Category: SPSFC (Page 1 of 3)

Here is a quarterfinalist reviews for a full read for Team 1.21 Gigawatts for the first round of SPSFC#5 by team judge Archie Kregear. For more information about the team and our progress, please go to the team update page here.

Gamer by Belinda Crawford

Blurb

Vlad – gamer, hacker, scourge… Angel of Death.

Vlad’s parents died in a car accident; she can still feel the flames licking her skin, smell the burning batteries and fire-retardant. Except it wasn’t an accident, someone made it happen.

She’s has spent the last nine years tracking those responsible; planning, plotting. 

She’s almost done.

When the last move is over, her opponent will wish they never played with the Angel of Death.

Get ready to jack in and play along as Crawford masterfully weaves a complex, action-packed tale of virtual reality and revenge.

My Review

I was skeptical as I first started reading Gamer. A young woman, traumatized by an accident that killed her parents and left her physically and emotionally scared. Her pursuit to find the person responsible takes her into the world of her mother, a gamer and her grandmother, an owner of a gaming corporation and player of corporate games. My initial take was this would go along the plot lines of Ready Player One, and there are similarities. I wondered if the book would fit into LitRPG, but after a few chapters that idea was erased and put it into GameLit and could be a techno-thriller but I am not familiar with that genre. If I had read this as a sample in the early rounds, I might not have given it a passing grade. However, once the author has established the characters and world, the book takes off and maintains a fast pace to the end. Then as the blurb says, “Crawford masterfully weaves a complex, action-packed tale of virtual reality and revenge.”

Plot and Characters

Note: Spoilers follow.

The book is in third person following the Vladana Tong whose parents were killed in a car accident. Vlad was seriously injured and traumatized by the accident. The author excellently describes the scenes through Vlad’s flashes back to the accident multiple times. To cope she has taken up gaming and become a hacker and notable character within the gaming world. A world with high end computers running hacked code and players jacking up on high performance drugs. In the real world she is obsessed with finding out who is responsible for her parents death. It is this obsession that drives the plot.

The corporate and family intrigue is dominated by Vlad’s grandmother who plays the stereotypical roles of demanding family matriarch and win at all costs corporate head. She works well in the story as the antagonist and Vlad’s initial suspect. 

On the gaming side of the plot is the team Vlad is recruited onto. Initially the others on the team think she is only an excellent player and it isn’t until late in the book where they find she is a hacker. Vlad, being a loner most of her life, finds it difficult to accept being part of the team while the team slowly considers her a valuable member. In the end they are an integral part to discovering the answers Vlad is looking for. 

As for the science of gaming the author did not stretch my imagination all that much. The world is futuristic but not so much as to provide new ideas or concepts. Jacking up a player’s performance using drugs and the use of player pods or game cubes are not new. With that said, the book is not about the hardware or software. They are part of the world and have been expertly woven into the plot. A reader who is a high-tech gamer would find this acceptable while a non-gamer I do not feel would be overwhelmed. 

My thoughts

As the first book I am writing a full review for in SPSFC #5, I found it well written and enjoyable to read. The writing is excellent, but for my tastes somewhat wordy in defining environments as they slow the pace down. However, there are descriptions which are worth reading just for the excellent wordsmithing. At times the word crafting was worth a double or triple read which slowed down the pace. The wordiness did decrease as the story progressed and did not slow the pace in the last half of the book.

The main character, Vlad, starts off as a highly damaged person. Throughout the book, she suffers more damage and by the end, has not healed. She does find out who is responsible for her mother’s death and gets her revenge, but she remains a person who needs healing. There are hints that she is on the way.

Summation

For the gamer who has mounds of hurt inside, this is a book you will relate to. For the sci-fi fan who is looking for a book based on a leap in science, this will not satisfy your need. For me I can’t recall a book where the MC is so obsessed that they neglect the pain they suffer. It was trough for me to identify with someone who suffers to that extent and neglects their health. Overall, Gamer was exciting to read, fast paced and written well.

Here are three quarterfinalist reviews for full reads for Team 1.21 Gigawatts for the first round of SPSFC#5 by team judge Wick Welker. For more information about the team and our progress, please go to the team update page here.

