Welcome to the SPFBO 10 Champions League!
To celebrate ten years of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO), we’re doing something special: bringing back all ten past winners for one epic showdown. That’s right, every champion from SPFBO 1 through 10 is stepping back into the ring, and all ten judging blogs are reading and reviewing them once again. Think of it as the Quarter Quell of SPFBO! Only with fewer deaths and more magic.
Heads up, in this round we’re not giving out ratings, but we shuffle the books in order of how much we liked it. So for now, this is the first going on the board, the next ones either go above or below it. So if you don’t see a score, that’s why.
Over the next weeks and months, we’ll be revisiting these past champions to see how they hold up, how they compare, and even to crown an all-time favorite. As a team this will be hard again, because obviously our tastes don’t always align!
Whether you’re new to SPFBO or a long-time fan, it’s a great time to discover (or rediscover) some of the best self-published fantasy out there.
As we’ve been part of SPFBO since the start, we reviewed all of these before, but our current team has plenty of fresh eyes, so this will be interesting… Let the re-reviewing begin!
[You can read our original review here.]
Amra Thetys lives by two simple rules—take care of business, and never let it get personal. Thieves don’t last long in Lucernis otherwise. But when a fellow rogue and good friend is butchered on the street in a deal gone wrong, she turns her back on burglary and goes after something more precious than treasure: Revenge.
Revenge, however, might be hard to come by. A nightmare assortment of enemies, including an immortal assassin and a mad sorcerer, believe Amra is in possession of The Blade that Whispers Hate—the legendary, powerful artifact her friend was murdered for—and they’ll do anything to take it from her. Trouble is, Amra hasn’t got the least clue where the Blade might be.
She needs to find the Blade, and soon, or she’ll be joining her colleague in a cold grave instead of avenging his death. Time is running out for the small, scarred thief.
Julia
This was my third time reading The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids, and it still holds up as one of the most entertaining fantasy reads out there.
From the very first page, I was hooked by the sharp, witty voice of the narrator. McClung’s tone is immediately engaging. Dry, self-aware, and darkly funny. While the plot took a little time to fully grab me, by around the halfway mark, just past 100 pages, I was completely in love with the story.
There’s a brief but brilliant mage fight about mid-book that blends gritty violence with absurd humor in a way that had me shaking with laughter. From there, the tone deepens and darkens, the stakes rise, and the story becomes increasingly compelling and strange. In the best possible way!
What truly sets this book apart is its protagonist, Amra Thetys. She’s a fully realized adult woman who doesn’t fit any cliché. There’s no romantic subplot overshadowing her journey, and thank the gods for that. She’s stubborn, foul-mouthed, pragmatic, and just trying to make a living as a thief without getting involved in world-ending problems. Of course, trouble finds her anyway. She’s the type who mutters, “Oh, fuck it,” before doing the right thing. Reluctantly, and with plenty of sarcastic commentary. My favorite kind of heroine.
The side characters are also a joy. Quirky, flawed, and memorable. And yes, there’s a dog. A wonderful, slobbering, loyal, utterly lovable dog. I will always love the dog.
Despite taking place entirely within a single city, the setting feels alive and immersive. There’s no need for sprawling world maps or extensive lore dumps. The city breathes through its alleys, taverns, and shady backroom dealings. It’s tight, focused storytelling that doesn’t skimp on atmosphere. The plot, too, delivers unexpected twists and reveals, keeping the pace brisk and the tension high.
While the book reads smoothly and is incredibly fun, it’s not shallow. There’s heart here, grit, and an undercurrent of melancholy that deepens the impact. It’s the kind of story where things go wrong in the worst and most entertaining ways, and where someone with a good heart can’t quite stop themselves from trying to make it right. Even when they’d really rather just steal enough for a quiet retirement.
In short: The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids is a clever, gritty little gem. A witty, tightly written fantasy adventure with a phenomenal lead, great humor, surprising emotional depth, and just enough chaos to keep things unpredictable. I can’t recommend it enough, especially for readers who are tired of conventional heroes and sprawling epics, and want something punchy, clever, and character-driven.
