* Disclaimer *
Everyone is different and likes and dislikes different things. Reading is no exception. One person’s all-time favorite might seem too bland or too high stakes for another. That being said, the opinions of our judges in this contest are just that, opinions. Just because we let a book go, doesn’t mean it isn’t good. It could be your next favorite, who knows?
However, since this is a contest, there can be only one winner. Hence it is necessary to work our way down to our favorite from our batch of thirty titles. We will be letting books go five at a time, until we reach our semi-final list for Round One. These groups of five are being let go in no particular order. So, the books we say goodbye to today are not worse than books we let go in the next batch. They are just the first ones we read that didn’t quite click with us as a group.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can learn more about the contest here.
Today we say goodbye to our third group of books from Round One of SPFBO#7. In this group of five are some intriguing concepts, good writing, and interesting characters. Unfortunately, for different reasons, they didn’t stack up against the rest of the competition.
Here are our Third Five to Fall.
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Blood Indigo by Talulah J. Sullivan
A centuries-long stalemate endures over possession of a sentient world.
In one corner, a dwindling cabal of shamans holds a weakening defence; in the other, a colony of aliens tries to maintain a bio-engineering experiment run amok. In the middle stands a youth who has been genetically altered to ‘Shape’ the elemental powers.
If Tohwakeli surrenders to those powers, he will be not only outcast, but a weapon.
This story starts out as straight fantasy, then wanders quickly into sci-fi territory. Science fantasy being one of my favorite genres, and Blood Indigo having one of the best covers in our group, we were all super excited to jump into this book.
As promised the world is unique, its characters interesting, and the cultures something we’ve not seen before. In our opinion however, these are the biggest strengths and weaknesses of the book. The prose while beautiful is thick, and there is a lot of new vocabulary words to learn and remember. Between trying to understand the unique culture, the new words, and the plethora of character names, the story was just too hard for us to get through.
As I Was on My Way to Strawberry Fair by Raymond St. Elmo
Two strangers aide one other on a dark country road; and vow to meet again at the local Renaissance Fair. To do so they must learn to see beyond their own masks. To win they must join forces, and see past a host of fairy glamours, crazed role-players, angry jugglers, sinister bikers, and the secret of the ancient charter of the Strawberry Fair itself.
I will find you at Strawberry Fair,
I will win you a lion, a tiger, a bear.
I will buy you ices, electronic devices,
And give a kiss for finding me there.
This book is an urban fantasy, by way of the state fair and a D&D game run by the fae. It’s bonkers, it’s hard to tell when things are happening in reality, when things are only fancy prose, and when thing might be happening in another realm.
Like the first book on today’s list, the above are both the strengths and weaknesses of this story. If you like disjointed fever dream stuff, where you aren’t really sure where the story or the characters are going, you might love this book. (I did!) Unfortunately, it was not the other judges’ cup of tea, and we had to let it wander off into the summer night.
Dawn Rising by A.F.E. Smith
Alyssia Gale is a daydreamer. A liar. An attention seeker. Everyone she’s ever known has found a label to stick on her, but one thing’s for sure: she can’t be telling the truth. The flashes she sees of the dark and difficult lives of four other people, living in a world that’s not her own … they can’t be real. Alyssia understands that as well as anyone, even if she does keep catching herself thinking of the people she sees as friends.
Then she’s pulled into that other world by blood and dark magic, and realises that everyone she’s ever known was wrong.
To start with, her focus is on surviving until she can find a way home. Yet it doesn’t take long for her to figure out that, where before she was merely a spectator, now she can change things. And with one of her friends being forced into an abusive marriage, and another trapped in the cruelest of prisons, there’s plenty that needs changing. She just needs to survive long enough to do it.
What she doesn’t know is something connects her to these four people. Something she never could have imagined. And it’s not long before she isn’t just fighting to find her place between the worlds—she’s fighting to protect her closest friends from a narrative that wants them dead.
The two worlds Alyssia exists in are one of magic, and the Earth we are all more familiar with. Both worlds have their own stories, and both are well imagined and interesting in their own right. Watching Alyssia deal with intrusive daydreams while trying to survive at school with no friends or family is heart-wrenching. And the people inside her daydreams don’t seem to be fairing any better.
And while the author handles the transition between worlds well. It all happens a bit too fast. We don’t get to spend enough time with each character to truly care about them. Some of the judges also didn’t care for the switching between 1st and 3rd person that happened depending on who was the POV character. If you don’t mind that style of writing and you love portal fantasy, this might just be your next favorite read! But, we will have to say goodbye to Dawn Rising.
Djinn Tamer: Starter by Derek Alan Siddoway and A. J. Cerna
Jackson Hunt wants nothing more than to be a professional monster tamer—skilled trainers who raise and battle magical creatures called djinn. He longs for the day when he comes of age and can leave home to pursue his dreams of taming djinn.
Unfortunately for Jackson, dreams and reality don’t always coincide.
To help his grandmother make ends meet, Jackson spends his days doing manual labor on a breeder’s ranch—just about as far removed from the bright lights and roaring crowds of the Djinn Fighting League as it gets. But no matter how hard Jackson and his grandma try, it’s never enough.
Facing bank foreclosure, Jackson is desperate to save his home but has no idea how…until he discovers a young, untrained djinn left behind for him by his dead mother.
As time runs out, Jackson works tirelessly to raise and develop a bond with his djinn. But monster taming isn’t as easy as the pros make it look. Along the way, Jackson and his friends will delve into the shady world of underground fighting, experience the agony of defeat, and learn what it takes to be a true monster tamer.
As another line of the summary reads, “Fans of Pokémon, Digimon, and Monster Rancher will love this monster-battling take on the GameLit [LitRPG] genre!” And it’s pretty much what it says on the tin. A boy about to come of age, finds a djinn to train for competitions, and does so not only to fulfill his dreams, but also to save him and his grandmother from losing their home.
If you love LitRPG and/or Pokémon, etc. check it out! The book is well written. The world well realized, but it just didn’t capture us the way we hoped it would.
Doomsayer Prince by Rune S. Nielsen
What they foresee will shatter this age.
In his vision, colossal artifacts stride across his homeland, destroying everything in their path. In a desperate attempt to save his home, Mage Prince Phytiax heads to the wild north in search of allies.
On his journey, his magical powers become damaged at the worst possible time, and his destined allies need to be saved before they can help him: Pino, the weakest Mage of all time and wielder of a mysterious artifact sword; Emilai, a kidnapped noblewoman—turned Witch to fight her captors; and Cordin, an old Light Master wanted for murder, but dead-set on getting his life back.
With the brutal and mysterious force invading and destabilizing the kingdoms around them, will his potential allies help or hinder him? And even if they save their homelands, the price might be worse than they ever imagined.
The main character, one of many princes in the kingdom, has the power to see the future, as do others in this world. Every ten years they perform a ceremony wherein three of the strongest of these mages receive a vision of the next ten years all in one night. When he participates in his first ceremony, he and the other two mages witness the destruction of their kingdom and the deaths of all their family, friends, and themselves. Now they have to present the information to the king and try to work out how to stop the destruction from happening.
It’s a great concept! It was also nice to see the main culture of the world not based in the Dark Ages of Europe. But the prose in the story didn’t flow well enough to keep up with the characters or the plot. There were some places we wish there was more explanation and others where there was far too much telling instead of showing. Unfortunately, the inconsistencies throttled the pacing and we had to let this story go.
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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 judges this year are A. A. Freeman, Julia Kitvaria Sarene, Kartik Narayanan, Kerry Smith, Lynn K., 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 by Joshua Hoehne.
Julia Kitvaria Sarene