This is my last review of a full read for the Peripheral Prospectors judging team for the final round of SPSFC#4. For more information about the team and our progress, please go to the team update page here.
The sixth finalist, Whiskey and Warfare, I will review in the coming weeks. It was named as a semifinalist from our judging group back in March and made it to the finals. I missed reading it back then because we divided our allocation among our team members. That meant that once it was named a semifinalist, our team’s rating for it was fixed, and I couldn’t add a score to it. So, I focused on the semifinalists and finalists where my reviews would count in the competition. But, I want to read it – I hear it’s cool! – and now I am done with the other SPSFC reviewing and have some time. There are a couple books from our quarterfinals I also want to get to now, especially Afterburn by D. Andrews.
Blurb
Private detective Mason Truman is being yanked around by invisible strings, and it’s an AI doing the yanking. Miranda. She’s subtle. Crazy. And she thinks she can see the future. It’s enough to drive Mason nuts. Miranda believes her fellow AIs are up to some kind of grand conspiracy against the Terran Republic, and she wants Mason’s help proving it. Conspiracies are above Mason’s pay grade, though, the kind of time-sink that can put a crimp in more serious pursuits. Like drinking coffee. And staying alive.
But Miranda won’t take no for an answer. Mason can help or Miranda will make sure he becomes intimately acquainted with the finer conversational techniques of the secret police. So Mason digs until he uncovers a cache of stolen communications between a cabal of rogue AIs. They’re planning what they call Eschatonâthe divinely ordained end of humanity. Unless Mason and Miranda stop the arrogant pricks, the conspirators will destroy Earth.
Mason and Miranda have one chance, a way of bottling up the rogue AIs. All Mason has to do is lure the conspirators to the right spot in a sim world. That’s how Mason learns that when Miranda said she needed help, what she meant was bait.
My Review
I quite enjoyed my time with this book. To me, it was reminiscent of cyberpunk books like William Gibson’s Neuromancer that I read back in college, with a richly imagined near-future world, in this case the mid-2100’s, extrapolated from what’s going on in our world today, and with a sometimes dizzying array of concepts, terminology, subcultures, and tech. The world Chaffin builds here is fascinating, dystopian, and complex, and it will be interesting to see (as it was with William Gibson) how prescient he is about our actual future.
Plot and Characters
The book meshes a bunch of tropes in fun an interesting ways. The main character, Mason Truman, is an old-school private eye who wouldn’t be out of place in a 1930’s noir setting. The world he lives in is filled with technology, some of it really useful, like food generators, robotic doctors, and factotums – smart, connected electronic assistants, kind of like what Apple and Amazon wish Siri and Alexa could be. The fascist-flavored society, which now spans a number of worlds and colonies within the solar system, is governed by an uneasy alliance of human plutocrats and AI personalities. Each of the AIs originated as non-sentient software designed for a purpose and then gained sentience on its own, but they’re now blocking any effort that might lead to more AIs being born. There’s a military also, but it’s largely a pawn of the two major political forces. There’s a rich online virtual reality, the Omninet, which includes games, sims, tourism, socializing, and porn.
What starts as a routine missing persons case become ever more complex, and the stakes get higher and higher, and the pace more frenetic, but I’ll leave off talking about plot to avoid spoilers.
My Thoughts
It’s clear why this book is a finalist. The world Chaffin has created has tons of detail, and it’s mostly introduced to us through action and dialogue, not through big info dumps, although sometimes Mason goes off on a topic in his head. That focus on the story is refreshing, although as a reader, you have to be on top of your game to take it all in and get up to speed. I really meant it in a good way when I said this reminds me of Neuromancer – there’s some wonderful extrapolation from what present-day LLMs can do to how they’d behave in a world where they’ve become sentient, and there’s some wonderfully clever thinking and speculation about what society might become when our virtual worlds become ever more of our focus. What’s even better, Chaffin gives us little hints of how we got from 2025 to 2139, with pieces of future history referenced throughout, but also from characters running into older technology which reveals the stepping stones Chaffin imagines humanity might use to get to the future where the book happens. This is great stuff. I wouldn’t say that all of it seemed 100% likely or workable to me, but that doesn’t matter. It was great fun to read about, and it was brilliantly deep and complex. This is the first novel I’ve read about future AI that seems to tie in closely to our current cloud computing and newly-LLM-filled lives, which I found really cool – just like Gibson took a limited Internet and imagined much of what cyberspace would come to be.
The pace of the book gets faster and faster as Mason caroms from clue to clue and plan to plan, facing sinister interference, threats, and calamity. There’s a kind of sci-fi action movie feel to the plot, with much of the last third of the book being a big chase climax spanning the real world and many cyberspace locations. That’s good for keeping up excitement, but it does mean some story elements get dropped or minimized as we go, with major characters sometimes just disappearing from the story with no further explanation or description, and occasionally with big plot elements not fully explained or resolved, at least to my reading.
That focus on pace and plot means the things we were learning about the characters become less relevant, and their actions become more and more constrained by outside forces. I liked the structure of the big plot showdown at the end – the parties involved, some big twists, the threats – but the execution left me a little dissatisfied, with an ambiguity to the ending and epilogue, and with a lack of clarity (at least to me) as to what actually happened in the world or even to the major characters. Despite a lot of scenery chewing from a couple of major villains, the ending felt a little rushed, and it seemed to me that Mason lacked agency for much of the climax and conclusion, merely bouncing like a pinball between various plot targets, aided or hindered by forces he couldn’t control. In the midst of that, though, there was a wonderful scene where he’s multitasking brilliantly – using his factotum to do research, talking an ally through a difficult task, and also trying to accomplish a task on his own, all while the world is falling apart, and it’s just a great image of a distracted, tech-heavy future, all condensed into a single scene.