Kerry
The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids has become one of my favourite books, one I have reread a few times now.
The plot may not be the one of the most original but the little twists and turns, stand out characters, and the intriguing city in which the story is set make this book stand out. Personally I feel the book flows organically, its pacing is smooth, there are no info dumps nor overly descriptive paragraphs that make one’s eyes glaze over.
Right from the start I loved the main protagonist Amra Thetys, a female thief who prefers her own company and her knives rather than people. However, even though she might have trust issues, she is loyal to people that have never wronged her so when an associate is brutally maimed and killed she is determined to find the killers and get revenge. All of which, for Amra, a woman who tries to avoid trouble, trouble is about to find her.
The side characters in TTWPOTB are also an interesting melting pot; there’s an intriguing mage, demonic forces, gods and their acolytes, prostitutes, aristocracy, and a huge slobbering dog all of whom really help flesh out the story. There’s also the Cemetery: a strange part of the city and on occasion it could easily be considered as a personality.
Amra plies her trade in the city of Lucernis, and though we only visit the parts of it that affect the plot, we still get an overview of a large city, from its squalid underbelly to the suburbs of the upper class. An ancient city but one that invokes feelings of a Victorian era in which the industrial age is starting to emerge. There are a number of small events I particularly enjoyed, odd, ancient rituals at funerals as one example; though they seem rather insignificant at the time, they do in fact become important in the grand scheme of things.
As I said at the start, TTWPOTB is one of my favorite books that ticks all the boxes. A darkish fantasy with a plucky, complex, and unconventional heroine and other morally grey protagonists, no romance, cool magic systems, a pantheon of bloody gods and goddesses and enough twists and turns to keep you intrigued. If you enjoyed TTWPOTB I highly recommend reading the entire trilogy and the two novellas. The further adventures of Amra, Holgren, and their run-ins with the Eightfold Goddess are excellent reading.
Patrick
The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids was one of the very first self-published books I read, and I’m delighted it still holds up to reading. It’s more sword-and-sorcery than epic fantasy or grimdark fantasy. I’d put it in the tradition of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser or Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos books. Amra Thetys is a thief, and a good one. Talented, cynical, but decent in her way. When a friend and fellow thief is brutally murdered after asking her to look after a stolen golden idol, she’s determined to get revenge. Instead, she finds herself far out of her depth and in danger.
This is one of the shorter SPFBO finalists, and it moves at a good, tense pace without skimping on the details or the characters. Lucernis is a violent, corrupt, dirty city, and there’s plenty of dark magic, vicious gods, and demons populating this world. But what really stands out is the sharp voice of the main character cut with humour and neat observation.
On the downside, the writing is a little rougher than many of the other finalists, with, for example, repeated words close together and sentence fragments that didn’t work for me. In this book, at least, the author hadn’t quite figured out how to write effective chapter ends. And there’s an epilogue that seemed unnecessarily tacked on, like a Marvel post-credits scene, to tease for future books. But those are minor issues. This is a strong contender, and it deserved to be the first SPFBO champion.
Yaniv
While I have not finished the entire book, I have read a few chapters already and I agree with both Kerry and Julia. The story is enjoyable, the prose was easy to get into, the characters feel down to earth and the worldbuilding was well done.
I love dark humor in books, especially when mischief is involved, and I’d definitely say this was the case. While not exceptional, this book to me is still fun and a great break between larger tomes.
Adawia
Love everything about this story – the characters, the world, the writing, it all worked and it worked beautifully. The FMC is pretty much my favourite kind of heroine – yes, she has some skills, but mostly she succeeds by temerity and a little planning. She’s thoroughly relatable in how she deals with the often extraordinary situations she finds herself thrust into – she steps up, brings her courage and sense of humour and does her part, even though it may spell her doom (and very nearly does).
McClung engages his audience as a proper storyteller. The complexity of this world and its inhabitants is portrayed perfectly in a dialogue-heavy style I love (I’ve found I generally connect with characters a lot more/better through dialogue). There are no excessive details and descriptions, but I was still able to form a clear, almost visceral understanding of this rough, gritty world.
Excellent writing and a fun, clever story with plenty of humour and heart.