Who Nuked Silicon Valley? by Michael Donoghue

Finely crafted cyberpunk realism with heart.

I’m a sucker for stories about amnestic self aware robots, so I was the target audience right away for Who Nuked Silicon Valley. What started out with somewhat vague plot points with very little exposition turned into a well crafted story involving a rag tag found family, a shadow AI super intelligence as well as a satisfying delivery of the cyberpunk premise.

This book was very Neal Stephenson-esque, and it’s not just because this is a cyberpunk book. This is like the updated cyberpunk novel for the 2020s. What I mean is, books like Snow Crash or works by PKD, which helped pioneer the genre, had to create anarcho-capitalist cyberpunk worlds whole clothe out of thin air because when those books were written modern society wasn’t even close to cyberpunk. But now? Our reality is unfortunately approximating much closer to actual cyberpunk fiction and that’s where Who Nuked comes into play.

Michael Donoghue is able to seamlessly take our current techno-corporatocracy, multiply by maybe only two decades, and drop us into his story. The world he creates here is unique not only because it’s immersive, but because it starts looking eerily what our own modern world probably will look like very soon. Instead of PKD inventing funny future brand names like “Ubik” or “Substance D” which separate the reader from the cyberpunk world, Donoghue just uses “Amazon” or “Facebook” without needing to contrive a new cyberpunk world. Because… why? Our real world is just right there to use and he makes it work really well. And that’s what takes this book out of the cyberpunk speculative fiction and brings it to cyberpunk realism.

The prose was economical and compelling. The premise was mysterious but not enough to turn you away. The storytelling is opaque and without heavy-handed narration. The characters Katie and the self-aware bot Livingstone really start to shine by the middle of the book and you begin to see how things connect. Donoghue makes the characters matter and this is clearly a character-driven story. Half way through, I was enjoying the book but felt like it lacked one thing: heart. But then… Donoghue pulls some stuff on you and you realize that he was making things matter in a very emotional way, relevant to all the characters’ backstory, and it lands very well in the feelies department. I’m not even mentioning the most impressive thing about this book: the techno babble. Wow, the author really knows his stuff when it comes to tech, computers and robotics. The author is clearly knowledgeable and it serves the story well. Overall I found this to be a well executed “modern” cyberpunk novel that cuts all the fat and makes the fiction matter. Lots of philosophy about personhood is all over this story.

Triangle Age by David Aumelas

When the future becomes the myth.

The Triangle Age is an unconventional science fiction book. It blends several elements like a far-future arkship premise with a post-cataclysmic vibe. I was very intrigued by the hook of the book and the writing is diminutive, understated and very inviting. The chief characteristic of this book is that it is weird. It starts a little weird, enough to compel you forward and then it gets more weird. In science fiction, weird is good and if you want weird, then this book will check all your boxes. An interesting thing happens as you read along this book and it’s that the literal plot and the main character become more myth than anything else. What I mean is, something has happened to this world and this people in a literal sense but we only get the POV of the main character who doesn’t understand things literally but only within the mythic reality within which he lives. So what we get is a mythic context of what is happening and I think a lot of the weirdness is borne from that POV. This is almost a blend of Piranesi and something Ursula K LeGuin would’ve written. This book does what it sets out to do and it is executed well for what it is. The author clearly has a lot of skill.

The Warm Machine by Aimee Cozza

Emergence through Struggle.

I’m a huge sucker for self aware robot stories so I bought in immediately with this one. The tight prose and smart writing certainly made this an easy and inviting read as well. This is a story about Zev and Sterling, two self aware bots who discover their identities not only through the process of emerging consciousness but through the relationship they have with one another. And that’s what made The Warm Machine unique in this niche was that the characters discover who they are because of their struggle together. Zev and Sterling would be different without one another and most likely worse off. Their relationship did not feel token but organic and I found it well done.