VAGUE SEMI-SPOILERY BITS HERE: At the end, despite enjoying the book and having a lot of fun with it, I had a lot of questions, like: what is Sam becoming? what happened to Andrew? where does all this leave the AIs? does Mason get to his oft-stated goal of a normal life with abundant expensive coffee? what happens to Miranda, and what was she playing at? did Meredith get what was coming to her? Answering these would have made the book longer and more boring, for sure, so it makes sense that Chaffin wrapped things up. But I felt like I’d missed out on some promises made, and that some interesting and important threads were not tied off. The rush at the end also meant that Mason’s arc wasn’t resolved, at least for me. At times during the story, he felt more like a mouthy gumshoe archetype than a real person, and the ending, which didn’t really share where he’d arrived at or who he had become, didn’t help that feeling. A lot of the other characters seem to start to go on personal journeys, too, but again, many of these don’t really get very far, and we never see where they might lead. I also 100% did not understand what the epilogue was getting at, which may be a me problem.
Summation
If you’re up for a vivid near-future sci-fi story with a strong and capable cyberpunk feel, Accidental Intelligence delivers beautifully. For me, the worldbuilding was the strongest part, and the wide-ranging plot and colorful characters do a great job of painting a luminous, seedy picture of where we might be headed as a species.
This is my second new review of a full read for the Peripheral Prospectors judging team for the final round of SPSFC#4. For more information about the team and our progress, please go to the team update page here.
Tria and Resa have shared the same body since they were born. Like everyone on their home planet of Kinaru, their mind and body are divided down the middle: the logical right and the emotional left. Tria, the right, has a budding career as a biologist, while Resa dreams of more freedom than their home planet grants her.
When aliens land on Kinaru, Tria and Resa seize the opportunity to be the first of their people to travel to the stars. Karnath, the alien scientist assigned to study them, is convinced there is more to the Kinaru than meets the eye. But only days into the trip, crew members start turning up dead, and a mutiny redirects the ship toward a forbidden, war-torn planetâEarth.
To solve a conspiracy that threatens three planets, Tria must find out the truth of who her people really are, and Resa needs to finally tell Tria the dark secrets she’s been hiding all their lives.
My Review
I quite enjoyed my time with this book. It’s a space opera at heart, but it has some of the big concept what-if pieces central to, say, a classic Star Trek episode, where there’s an alien race who’s like us but different in one or two key ways. There are actually two such races here, and we get to explore both. Where I felt the book really shined was with the unique nature of the Kinaru species, brought to wonderful and touching life by the main character.
Plot and Characters
The book has an ongoing plot that alternates between first-contact, mystery, and thriller, but the real heart of the book are the central characters, Tria il Resa, who are two personalities who share a single body, with Tria being logical, coldly analytical, and a bit aloof, while Resa is emotional, artistic, impulsive, and romantic. It’s a little like if Kirk and Spock were forced to inhabit the same body, except that these two have always been together and are mutually respectful, caring friends.
Most of the first-person narrative is from Tria, who is accustomed to running things, as is tradition on Kinaru. The “rights” – the right-brained analytical types – are dominant over the “lefts,” who have a history of being subjugated, although it is a weird sort of beloved subjugation. We do get some chapters from Resa’s perspective, too, and it’s a real joy to see their different mindsets, motivations, and thought processes. This is the coolest part of the book – an awesome high-concept foundation, where it almost doesn’t matter what storyline you put on top of it – it’s going to be interesting to explore.
There is a storyline, though, and it crosses the galaxy to bring about conflict, betrayal, discovery, action, and even a little romance. Tria and Resa boldly stow away aboard an alien ship visiting their world, Kinaru, and after some initial consternation, they are adopted as guests of a scientific exploration ship sent to their world by the Shatakazans. The Kinaru are highly advanced socially, but they are probably somewhere near early 20th-century Earth levels of technology, so the advanced tech and space travel of the Shatakazans is something very new to Tria and Resa. The Shatakazans are reptillian and have a number of significant biological and social differences to humans, but they breathe the same air and act a lot like humans in a lot of ways, particularly personality-wise and with their wants and desires all feeling pretty human. Each Shatakazan chooses a faction tied to a philosophy, which is a neat concept to explore. Their planet is nominally democratic, or at least parliamentary, but it is more like a one-party democracy as existed in Mexico and Japan for many years, with minor factions not having much power.
We meet a bunch of Shatakazans, but the one who’s most developed is Karnath, a scientist and free soul. I had a little trouble keeping the rest of them straight, as they are numerous and have weird names, but that’s probably a me thing. To avoid spoilers, I’ll probably leave it there, but suffice it to say, there are a bunch of adventures Tria and Resa and their lizard buddies go on as the book winds its way to its conclusion, and we learn a lot more about their two societies as we go.
My Thoughts
It’s clear why this book is a finalist. It’s well-written and engaging, with some great big sci-fi concepts to explore, which it does in interesting and entertaining ways. The two-people-in-one-body concept is done really, really well. I was reminded a little bit of Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil, in which an old man and a young woman share a body, but this book has more to say, and the split between right-brain and left-brain identities, with the social structures that bifurcation forces on Kinaru society, makes it all the more powerful. This elevates this over some of the other books I’ve read for the competition which were simpler space adventures (although some of these are admittedly great space adventures). Bisection is thinky, in a good way, which is really great.
