After much deliberation we have come to our picks for our 8th Annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off Round One semi-finalists! Today we are announcing our 3rd place semi-finalist, out of our 30 original books!
You can see the list of finalists and their scores here. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can learn more about the contest here.
Now here is our third place semi-finalist!
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An Altar on the Village Green by Nathan Hall
“If one suffers, I suffer. If one is chained, I am chained.”
My faith called me to become a Lance. My compassion drew me into one of the fallen lands. Through my connection with the Chained God, I alone can find and destroy the Horror that stains the land.
Death can no longer chain me.
But I couldn’t have imagined the madness waiting for me in this village. I’m not sure my faith can withstand the secrets I’ll uncover. Or that my compassion can survive the violence to come. This Horror may swallow me whole.
Death can no longer free me.
A creature stalks in the dark. Buildings burn. People die. And an altar has been built on the village green.
An Altar on the Village Green is a very unique and ambitious dark and gritty tale that really set itself apart. The main character is kind of a blank slate. Not a knight or a zealous priest, but a normal young man who wanted to save the countryside outside of his city. He must die then relive the lives of the people who came before him to succeed in his mission. The time loop aspect drew our judges in immediately, but from there we had mixed thoughts on the story.
Some loved the unique way the story was told. Finding the different bits of what happened before and how things changed with each life, interesting. Others found the repetition of retreading the same path over and over to be a bit much, especially in relation to the violence.
Our judges tend not to be big horror fans, and while this story is not straight horror, one judge had this to say:
“The story is really, really dark. Seriously, there’s horrible things happening to everyone, men, women, kids and any other living creature. Do not read this if you want to avoid those sorts of things.
I don’t usually enjoy horror, as I find it boring, but bits of this I can’t find a better word for. I was glued to the pages though, so it is not at all what I’d usually call horror. Maybe horrendous grimdark? While feeling fitting for the story, not just gratuitous?”
Another judge was not as big a fan of the dark tone, and ended up with nightmares after finishing the book, so your mileage may vary.
Overall, the intrigue and suspense kept us going to the very end. With a unique way of story telling and a plot that hooked us right out of the gate, An Altar on the Village Green definitely deserves its 3rd place semi-finalist position.
And if you are a fan of grimdark and looking for something a bit different, this is book for you! But with our judges being split on the darker aspects of the story, we had to say goodbye.
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We would like to thank all the authors for letting us read their work! We congratulate you on having the courage to enter the contest and wish you all much success in the future!
Our official SPFBO rating for An Altar on the Village Green is 7.83 (our site rating only does 1/2 stars). Tomorrow (Oct 28) we will announce our second place winner and our first place finalist for Round One! But regardless of the outcome, all these books are well worth the read and we highly encourage you all to check them out!
And again, you can see the list of finalists and their scores here. Our judges this year are Julia Kitvaria Sarene, Kerry Smith, Max Freeman, and Jennie Ivins (me). If you’d like to learn more about us, including our likes and dislikes, you can read about them here.
Any queries should be directed at me, Jennie Ivins, via DM (Facebook/Twitter).
Title image background by PublicDomainPictures.
Julia Kitvaria Sarene