This was a mostly character driven work but with enough plot advancements and action to really keep you going. The two protagonists are seeking a fabled asylum for self aware bots and I got to say I really loved how this worked out and how the story turns out for them. It was both melancholy but inspiring. Reading about two characters eeking out their existence and independence alone and against all odds was deeply inspiring. The technical aspects of the book were really well done and the author is clearly knowledgeable about lots of things. There’s a lot to think about with this story that goes beyond the pages but you can also just enjoy the story for what it is at face value. The author has skill and it really shines. I overall really enjoyed this brief read and highly recommend it.

---

These reviews are also all posted on Wick’s Goodreads profile. Wick’s website is here.

For more team updates, check out our team page here.

The process

We’ve completed our scouting round reads for all 25 of our books, and we’ve selected our quarterfinalists. In the scouting round, at least two judges read the opening of each book, usually the first 20-25%. We conferred and discussed, and we’ve come to consensus on this list of six books for our Quarterfinalists. Each of these will get a full read by at least two judges as we narrow these six to our two Semifinalists.

The Quarterfinalists

Note: There is no meaning to the order in which these books are listed.

The Final Season, by Andrew Gillsmith

Gamer, by Belinda Crawford

Who Nuked Silicon Valley?, by Mike Donoghue

The Warm Machine, by Aimee Cozza

The Triangle Age, by David Aumelas

Black Sails to Sunward, by Sheila Jenné

Our congratulations go out to these authors. We’re excited to dive into our full reads.

For more team updates, check out our team page here.

The process

The four of us on the team are continuing to work on our allotment of indie sci fi books. We cut our first ten books of our group of 25 entries a few weeks back, then seven more last week, and we’re back with two more cuts today. Because this is the scouting round of the competition, we did not read the full text of these books. Our goal was to have at least half of our team read the opening chapters of the book, usually reaching about 20-25% of the total length.

These are the final two scouting round cuts for our group. Each of these books was marked as a “Yes” by at least two judges, so they all found some significant love in the competition and were under consideration for our quarterfinalists. Our policy in reporting these cuts is to not list what we didn’t like about each book we cut, but instead to send them off with a plug for what we liked and for what kind of reader we think would enjoy the story. The short summaries below were written by various judges. If you are an author of one of these books and want more feedback on your book, including some of the reasons we didn’t advance it, I’m happy to correspond by email and share more information. I’m at dave@davedobsonbooks.com.

The SPSFC is unusual in indie book competitions in that it allows re-entry of the same book in subsequent years, and we encourage any entrant that we don’t pick, including these ten, to enter again in a future year, where you may encounter judges who are a better match for what you’re writing.

NEXT STEPS: Our next post will highlight the six quarterfinalists, which will all get full reads from at least two judges on the team as we narrow that group to our official two semifinalists.

The cuts

Note: There is no meaning to the order in which these books are listed.

Empyreax: The Rise of Cà Rá, by Scott Frost

All judges praised the writing and the intrigue of the story’s opening. One said, “Nice opener into a scene without heavy handed exposition, tight and economic prose. Lots of mystery and back story that makes me want to read on.”

Alternative Science, by Chad Eastwood

Judges enjoyed the writing style and humor, finding the alternative science of the title intriguing. They also cited the pacing, the explanations of scientific oddities, and the zaniness and creativity of the world as strengths.

Our condolences go out to these authors, along with our respect for your efforts and our sincere best wishes for your success.

For more team updates, check out our team page here.

The process

The four of us on the team are continuing to work on our allotment of indie sci fi books. We cut our first ten books of our group of 25 entries a few weeks back, and we’re back with seven more cuts today. Because this is the scouting round of the competition, we did not read the full text of these books. Our goal was to have at least half of our team read the opening chapters of the book, usually reaching about 20-25% of the total length.

Each of these books was marked as a “Yes” by at least one judge, so they all found some love in the competition, and each was sampled by three of our four judges . Our policy in reporting these cuts is to not list what we didn’t like about each book we cut, but instead to send them off with a plug for what we liked and for what kind of reader we think would enjoy the story. The short summaries below were written by various judges. If you are an author of one of these books and want more feedback on your book, including some of the reasons we didn’t advance it, I’m happy to correspond by email and share more information. I’m at dave@davedobsonbooks.com.