Where the book was a little weaker for me was in the nuts and bolts of the plot. A lot of it was admirably solid and well crafted, but there were a number of head-scratcher moments for me. Many of these surrounded plans, either by the protagonists or their enemies. These plans (both major and minor) often seemed very half-baked, where I felt like real people with the information they had might have chosen better strategies, or where the strategies they chose could well have been completely unworkable. In these moments, the people in the story became less real to me. In some cases, these questionable plans just work because the plot needs them to. In other cases, the questionable plans fail in completely predictable ways. As a repeated example, nobody in this book is any good at all at holding onto prisoners. Like, zero good jailers here. Major failures of basic jailing. There’s also a bad-guy plan at the heart of the adventure plot that is something that seems both ill-fated and poorly conceived, and yet it functions far better than it seems like it should, with the help of a local government acting in in a way I thought was not at all how it would act (or could act) in the situation presented.
There are a couple other minor bits that itched at me while I read. There’s a huge, huge mysterious coincidence the characters discover early on which cannot be anything but deliberate and engineered, but the explanations they float for how it could be (a weird intersystem comet, mostly) are not something serious scientists would entertain, or at least not phrase that way. Another thing that bugged me a little was the communication. Like Star Trek, there’s some universal translation going on here, but once it’s established, it’s basically perfect and almost never commented on, even when I wondered how certain parties would have gotten one of the translators. Of course, Star Trek does this shamelessly, even having the latex lips of the aliens form English words, so it’s not a big deal, and it would make any space opera a lot harder to read. Finally, there’s at one point a pretty major revelation which felt a little like a Greek god interfering in the mortal realm. For me, this took a good bit of agency away from the main characters, but it’s explained pretty well and leads to a few of the book’s absolute best moments, one of them completely, gloriously unexpected, so it’s forgiven.
If you’re up for a big-concept sci-fi story, hearkening back to those big concepts that Theodore Sturgeon and Philip K. Dick explored in sci-fi’s classical heyday, Bisection delivers. The beautiful, evolving, respectful conflict between the two main characters, one out of place in the galaxy, one out of place in her own society and her own body, is great, great stuff.
This is my first new review of a full read for the Peripheral Prospectors judging team for the final round of SPSFC#4. For more information about the team and our progress, please go to the team update page here.
When the Department trained me to catch criminals, I never dreamed Iâd become one.
Agent. Suspect. Intergalactic fugitive.
I was one of them until I shot my partner in self-defense. Even though the Department cleared me of wrongdoing, my co-workers didnât agree. They turned their backs on me, so I turned my back on them.
My partnerâs actions never made sense. After ignoring my gut for a year, I asked my tech-genius best friend to dig into it. Now Jarrettâs gone dark, and I soon discover heâd been brutally murdered. An officer finds me standing over the body, blaster in hand. Even I admit it looks bad.
Thereâs no way I can trust the Department to investigate furtherânot if I’m already the prime suspect. My only option is to run. Is it impulsive? Sure. Will having law enforcement dog me across the galaxy make life difficult? Most certainly. Iâll have to stay one step ahead of them if I want to solve Jarrettâs murder and clear my name.
Doing that will require every trick the Department taught meâand a few I learned on my own.
My Review
I really enjoyed my time with this book. It’s a fun space opera romp with elements of police procedural, spy thriller, heist, and corporate villainy. There’s a plucky, engaging heroine (with the badass name of Reliance Sinclair) and a deep cast of secondary characters, even including a bionic guinea pig and a ship AI masquerading as a robotic cat. The AI designer has given the ship the temperament of an actual cat, which is a hoot.
The story is constantly in motion, with Reliance outwitting and evading or falling prey to many factions of enemies on her personal quest to figure out who killed her friend. The setting is some time in the future after Earthlings have spread out and terraformed and colonized many other worlds, although there are still people on Earth and Mars. There are no aliens or alien tech in the story – just a variety of human worlds, sometimes with interesting quirks like gravitational or climate differences or interesting (and violent) planetary histories. The worlds are more Earthlike than in some space operas, with regular Earth foods, animals, and plants.
Plot and Characters
The book happens in several phases, each with a different plot focus, but the first big chunk of the story is Reliance investigating the death of a friend, a fellow officer when she used to be a space cop. It’s an intriguing mystery which quickly gets her deep in the middle of danger from a bunch of directions, and Reliance sneaks and fights and wheedles and lies her way across multiple worlds.
The story is always interesting as Reliance unpacks more of the story and then gets herself emmeshed in what is going on. It’s interesting when she reflects back on her past as a space cop and when she uses skills or contacts from that time to advance her current objectives. She’s a fun character – resourceful, snarky, ass-kicking, and just a good time. The book is entirely within her first-person perspective. The other characters get less screen time, although we do meet a few criminals and spend more time with a set of cops who pursue Reliance through most of the book. I particularly liked a tech specialist cop named DeAjamae when she was hacking things – her constant patter of anger and expletives at the computers and systems she was using was really fun.
The inclusion of migraines in Reliance’s character is an interesting choice that gives her depth, and they play into later developments in a neat way. It was interesting to see a character having to deal with a chronic medical problem, and her coping mechanisms sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.
My Thoughts
It’s clear why this book is a finalist. It’s well-written, fun, action-packed, and a good read, the kind you feel happy about when you’re finished. There’s fighting, action, some sad bits, and a really strong main character. The worlds Reliance visits aren’t always described in detail, but you get a sense of how many of them work and how the human society works overall.
