Browsing all articles by A. M. Justice.
Twilight of the Gods by Scott Oden
The climax of Twilight of the Gods begins on a misty morning with characters as blind to their fate as the gods they fight for, and against. The mist hides surprises not only for the combatants but for all fans of Grimnir, Oden’s immortal orcish antihero, whom we first meet in A Gathering of Ravens. […]
Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #6: Our Round One Winner
When we began posting our semi-finalist reviews at the beginning of this week, we didn’t know which book we would be sending on to the finals of the sixth annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. In fact, the deliberations went on until late Thursday evening for our US team members, early Friday morning for the Europeans in […]
Where Shadows Lie by Allegra Pescatore – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
Today we review the last book of our thirty-book batch in the sixth annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off with our fourth semi-finalist Where Shadows Lie. How this book stacks up against the other members of our final four will be revealed on Friday, October 30th. The Chosen One is dead. Magic is going haywire. Time is […]
Shadow of a Dead God by Patrick Samphire – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
Among the coincidences of topics and titles in the sixth annual Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off, Fantasy-Faction had not only four books with dragon in the title and five titles containing shadow, we also had three that played with noir tropes in a fantasy setting: Blood Under Water (reviewed here), Tales of the Thief-City (another semifinalist; reviewed […]
Shields in Shadow by Andy Peloquin – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
Today we present the second of four semi-finalists in the sixth annual Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off. The order of reviews posted this week does not indicate any rank or likelihood of being named the finalist, which will be announced on Friday, October 30th. In a weird, one might even say, fantastical, coincidence, three of the four […]
Tales of the Thief-City by Gareth Lewis – SPFBO #6 Semi-Finals Review
We close out the sixth annual Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog-Off with four semifinalists, the highest rated books in our batch. We will share the scores when we name the finalist on Friday, October 30, and the order of the reviews posted this week should not be taken to imply the rankings of our final four. Today […]
Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #6: The Fifth Five Fall + Our Picks for Semi-Finalists
Now is the winter of our discontent… All right, it’s not winter, and whether contented or not with today’s outcome, the nine authors still in the Fantasy-Faction batch can stop biting their nails, for today they learn their fate—or at least whether they’ve made the semifinalist cut. Once again, the experience of art is subjective, […]
The Worth of Hair by A. A. Freeman
In their original forms, fairy stories were often bloody and almost always filled with grim suffering. The grimmest of all were not the folk tales captured by the famous brothers of that name, but rather Hans Christian Andersen’s original fables. His “Little Match Girl” isn’t rescued by a fairy godmother or industrious talking mice from […]
Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #6: The Fourth Five Fall
The last month of Phase I of the SPFBO is always a nail-biter for authors who remain in the competition, and it is with great sympathy that we say goodbye to our next five from the Fantasy-Faction batch. This week’s titles feature cool magical animals and shifters as well as some classic struggles between good […]
Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #6: The Third Five Fall
The third group to be eliminated in this year’s SPFBO includes some really creative and ambitious explorations of intriguing themes, from gender roles to capitalism, to the nature of power and love. As we say with each batch we let go, just because a book appears on this page doesn’t mean it’s unworthy of love, […]
Sarah Chorn Interview – Of Honey and Wildfires
Sarah Chorn has been part of the fantasy community for many years. On her blog, Bookworm Blues, she does book reviews and has participated in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. She is also a freelance content editor [Editor’s Note: A fantastic content editor!]. And now she has two published novels with more on the way! Today […]
Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off #6: The Second Five Fall
Each SPFBO, Mark Lawrence makes a Wordle of the titles entered that year. The biggest words represent those used most often, and Fantasy-Faction got our share of the books with dragon and shadow in the title. Today we must cut two of our dragon titles, but two more dragons and all five shadows are still […]