The SPSFC is unusual in indie book competitions in that it allows re-entry of the same book in subsequent years, and we encourage any entrant that we don’t pick, including these ten, to enter again in a future year, where you may encounter judges who are a better match for what you’re writing.

NEXT STEPS: Our next post will narrow the remaining eight books to our quarterfinalists, which will all get full reads from at least two judges on the team as we narrow that group to our official two semifinalists. We haven’t agreed on an exact number of quarterfinalists yet, but it will probably be around five.

The cuts

Note: There is no meaning to the order in which these books are listed.

Loyalty to the Max, by Maya Darjani

Judges praised the author’s voice and the world-building, largely conveyed through conversations between the characters, with snappy dialogue that moves the plot forward and characters who reveal depth quickly. The intrigue and espionage were a real plus in the opening chapters.

Far Flung, by Utunu

Judges really appreciated the worldbuilding, including anthropomorphic hyenas and fennecs on a colonized world. Playful character dynamics with great descriptions of feelings and relationships made this cozy coming of age story work.

Operation Reboot, by James Hallenbeck

Judges were intrigued by this time travel book with a fascinating premise: a team sent back from the near future to precolonial America to try to undo European colonization, prevent the deaths of millions of Native Americans, and set the world on a better path than where capitalism and exploitation will lead us.

Points of Origin, by E.S. Fein

A book about a future wracked by religious bigotry, with sexuality playing a major role in who lives and who dies. Judges appreciated the strong characters and the worldbuilding, complete with class differences and oppression and a social structure that seems extrapolated from some of the grimmer societies of the past plus some modern bigotry mixed in.

SAIQA, by A.L. Whyte

Judges found the world interesting and really detailed. This included significant backstories, as a new character took on the POV role in almost every chapter. We were intrigued by how the different pieces started to interrelate, including the titular mysterious AI, and the society that seems sort of positive but with a strong dystopian edge, along with terror attacks and crime in the mix.

A Footstep Echo, by J.D. Sanderson

A judge connected closely with Bernard, an older protagonist waiting for the end who must deal with his world being upended by a mysterious visitor. The mystery hadn’t quite taken full shape in the parts we read, but big things were definitely afoot, and mysteries abound.

Gambling on Common Sense, by L. Briar

This is a silly, funny book with a rapid, chaotic pace and a lot of fun worldbuilding. It gave one judge in particular a frenetic Hitchhiker’s Guide vibe, and the goofy interdependence between the various officers (and hidden monsters!) on the ship, coupled with the pace at which new misadventures were thrown in, was a lot of fun.

Our condolences go out to these authors, along with our respect for your efforts and our sincere best wishes for your success.

For more team updates, check out our team page here.

The process

The four of us on the team are making good progress on our initial allotment of 25 books, and unfortunately that means we’re ready to make our first cuts of this year’s competition. Because this is the scouting round of the competition, we did not read the full text of these books. Our goal was to have at least half of our team read the opening chapters of the book, usually reaching about 20-25% of the total length.

Obviously, the opinions of any four judges is highly subjective. If we cut your book, that in no way means that we didn’t like it or that it’s a bad book – it just means that there were other books that appealed to these four humans more. It’s the nature of these competitions to be subjective, and we know it’s stressful and difficult to endure cuts – our four judges have lots and lots of contest entries between them, most of which ended in being cut, so we’re sensitive to how much it hurts. Cutting books is the worst part of judging, just as being cut is the worst part of competing.

Our decision in reporting these cuts is to not list what we didn’t like about each book we cut, but instead to send them off with a plug for what we liked and for what kind of reader we think would enjoy the story. Our short summaries below were written by various judges. If you are an author of one of these books and want more feedback on your book, including some of the reasons we didn’t advance it, I’m happy to correspond by email and share more information. I’m at dave@davedobsonbooks.com.

The SPSFC is unusual in indie book competitions in that it allows re-entry of the same book in subsequent years, and we encourage any entrant that we don’t pick, including these ten, to enter again in a future year, where you may encounter judges who are a better match for what you’re writing.

The cuts

Note: There is no meaning to the order in which these books are listed.

