After much deliberation we have come to our picks for our Round One semi-finalists! Today we are announcing our 4th 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 fourth place semi-finalist!
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Sacaran Nights by Rachel Emma Shaw
Sacara is decaying. The dead walk the streets, fungi light the night and Dagner must fight to keep the rot at bay.
The Spare of Galen died the turn his brother fell into the putrefaction fields, tumbling into the decaying detritus below. The Heir of Galen was no more. Species of rot rarely seen before sprouted from his flesh by the time they pulled him out. Those who carried him through the streets held their hands over their mouths, afraid the spores consuming his body might corrupt them too. Throughout the city, word spread that the Heir of Galen had died, but nobody shed a tear. Instead, they turned to his brother, saying, “Dagner, you are a spare no more”.
Mourning his brother, forced to be the heir, Dagner is torn between carrying on his family’s legacy, and his desire to turn his back on the cursed city of death and decay forever. But before he makes his choice, a sinister plot begins to unfold, and he learns just how deep the rot runs deep in Sacara.
Sacaran Nights had one of the most unique settings our judges have seen in a while: a place encompassed by and dependent on fungi. Forest, mountains, seas, these are things that most fantasy has in spades. But a world where fungi are the main flora was fascinating to read about. There is also artwork included in this book which was stunning.
That being said, some of our judges had the same issue with this story as our last pick, in that the setting wasn’t explored as deeply as we wanted it to be. One of the judges said, it never felt like “a world I could just wander off into and find new things behind every corner, and under every mushroom”. This was not a deal breaker though, and we are excited to revisit the world in the next book!
Sacaran also deals greatly with death and family, which our judges loved. The culture has a unique view on death and, also the legacy we leave behind and how those who are left must carry that legacy. Some of the concepts hit harder than others and our judge Julia had something to say about this:
“Like the author, I just recently lost two of my grandparents, just a few weeks apart. So, the topic of being able to speak to those we miss dearly really resonated very well with me. The book definitely hit home there, and I loved seeing how different [people in] Sacara dealt with death. Having the bones of your loved ones turned into keepsakes might weird a lot of people out, but I found it utterly fascinating! Having grown up in a house with four generations, seeing people age and die is a normal part of life for me. That doesn’t take away the grief if course, but I never understood the weird relationship a lot of people have with aging, dementia, and death. It left me with a weird fascination with death and grief, so this part of the story I really loved and wanted more of!”
As for the carrying the legacy of the departed, our judge Kerry had something to say about this:
“The idea of having death masks as a form of family legacy and being bound to the ghosts of past family was another interesting concept. And though death masks might not be common to us the idea of continuing on family legacies is still something that binds many families today. The “Spare and the Heir” is another concept, though waning in modern times, that is still a tradition that holds in some families (just have to look at royal families today).”
While all our judges enjoyed these bits of the story, some had a harder time getting behind the living for the legacy of a deceased family part of the story. They felt it hard to understand the mindset of living for someone else instead of being loved and appreciated for who a person was on their own. This seemed more of ingrained cultural differences rather than an issue with the writing itself, but was worth mentioning in our review.
One thing most of the judges agreed on was the twists in the story were not quite twisty enough. Most of us guessed where the story was headed earlier than we expected to. Though we all still enjoyed the story.
Overall, this unique entry to the contest is highly recommended by us, and like our other runners up, might in a different year have been our top pick (in fact it was the top pick for one of our judges!). But competition is fierce and at the end of our reading, Sacaran couldn’t quite stand up to our other titles. But we can’t wait to read book two!
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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 Sacaran Nights is 7.67 (our site rating only does 1/2 stars), beating out our 5th place winner by .17 points! (Competition is tight this year.) Stay tuned tomorrow (Oct 27) when we will review our third place winner, and Friday (Oct 28) for our second place winner and our first place finalist for Round One! 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