and now he wants to rid the world of all other monsters.  He carries with him a split personality, talking axe called King’s Rest.  In case you were in doubt this is a bit of a tongue in cheek collection of short adventures starring Klondaeg.  Klondaeg flits about from one mini adventure to the next killing all manner of monsters along the way.  He ends up with a strange collection of characters joining him on his travels as he tries to uncover the monster that killed his mother and father and even visits with a God in an attempt to reverse a prophecy.

This was okay and I did complete the book – I’m not going to say I loved it or that I had no issues but it was a lighthearted story with the emphasis more on fun.  If you want to scrutinise the finer detail or are looking for something a bit deeper or with more character development then this probably isn’t for you but if you want a tongue in cheek, fun adventure with a bit of a madcap character then you may like this one.

Tommy Black and the Staff of Light by Jack Kerr

I would describe Tommy Black as a coming of age story – probably aimed at middle graders.  Tommy travels through a number of adventures whilst coming to terms with the existence of magic and his own inheritance in that respect.  Tommy has lived in ignorance of magic, protected by his grandfather.  At the start of the story he’s about to have his eyes opened and from there things are going to become very strange very fast.  Whilst I didn’t actually finish this I will say it shows quite a lot of promise.  I don’t think I’m really the target audience and therefore for me personally I found myself with a few niggles – I read almost half so there’s always the possibility that these could have been all wrapped up by the conclusion but like I said I don’t think I’m really the target audience for this one.  I think my main issue here was that we have Tommy – and then we have people with knowledge that they could pass to him but instead of doing so there was a sort of ‘we need to talk’ statement – usually followed by ‘after you’ve slept/I’ve slept, we’ve eaten’, etc, If that was me – no, you’d be having that talk now.  Like I say, that’s just me, and doubtless that would have been cleared up later in the story but, it wasn’t as though the ‘talks’ were being delayed because everyone was running for their lives, that would be fair enough but to constantly put things off when there seems to be plenty of time to discuss them just feels a bit like a clunky plot device because the author doesn’t yet want to relate those things to the readers – like I said, above – not really aimed at me so my niggles may be unfounded and as I said this shows a lot of promise.

Into the Aether by T.C Pearce 

This is an original storyline that brings together quite a few different elements.  We start with a young girl who can walk into and out of people’s dreams.  We meet a man on a plane who seems to be of interest to more than one different party and finds himself being almost abducted by something that is a bit demonic and we meet another woman who seems to have premonitions of future events.  There’s a lot to tie together with a strange world living hidden alongside our own.

I got off to a good start with this but then ultimately found myself struggling a little – I’ve read just under 50% so I do think I’ve given it a good shot.  I don’t dislike it and in fact may read on just to satisfy my curiosity but I’m finding myself irritated with certain things and they’re just giving me a mental block.  For now, I’ve put it to one side just simply because of the issues that I was finding irritating but I may pick it back up and give it a little more time.  This certainly isn’t a badly written story and it has a fairly original (to me) concept.  I think my main issue is the way that some of the people act which doesn’t always come across as believable but simply convenient for the plot – Lara’s mother is a prime example of this although I sometimes feel that the parents in YA books can often be a bit unreal.  Again, as with the Jack Kerr book above I don’t really think I’m the target audience here so my irritation could be simply that. Like I said I might pick this up later on in the challenge just to see how it finishes and if I do so I will give it a fuller review.

Naming the Bane by Kal S Davian

Daggis is a man cursed from birth and, in a world where the Goddess hunts and kills those that are cursed, his life hasn’t been easy.  At the start of the story Daggis is travelling with his wife and daughter as part of a caravan with other cursed and misfits.  Their life is one of constant movement evading capture until the army finally catches up with them and all hell breaks loose.

I quite enjoyed this and think it shows a lot of promise.  I did have issues with it but I completed it quite easily in one sitting.  However, this is only an excerpt from the world created by Davlan and as such I found myself not satisfied!  I think personally I would prefer to have read a larger instalment where I can get a proper feel for the characters and world and make a more balanced judgement.  As it is we only see a small snippet and whilst things are alluded to they’re not really cleared up here.  I do think this is an interesting world and I’m curious to know what these curses are exactly.  There’s plenty of action and no lack of imagination.  In terms of criticisms I think this could have been strengthened.  There were certain scenes that were too quickly brushed over where I wanted to feel a bit more emotion.  As it is, I thought this was a good introduction to the world – I just wanted to feel more for the characters and didn’t really have a chance to make that connection.

I can’t say I enjoy eliminating books from this challenge but at the end of the day there can be only one.

This is a recap of my progress on the SPFBO for March.  I would like to thank all the authors for allowing me the opportunity to review their books.