If I were to pick at something, it would probably be some plot developments where characters interacting with Reliance make decisions that seem foolish or out of character but without which either Reliance wouldn’t survive or the plot wouldn’t progress. There were a few moments that reminded me of Scott Evil from Austin Powers lamenting, “Why don’t you just shoot him?” In particular, a decision by a certain bad guy as Reliance starts to figure everything out seems terribly risky and foolish.
It wasn’t just the big decisions – there were also small head-scratcher opponent decisions that let Reliance escape or avoid detection or wiggle out of tight spots. All of these let the story continue, and it’s a fun enough story that it’s not a big deal at all, but I found some of them pulled me out of the story while I thought about smarter things Reliance’s opponents could or should have done. There were also a couple of times where Reliance instantly has a unique answer to a problem, or a contact who can help that we didn’t know about before, and I think it would have helped credulity if those were hinted at earlier rather than popping into the narrative just as they are needed.
One other minor quibble was some lack of clarity on how advanced various technologies are and how they work. Tech seems quite advanced in some ways (terraforming, space travel), while in others it seemed more 21st century than 25th or whatever (e.g. physical drives and servers). Some of the tech didn’t quite seem consistent, either – I was never really sure how stuff like interplanetary communications and networking functioned, or how the blasters worked, or how injured somebody got when they were stunned, or how long the stunning was supposed to last. But those are problems every Star Trek series has run into also and mostly failed at, and only uber-nerds probably care.
All of those are minor nitpicks and easily ignored. The story achieves its main goal very ably, which is to tell an exciting, kick-ass, funny story with a charismatic heroine and a gallery of heroic and/or hilarious sidekicks and vile villains.
Summation
If you’re up for a fun romp with a lot of great futuristic plot elements and a main character who’s really easy to cheer for, then On Impulse is definitely for you. Because of my schedule, I actually ended up listening to this one via a text-to-speech app while driving to DC and back (11 hours or so round trip), and it made the miles fly by (even when the algorithm insisted on saying “spacedock” as “spacey dock”). A good time, and a book I’m glad I had a chance to read.
This year, I’m on the Peripheral Prospectors team as a judge for SPSFC. We’ve recently announced our six quarterfinalists, as you can see in this post with more information and previous posts available on the team page here.
I’ve been a participant twice before, in 2021-22 (Daros) and 2023-24 (Kenai). I’ve been in SPFBO four times, I’ve done BBNYA twice, and I’ve entered another couple contests. Although I’ve met with success in some of these contests, I have also at times exited (very) early, and I absolutely know how much that stings.
In that spirit, I thought I’d share what I liked about each of the books I read that didn’t progress beyond this stage. Our judging team of five split our 31 submissions into two groups, with each judge assigned to one group or the other. For each of these books, I read the opening chapters, usually 20 percent or so, which is the expectation for the “scout phase” of the competition. So, these comments (and the quarterfinalist status) aren’t based on the whole book in my case, although some of the books below got full reads by the other judges.
I’m not including any critiques or problems I might have had with the books, because that’s not the point of this post. I’m just looking to celebrate and highlight these books and authors as they depart the competition.
This had an exciting opening with definite alien invasion vibes. The characters had strong voices and personalities, and the invasion and mysteries were intriguing. The story has a good old-school sci fi vibe – I was reminded of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, with all the tension and horror that scenario provides.
This book quickly established a world at war with a merciless foe along with a band of rebels fraught with their own internal conflicts. The dialogue was snappy and emotions were high, with a number of mysteries (both past and future) set out for the narrative to unwind. The nature and behavior of the enemy here was creative and interesting, and the hierarchy and mistrust in the human forces was tense and at the breaking point nearly immediately. The desperate situation of the main character at the opening was a good way to introduce all of this.
I really enjoyed my time with this one. It had a fundamental goofiness and high-concept spirit that worked for me. The main character was plucky and appealing, and the ship and ghost-people picking her up were fun and funny. Because of the scout stage partial read, I didn’t get far enough to see where it was all headed, but it had a bunch of tropes I enjoyed – fish out of water human among advanced non-Earthlings, a la Hitchhiker’s Guide, sassy ship’s computer, space battles, negotiations and laws, superhero-ish main character discovering her powers.
This was a hyperviolent, breakneck pace view of a future dystopian world. Some very creepy scenes with artificial people gone bad, and some zombie-flick-style action with hapless humans facing killer beings. The main character’s worries about battery life were a great way to add tension. There was also some really interesting use of language here – words, phrases, and images that were used in ways that were unexpected and thought-provoking.
The opening scenes here are a quick contrast – a loving couple (actively loving, if you know what I mean) with high status, wealth, and privilege, although in a restrictive society with some draconian rules. Immediately, there’s a bitter, awful betrayal, one impacted by those draconian rules and designed to exploit the high status, throwing everything into turmoil. It’s a raw, emotional opening, promising high stakes throughout.
This was a two-sides story, with one side being young humans whose father is caught up in mysterious research, and the other being an alien menace to all of humanity. The human characters had clear, established relationships, and the growing sense of something wrong on Earth, with exploration and discovery, was engaging, promising higher stakes to come. To me, it kind of read like a dystopian future story targeting the young adult market, maybe like Divergent or Maze Runner, although with an Earth much closer to our real Earth than in those stories.
I liked this one and enjoyed my time with it. There was a strongly hierarchical dystopian future, with a strong undercurrent of family politics and conflicts, with people operating at many different levels in society. The future world was interesting and compelling, clearly having a lot of planning and thought behind it. The dialogue and writing were engaging, and the mystery and conspiracy afoot were intriguing, with hints of an equally complex counter-culture full of rebels (and backstabbing too).
