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 second set of eliminations and our second 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!

Eliminations

Born Today by T.E. Janota

I greatly admire the confidence of this author, entering erotica into a contest for fantasy books where it wouldn’t necessarily find receptive readers. The prose in the book is entertaining, with the dialogue resembling something one might find in a 1970s sitcom and there is certainly intrigue about the central mystery of a wish-granting cabin in the woods. Unfortunately, that entertaining prose is instead being used to tell a conceptually repugnant story about a newborn entity born of magic being immediately placed into sexual slavery to the middle-aged and bitterly divorced protagonist. The fact that this entity takes on the still-youthful form of his college ex-girlfriend could have been the starting point for some interesting introspection on how only a fragment of our true self exists in the memories of others, even our past lovers, but that does not seem to be the direction that the story was headed before we stopped reading. – G. D. Penman

The Swordmaster by Nick Newlin

The Swordmaster had a really easy writing style and it flowed extremely smoothly. The general sense of mystery and intrigue to this book was interesting but I did get an inkling of what direction this may go in. Although the book had two prologues, they were used to introduce a nice twist which set the stage rather well for what followed as we went into the ‘real’ opening of the story. I just felt that once the opening was done, there wasn’t a strong enough hook to keep reading as the apprentice and master set-up felt rather generic and the sense of pace dropped off. There may be more conflict that the author has planned for later that could have been brought in earlier and generated more interest in persevering with the story. – Vinay

Upon the Darkest Mountain by Rachel L. Tilley

This started well, with an interesting protagonist in an unexpected scenario and potentially exciting worldbuilding. Unfortunately there’s a lot of telling over showing, and the intermittent dialogue didn’t strike me as realistic at all. It felt as if I was being told the tale, with heaps of description, history and narration; I was even being told what to think of the characters! Having said that, I was intrigued enough to wonder where this goes, so if the storytelling is tightened up it could be more of a winner. – Cat

This week’s Honourable mention

Secret Sky – The Young Universe by T. Alan Horne

I like the Lemony Snicket style fourth wall breaking narration and there are some nice sharp bits of descriptive prose “Much like the green velvet cloak he wore, he was fancy but not handsome. And much too soft for any kind of hard work.” The team thought it was well written with a lovely narrative voice and intriguing premise. The opening 10% has also nicely set up a challenge between our two child protagonists which does make me want to read on. We felt it had the potential to go in either a hilarious or twee direction although it did feel a bit like a children’s book. Despite its sense of humour, ultimately The Secret Sky didn’t appeal quite as much as the ones that made it to a semi-finalist slot. – Theo

And Our Second Semi-finalist

The Sea Prince

by Elizabeth Schechter

I was brought up on Hornblower novels so I do like a naval story, but that background might enhance my usual pickiness about plot details particularly around the conduct of a battle between ships and the amount of spare room that might be available in a submarine. However, I like that the protagonist is both gay and disabled, and there are interesting tensions with his romantic interest, the ship designer and his suspicious sister. I also like the fact that he is grievously misrepresented by his enemies and is merciful to his prisoners – a story that tackles political misinformation is always going to float my boat! (Pun intended). I am curious to see how those aspects develop and I am hoping the exposition becomes more interweaved with character development and action as the story progresses. – Theo

The combination of pirates and steampunk-ish submarines really had me from the beginning but the stronger hook in terms of the politicking genuinely got me on board this book. It also helped that you have a lead character who is different from usual leads while having prickly relationships with his family – all of which build a very strong sense of intrigue and mystery. Some of the dialogs have been the strongest in this batch of contenders and the book has a very strong sense of “Oh, one more chapter” vibe to it. Engrossing and unputdownable. – Vinay

While we are meant to judge a book entirely on its own merits, reading the author’s introduction to this one and learning that she cut her teeth writing for Kushiel’s Dart message board roleplay assured me that I was going to have a good time. This was immediately reinforced by intriguing characters, romantic tension, mystery, nautical nonsense and what appears to be a civilisation utilising technology fighting against every other civilisation wielding magic. What is not to love?  – G. D. Penman

From the action-packed start to the thoughtful worldbuilding, well-rounded characters and genuine sense of care, I was hooked on The Sea Prince right away. Our protagonist has heart above and beyond his heroics, and to then discover he’s been disabled in the very war he’s still fighting was a unique touch. The technology and politics were intriguing and it all seems very ‘real’ amidst the fantasy setting (especially a villainous and irrational propaganda-spewing tyrant who reminded me of someone…). I’m more than happy to settle in with this! – Cat

So congratulations to The Sea Prince and commiserations to Born Today, The Swordmaster, Upon the Darkest Mountain and Secret Sky.

We’ll be back next Wednesday with a third set of eliminations and our third semi-finalist announcement – see you all then 🙂 – Theo