Erased, by Sebastian Kilex

With a complex world and a YA, dystopian, action-movie feel, there is a ton going on in this book, including mysteries about a society that brainwashes and controls its members. A Maze-Runner feel, although set farther in the future.

Ret, by Dan Miwa

Dives deep into a faraway alien society operating under very different conditions from humans on Earth. The alien culture and government is interesting. At times felt almost like a parable. One judge wrote, “Great imagination for the alien world.”

Dragon City, by Iryna Karban

Cyberpunk awesomeness focusing on a young woman with inexplicable clairvoyance that starts off a compelling mystery. For fans of mystery and a murky technically advanced world.

 

Of Friction, by S.J. Lee

A dystopian military sci-fi tale of a world where regular humans exist in uneasy stalemate (and sometimes war) with genetically enhanced humans. A strong main character with a great voice. Two judges hailed the well-developed writing and interesting characters, including a non-speaking commando.

You Cannot Kill the Root, by Nathan Kuzack

If you’re fed up with corporate control of society and want the people to rise up, this could be the book for you. A near-future dystopia (minus most of the -topia), where a corrupt system funnels people into jobs they don’t want, leads to a secret rebellion.

Golem Master, by T.J. Lombardi

One judge writes, “I loved the enthusiasm and detail of the golem battles that really hit the ground running as soon as you opened the book. The main character and his family were easy to slip into and enjoy their dynamic. Overall great prose and perfect niche book for LitRPG fans.”

In Sekhmet’s Wake, by J.D. Rhodes

A complex dystopian story about the end of the world, with both superheroes and philosophy in abundance. Part of a series. Fans of Watchmen might enjoy this one.

 

How I Hacked the Moon, by R. A. Dines

A welcomed world on an established lunar colony with an inviting main character. There is a mystery going on in the background as you settle in with the characters. This would appeal to fans of YA science fiction. 

Ice Born, by Adam Fernandez

What an opener full of intrigue and very good prose. The plot then takes off like a rocket with an interesting world where the solar system has been colonized and has been fractured into interesting political factions. There is good plot and intrigue going on in this story. 

Renaissance Paradox History Prime, by K. A. Wood

This is a perfect book for fans of arcane academia. The author does something really interesting by creating a common thread of all the great thinkers and inventors throughout history and begins to weave a story connecting them together. 

Our condolences go out to these authors, along with our respect for your efforts and our sincere best wishes for your success.

Here’s a set of links to our book intro posts for our contestants in SPSFC #5! Welcome to the initial round, and let the games begin!

Our books, Part 1

Alternative Science	Chad Eastwood
Dragon City	Iryna Karban
Empyreax The Rise of Ca Ra	Scott Frost
Far Flung	Utunu
Golem Master	T. J. Lombardi

Our books, Part 2

How I Hacked the Moon	R. A. Dines
Ice Born	Adam Fernandez
In Sekhmet’s Wake	J.D. Rhodes
Loyalty to the Max	Maya Darjani
Renaissance Paradox History Prime	K. A. Wood

Our books, Part 3

The Final Season	Andrew Gillsmith
The Triangle Age	David Aumelas
Who Nuked Silicon Valley	Mike Donoghue
A Footstep Echo	J. D. Sanderson
Black Sails to Sunward	Sheila Jenné

Our books, Part 4

Erased	Sebastian Kilex
Gambling on Common Sense	L. Briar
Gamer	Belinda Crawford
Of Friction	S.J. Lee
Operation Reboot	James Hallenbeck

Our books, Part 5

Points of Origin	E. S. Fein
Ret	Dan Miwa
SAIQA	A. L. Whyte
The Warm Machine	Aimee Cozza
You Cannot Kill the Root	Nathan Kuzack

Note: These initial summaries don’t include any feedback from judges, who are only just starting to read for the contest. They’re just an advance look at the team’s allotment.

We’re excited to announce our allotment for the 5th annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition. There are 125 total entries, and our team has 25 of them to read. We’ve been introducing five of them at a time. Here is the fifth set of five:

And that’s all our intros! If you’d like to see the others, they’re all linked on our homepage.