This book had a ton of charm, with an everyman protagonist constantly struggling with a system that wants to hold him down and exploit him, not always making the best decisions, but aware that he is not, which is fun. The growing danger and entanglement were handled well, and there’s also a lot of humor and colorful characters as this one progresses. I could totally see this as a goofy sci-fi movie, probably starring a pro wrestler.
This book opened with a tremendous space battle full of panic, despair, and violence. Really dramatic beginning. The book moved on to the aftermath of that disaster, and you get a better sense of the setting, the conflict, and the characters involved, all of whom are brimming with emotion and tension. Lots of action here, and squarely in the tradition of a future with warring ships and a bigger universe to explore.
This was a really, really interesting book, very well written, with a complex society reminiscent of colonial powers and resistance struggles on Earth, but set somewhere else, an imagined non-Earth but very Earth-like place. Adding to the weirdness is the fact that the subjugated people are fungal organisms, although they have many human (and relatable) characteristics and emotions and desires. The vibe is 20th-century hard-boiled detective, which works well, and the dialogue is real-seeming and the pace taut and exciting while sometimes taking pauses for some neat imagery and reflection on the gritty world. This one was hard to categorize – it’s doing well in SPFBO, although some of the judges there are wrestling with whether it’s fantasy (see here). Similarly, we wrestled with whether it’s sci-fi – there’s a scientific basis for the mushroom people’s biology and weird powers, but (at least in the opening I read) there’s not advanced human tech or spaceships or that kind of sci-fi staple, nor is there a future setting – just an alternate Earthlike world where mushroom people exist along with humans. Regardless of the categorization, it’s undeniably a good book, well-written and tremendously creative.
I liked this one. It was definitely quirky and coarse, with a lot of crass humor, sex, and language you’d never use in front of your grandma. The premise of a vibrant computer game world with real-world corporate workers running it is not new, but it’s fresh and intriguing here, milking the computer game scenario (and the power and control the corporate workers have in it) for all those tasty plot bits and also having a desolate, confining, dysfunctional corporate and workplace structure with pissed off people taking shots at each other. A lot of imagination went into this, and if you can abide the rawness of the sex talk (and sex scenes) and profanity, you’ll find something to chew on inside.
I liked this one a lot – it had a great set-up with a plucky heroine bucking an unfair system, finding a way through impassable societal and career barriers even if she has to bend the rules. The sleeper-ship scenario was well-described and seemed real and authentic, and (unlike many of these entries) I found the protagonist relatable, fun, and easy to cheer for, and the mystery that was just getting started in the part I read was engaging and juicy.
I enjoyed my time with this one too. It had a very high-concept setup, full of future media celebrities, gunfights, megacorps, and bullets-flying action. You’re quickly aware here that everybody is a bit of a caricature, like in 1980’s sci fi movies, but it works (just as it often did in those). The reality-TV military commando squad might not be realistic, but it’s fun, and the catty, egotistical, self-absorbed main character is fun to watch as she navigates a huge setback and a new life full of trials. You’ll know quickly if you’re going to like it, and if you go for this kind of thing, it seems likely to pay off.
I’ve done a bunch of these contests now (four SPFBOs, two SPSFCs, three BBNYAs, a SFINCS, and some others), and one thing I know as a participant is that it’s fun seeing your book progress through the competition, and it’s also nice to know what’s going on at any given time. In that spirit, I thought I’d give a little bit of info on our judging process and then an intro to the sixteen books I’ll be sampling for the first part of the SPSFC.
Judging Process
I’m on the Peripheral Prospectors team. The homepage for our team is here, including author bios and a whole bunch of other information from our team lead, Athena, at OneReadingNurse.com. That’s where our official announcements and progress will be, so that’s the place to bookmark, although I’ll be posting my own updates and reviews here.
Not all judging teams do things the same way, but I’ll let you know what we’re doing with ours. Our total allotment is 31 books. This is our team “scout list” from which we’ll pick our full reads and quarter- and semifinalists.
We’ve divided the allotment roughly in half, with our six judges spit up between the halves. My three judge sub-team is each reading the opening parts of our half, so there are multpile eyes on each book as we work towards choosing which books we’ll carry onwards and all do a full read from all six of us (those will be our quarterfinalists). When we get to that point, I’ll review those full reads here, but not all of the Prospectors may choose to do a public review at that point.
There’s no set number of full reads/quarterfinalists that we’re looking for, but it definitely won’t be all sixteen, so a fair number of books will be cut at this first scouting stage based on consensus of our three-judge working group. Judges may decide to complete a full read and write a review even at the scout stage, but that’s up to each of us individually and is not required (and usually not very common).
My Sixteen
Here are the sixteen books in my half of the 31. I’ll be reading the openings of each and recommending some to go on to the full-read quarterfinalist stage along with my two other judges in the sub-team. I’ve included some preliminary impressions just for fun, although none of my comments are based on actual reading, so they don’t mean anything. Think of it as a sportscaster sizing up the athletes prior to the competition – mostly fluff, but hopefully fun. I will sometimes mention number of reviews on Amazon or Goodreads from a quick scan, but I’m not reading any of those external reviews so as not to spoil anything or color my opinions.
