You can read a little bit about SPFBO 11, our judging blog process and our team here. But to summarise we have divided the process of picking our finalist from our batch of thirty books into two phases.

In Phase 1a the team have been working through the first 10% or so of our batch of 30 books, RAG (Red-Amber-Green) rating each book according to how much the opening drew us in to wanting to read on.

The most enticing six books will go forward into Phase 1b where we will give each book a full read, a full Fantasy Hive review and the chance of being our chosen SPFBO 11 Finalist.

The scores for Phase 1a are all in and we are ready to reveal our fifth set of eliminations and our fifth semi-finalist.

We know it’s a disappointing time for those authors whose books are cut, but reading is very much a subjective process and different readers will have different likes. Our judges may have found a semi-finalist that engaged their interest more than the four books whose SPFBO 11 journey ends here. However, there may be other readers out there who like the glimpse we are sharing of the eliminated books and might be tempted to pick them up and read on – and please do!

Week One | Week Two | Week Three | Week Four

Eliminations

Chameleon: The Awakening by Maggie Faire

This is an interesting story with definitely potential. The prologue felt important and it sowed some interesting seeds and lore in it – in a way, it was one of the better prologues I have read so far in the competition. Some of the writing felt really nice and flowed easily. The sudden juxtaposition of the timeline to contemporary did take one out of the book and that’s where it felt a bit too sudden. While there definitely is a sense of intrigue with respect to the lead character and her history, I wonder if the sum of the parts between the prologue and the contemporary timeline felt a bit diminished as compared to the individualness of the parts. The book has interesting complications going for it for sure. – Vinay

Epic of Helinthia by MJ Pankey

This was unexpected – a quasi-historic story, rather than a straight fantasy! As a Classics fan, I liked the introductory setup, and the beautiful character art was an unexpected treat. The writing is generally solid and engaging, with interesting protagonists and the potential for great world-building (is this historic or another world altogether?). I was a bit muddled by the amount of characters and names thrown in so fast, and there is a slight tendency to tell rather than show with regard to what’s going on at this early stage – I’d be fine with characters finding much of this out as we move along. Having said that, the overall atmosphere is a delight and I was left interested to see what happens next. – Cat

The Orichalcum Crown by J.J.N.Whitley

There was just enough going on in the prologue of this book to hook my interest, but the first chapter soon burned through that goodwill. The pseudo-benevolent Emperor adopting heirs is genuinely intriguing; listening to what all of those many many characters have for breakfast? Less fascinating. There is a magic system in here that seems rooted in wuxia, even though the book bears little resemblance to that genre otherwise, and there are some dark moments that would be shocking if we knew the characters involved with more depth. The book was eliminated because of the pacing issues that prevented us from making that vital connection to the characters, but perhaps given enough time it would have righted itself. – G.D.Penman

This week’s Honourable mention

The Demon who Cried Murderer by William Rafalko

Now this was an odd one. Early on I was very dubious about it. There was a confusion of information and – while short choppy chapters might be good for pace – there was so much switching of focus that it felt like I was riding in a wurlitzer rather than reading a story. I was particularly worried that even the contents list looked like it had been caught mid-edit. But then at the 5% mark the story threw in such a curve ball that I felt my eyebrows go up rather than my hackles. Reading on it picked up some nice comedic undertones and became a different story to how it presented. It is a different trope-subverting approach to the traditional story telling and SPFBO is all about doing things differently, which piqued my interest – and if you do pick up it – be sure to push past that 5% point. Teasing the readers with a story that starts off looking like a serious trope-fest and then have it switcheroo into something more comedic and unpredictable is a bold decision. Ultimately it didn’t quite work with the team who felt that the story it became – even if not the story it started as – was not quite fresh enough and engaging enough.  – Theo

And Our Fifth Semi-finalist

The Hallows

by H.L. Tinsley

It has an intriguing set up with worldbuilding dropped by hints rather than exposition, which I like as it means I have to do a bit of work as a reader. Hopefully between me and the author all will become clear as the story unfolds. It has a nice noir/chandleresque feel to it and again some captivating lines. “Lavender was the boss. A dewlapped bulldog of a man, five foot six on stacked shoes. The sort of man that could piss vinegar without wincing; nobody dared look at him sideways.” – Theo

Hallows is possibly one of the best written books of this set and is beautifully balanced in the opening. It has an urgent and yet situational funny action sequence to start things off, a fun group dynamics, a hint of politicking at the small and large scale and likeable characters with a sense of mystery and hints of problems due to their “powers”. And then the world expands, with ties to the past and the current evolution. There is a lot that is going on and it is excellently rendered. The digs at organized religion and organized business make for some good statements and dialogs and this is a book I have a very good feeling about. – Vinay

This is the only book in the competition that I was able to just read and enjoy without picking at flaws in the craft. This is a rare treat. There are fun characters, intriguing mysteries, and well established worldbuilding deep enough to get lost in combined with fun, bouncy prose. – G.D. Penman 

Like my esteemed colleagues, I really appreciated the writing style here, and found myself engrossed right from the off. The humour and pragmatism mixed with magic was great fun – it made me anticipate a kind of ‘fantasy-Trainspotting’ from the initial vibe! – Cat

So congratulations to The Hallows and commiserations to Chameleon: The Awakening, Epic of Helinthia, The Orichalcum Crown and The Demon Who Cried Murderer.

We’ll be back next Wednesday with our sixth and last set of eliminations and our sixth and final semi-finalist announcement – see you all then  – Theo