Blurb: Meet Lisa Hudson, a dedicated journalism student, on a beautiful, spring morning in Pittsburgh that proves to be the last ordinary day of her life. As she struggles to survive in a new reality, forged from catastrophe, Lisa confronts its mysteries and dangers with the aid of intriguing and unlikely companions. For her, the world will never be the same. For you, the journey is just beginning. Michael Shotter is a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a lover of science, fiction, and fantasy, his works aim to push beyond the boundaries of traditional genre fiction into new and exciting realms born from literary craftsmanship. â309â represents his most ambitious effort to date and is sure to thrill fans of both science fiction and high adventure.
Dave’s notes: An enigmatic cover, title, and blurb mean I don’t know much going into this one, although it looks like Lisa’s going to have at least one very bad day. The book has a solid number of positive ratings on Amazon and Goodreads. Looks like Michael’s got a few other books and short fiction out.
Blurb: Kara is an outcast. A freak. A non-telepath. The only person to ever show her any kindness â Caethiid, is dead. Ever since the state informed her of Caethiidâs death, Karaâs life has been bleak, consisting of a tedious job, a small book collection and the painful memories of a love that never was. But Kara also harbours a dark secret. Within her is a terrible power, one thatâs manifested in times of great danger, with devastating consequences. When Caethiid miraculously reappears, Karaâs joy is short-lived. From across the galaxy, Caethiid has been listening to Karaâs thoughts. He knows her secret and he wants to use her power to overthrow the state. Kara finds herself trapped in his twisted game of psychological manipulation. As Caethiidâs ruthless nature is revealed, Kara realises the man she once knew may no longer exist. With Caethiidâs grip tightening, Kara begins to wonder whether she can trust her own mind, or whether everything she thought she knew was part of his plan all along.
Dave’s notes: Ah, a seemingly mundane person in a world where everyone else has power – a great trope ripe with cool potential for story greatness. Kara also seems to have swiped right when she should have swiped left, big time. I can’t tell from the cover or blurb if we’re on Earth or elsewhere or what time period we’re in, although “across the galaxy” suggests a broad scope and space travel. A solid number of good reviews on Amazon. This looks like the author’s first published work.
Blurb: When Badger succeeded his father, Red Skin, as Keeper Base Leader, he was well prepared, raised to handle anything the enemy threw at him. He was the best killer and the most respected tactician. He knew Red Skinâs Laws like he wrote them himself. Most importantly, he was always calm, no matter how frenzied the combat. These were only some of the reasons why he still had all his original parts. Trinity would die for him. Korry would follow him without question. They were Keepers. They fought, they killed, they lived to kill another day, even when it meant bugging out to another Base ⊠and another. That was life when life was war. They knew nothing else. But even war cannot last forever, regardless of the infallible truth of Red Skinâs Law #35: âUnder conditions of peace, men attack themselves; thus, there never has been, and there never will be a time without war. It is the greatest, most perfect thing men can do.â
Dave’s notes: Definitely looks like hardcore military sci-fi here, maybe mixed with Spartan-style stoicism and philosophy and maybe cyberpunk-style bioware enhancement. Somebody should definitely get that guy on the cover a towel. Looks like this is a pretty new release without many reviews yet, although Kilpack has another couple of series and other books, some with competition awards.
Blurb: July 1969. Clive, Iowa, Earth. Sixteen-year-old Allie has a big decision to make: Watch the lunar landing with her mom in their run-down double-wide trailer or boost to the stars aboard a grumpy, sentient deep space exploration vehicle (DSEV-424) buried in her backyard for 5,000 years. Accompanied by Gem, a dead space captain, now a glitchy hologram, Allie stops on the moon and surprises Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard the Eagle lunar lander. (Neil never mentioned the encounter to Houston). With Gem as her guide, Allie survives her first space battle and drops Gem off at a military regrow center in the middle of a spaceport casino. The teenâs adventure lifts off at a military space academy, where she faces danger, makes friends, battles enemies, and discovers her own surprising abilities. Along with Rin, Sky, and Gem, Allie sets out on a mission to locate and defeat a rogue fleet led by Naomi, a mad-as-a-hatter warship, all while navigating the complexities of growing up and finding her place in the galaxy.
Dave’s notes: Hey, 1969 Iowa! That’s where and when I was born, although I missed the moon landing by one stupid month and also didn’t have (or at least never discovered) a 5,000-year-old ship in my backyard. We did have lots of walnuts, but they never took me to space. This book looks delightfully bonkers, with alt-history, coming of age, a dead holo-captain, and maybe even academy-style school tropes. This book is part of a series with a second one already released, and the author has six out in total. Not a ton of reviews on the others yet, but this one has a solid average so far.
Blurb: Hypatia is a companion child, a cyborg with the consciousness of a child, designed to help her non-verbal human sister, Alexandra, navigate the world. When a flash knocks out the power and a civil war erupts, the sisters are forced to travel through powerless cities and dangerous country roads in search of refuge on the eastern coast of the United States. Realizing that without access to a charging station itâs only a matter of time before her battery fails, Hypatia must deliver Alexandra to safety before itâs too late. Yet, as Hypatia and Alexandra encounter other companion children that have gone berserk, Hypatia begins to suspect the flash may have done more than just take out the power. Can Alexandra trust her sister, and is Hypatia exactly what she seems?
Dave’s notes: This one may win the “most things going on on the cover” prize, what with chromosomal tattoos, firearms, explosives, and a weird blue mandible thing. A companion child for nonverbal neurodivergent kids is a really interesting idea, and I like the tension of running out of juice along with zombie-ish aftermath vibes. This is a relatively recent release, and the author has one more also released in February of this year, so not a ton of external feedback on either as of yet.
Blurb: More than one hundred years have passed since the cataclysm. The year is 2197 and Earthâs surviving inhabitants now live in heavenly cities above the clouds, unwilling to descend back to the unstable surface. Helen is a lawyer whose life is seemingly perfect, complete with career, partner and plans for a family. But she soon discovers that it is all an illusion. A car accident turns her life in a different direction and she finds herself on the Earthâs surface, in a forested world utterly foreign to her. Is it true that Earth cannot sustain life? What if the truth was entirely different? What if there were survivors â and how would Helen return to her own world?
Dave’s notes: Huh. A post-apocalyptic Matrix-style future, maybe, and then a portal fantasy part? Interesting. I’m not sure I see all the layers here yet, but it’s definitely intriguing. Unlike nearly all of the other authors in this group, I have heard of Stjepan before, both from passing contact out there in the indie community and when he reviewed one of my books a couple years back. He’s a prolific author and poet with many books out, some in his native Croatian. This one is a 2018 release with 23 ratings.
Blurb: In an invasion turned all-out war against humanity, can three brothers save the world and discover whatâs been hiding on Earth all along? Malcolm, Walker, and Calvin are three brothers living vastly different lives. Malcolm loves to party and be a jerk to his siblings, Walker is the front man for a band, and Calvin is just trying to survive being bullied while wrestling with his unrelenting anxiety. They never expected to become superheroes. Things change when the Ekronian Empire makes Earth their next target for conquest. Their leader, Reyin, will kill as many people as it takes to get the job done and make Earth like his home planetâa world where children become soldiers, the unemployed become slaves, and those who voice disagreement are cruelly silenced. But Reyin has come for more than that. Heâs seeking the Eye of Destinyâan ancient artifact that could bend reality to his will. Unexpectedly armed by a clandestine organization with the only technology in the galaxy that can withstand the Ekronians, itâs up to Malcolm, Walker, and Calvin to stop him. Can they navigate life, high school, and their personal demons while working to save humanity? Or will their family fall apart along with the rest of the world?
Dave’s notes: An alien invasion of Earth by vile enslaving Ekronians? An ancient artifact of power? Cool beans. The blurb here diverges a little from the cover, at least to my eye, where the blurb reads Independence Day or Emperor Zurg and the cover reads teen drama or boy-band album cover. It will be interesting to see how the planetary invasion part mixes with the teen life coming-of-age part. Reminds me a little at first blush of John Christopher’s Tripod trilogy, which I loved as a pre-teen. This looks like a first book from the author (although a series is maybe promised if that’s what “chronicles” means). Not a ton of reviews yet, but what’s there is strong.
Blurb: What price would you pay to protect your country? When his city burned around him, Zacharias Eld swore on his life it would never happen again. Sworn in as the First Herald, there is no camera he cannot access, no idle chatter he cannot hear. No secrets he cannot unearth. But a break-in at a lab reveals the hole in the network he spent seven years to build. Worse, the evidence is contaminated, the suspects missing, and the innocent refuse to speak. Zach soon finds himself in a world he thought he had purged years ago, festering in the shadows he once scoured. As the layers of the conspiracy peel back, so too, does the safety of Zach those around him. Either Zach finds the culprit or he will witness the fall of the city heâd spent his life to protect.
Dave’s Notes: If I were running a cover contest in my little group, this would be a top contender. I love the composition and the vibe. This looks like it will have a lot of world-building going on to explain everything in the blurb and also all the powers (magical? sci-fi? innate or from a position with access?) that the main character seems to have. I’m not sure if he’s an administrator or gumshoe or something else. Interested to find out. A very recent release (August) with a few strong ratings.
Blurb: The Ghost Gun kills what it hits, its ghost bullets ensnaring the victimâs soul to their killer. Except nothing is that simple. Certainly not an apparently simple theft that leads detectives into a war between secret societies over artifacts which have been around for millennia, their origin unknown, their abilities inexplicable. Demoted to Vice due to departmental politics, Detective Cassie Kinsala sees an opportunity to restore her career path. But what looks like it might offer a decent arrest soon turns into a quagmire the law might not cover, and might not protect her from. Jimmy Bancroft used to be a cop. Working for the other side lets him avoid paperwork. Investigating rumours of a competitor moving in on his employerâs interests, he becomes entangled in a war between criminals and a secret society. And someone might be trying to set him up.
Dave’s Notes: Ooh, a gritty mystery with a supernatural weapon? Cool concept. Ensnaring souls to their killers sounds like a major bummer – I mean, it’s bad enough you’re being killed, and now you have to hang around with the guy who did it? What would you even have to talk about? The first in a six book series released mostly last year, there aren’t a lot of ratings to go on yet, so this one will remain an enigma for a while longer, at least until I crack it open.
Blurb: Governments have fallen. Corporations control the world. Now their eyes are on Mars. But Benjamin Drake is about to ruin everyoneâs plans. Earth is no longer made up of countries and nations. Every bit of land has been privatized, and most of it is owned by five big corporations. Life is hard, and people are struggling. Crime is rampant, and they send serious offenders to Mars to help with the terraforming. Benjamin Drake is a happy-go-lucky truck driver (or hauler) with an uncomplicated life, hauling cargo around the world in his Hydrostar, until a run of bad decisions leaves him without work. Down on his luck and desperate for a contract, he makes a decision that he instantly regrets. As Drake gets caught in a tug of war between a mining mogul and the worldâs most ruthless security force, he suddenly finds himself with a truck full of stolen cargo, and decisions need to be made. But who can he trust? After a big professional blunder, Lt. Lily Wells plots a way to get her career back on track as one of Penta Corporationsâ top security officers. But when Wells ends up on a murder case, she uncovers something much bigger. One on the run and the other on the hunt, Drake and Wells cross paths, at odds and supposedly enemies. But could their alliance be the only way out alive? Set in the near-future, Hauler is the first book in the Benjamin Drake adventure series, filled with witty dialogue, flawed heroes, and plenty of bad decisions.
Dave’s notes: If this turns out to be a humble-trucker-takes-on-the-system-and-fights-for-justice thing, I will be down for it. The blurb sounds a little like the plot of those gloriously campy 80’s sci fi movies I loved. All it needs are space ninjas. At 206 ratings, this has way more than most of the others in this batch. The author has three other books listed on Amazon, although those have much lower review counts.
Blurb: There is no salvation among the stars⊠With every known planet, colony or settlement mostly ruined or completely destroyed, a desperate crew of humans onboard the starship Odyssey, hear rumours of a mythical phenomenon called the Horizon. This magical place on the edge of known space is believed to transport those who traverse it, back in time to the moment they were at their happiest. With only death, heartache and baron wastelands surrounding them, the crew head toward the Horizon. However to reach this phenomenon, they must cross the Expanse â a 30 day trip through entirely empty space. No light, no stars, no planets⊠nothing. At least thatâs what they think.
Dave’s notes: Oooh, space horror vibes, especially if the fiery planet skull on the cover can be taken at (skinless) face value. Odyssey is maybe a bad name for a colony ship if I can suggest anything to the far-future protectors of humanity. Need some lit majors in your planning group, or you’re asking for trouble. I’m expecting slithery things pulling people into dark service access tunnels with sparking wires. This author is tremendously prolific with 44 titles listed on Amazon, although most of those books have no or few reviews. Maybe he’s finding his audience elsewhere, though.
Dave’s notes: This is the only entry in our group that I know anything about beforehand. I read the first chapter when I was doing my SPFBO haikus, and the book has been named a finalist in the SPFBO (the older sibling fantasy competition to SPSFC). It’s a kind of a future-noir detective story set in a world with mushroom people. I enjoyed the first chapter, but I was writing 300 haiku, so I had to move on. The author is a SFF podcaster with a lot of connections in the community, so the book made a pretty big splash when it was released earlier this year. It’s got 77 ratings even with a recent release, most of them quite strong. It is the author’s debut novel.
Blurb: In a post-cybernetic world where most have abandoned their neural enhancements, seventy-year-old Herbert Ferris clings to his outdated techâand the troubled legacy it carries. Once a rogue hacker, Ferris now clocks in at Re/Live Corporation as a digital ecologist, crafting biomes for the popular fantasy game world, New Europa. But when a glitch starts turning playersâ avatars pink, triggering an online uproar, Ferris is thrust into the heart of a spiraling corporate crisis. Ferris is ordered to clean up the mess alone. Fed up, he decides to go non-con, using his neuromod to become the perfect corporate zombie until the storm blows over. But when he reawakens, the chaos has only escalated: protesters are picketing Re/Liveâs head office, his job is on the line, and, to make matters worse, an innocent schoolgirl has gone missing. Gripped by a paranoia he hasnât felt in decades, Ferris races to uncover the truth, clashing with police, protesters, ruthless rivals, andâworst of allâhis vindictive ex. Non-conscious is a darkly humorous journey of one manâs battle to reclaim his dignity and sanity in a world where the line between fantasy and reality has blurred beyond recognition.
Dave’s notes: I mean, how can you go wrong with a tentacled head in a box? This looks like a high-concept dystopian body-mod thing, which the world definitely needs more of. The fact that it includes a vengeful ex on top of the world basically ending is pretty chef’s kiss also. The author seems to have two books out, both out a while (this one since 2017), but they have one review between them, so no external hint of what I’m getting into.
Blurb: A newbie pilot with a secret, broken comms, alien artifact, viral code, empty space. What can go wrong? Jax, a freshly minted spaceship pilot had a simple job: taking a group of sick people to Rebelsâ Republic space station to have their brain implants fixed while keeping her secret â secret. She had a smart plan to get it done: just some tweaking of the comms to make it look like an accident. But her ship had some surprises aboard: two healthy passengers, who werenât who they claimed to be, a real emergency, and a piece of virally spreading rogue code. Then⊠came some more problems⊠Can a loner learn teamwork to survive and save the solar system from collapse?
Dave’s Notes: This one has some great tropey elements I’m excited to explore – newbie pilot, hidden secrets, cyberware, a viral threat, a world to save. Some great ingredients there, and we’ll have to see how they mix into a final meal. The author has four books out – three books in this series plus a prequel. This one has a pretty-standard-for-this-group-of-entries 20 ratings on Amazon.
Blurb: The future. The human race is extinct. Earth is ruled by âeltecsâ, descendants of the AIs humans created before their demise. While searching for prehistoric cave paintings, two eltec explorers discover a hidden cryogenic crypt containing 23 perfectly preserved human bodies frozen inside crystal columns. As eltec society argues over who might have built the crypt and what to do with it, one of its occupants is restored to life. Human beings are no longer extinct, but, for reasons of their own, not every eltec wants to see them come back. The only living man on Earth is in terrible danger.
Dave’s Notes: A big, bold concept novel here, almost with classic Star Trek vibes, except there won’t be an over-emoting captain and redshirt crew to come study this weird culture. Flips the script a little with the extinction of humanity a foregone thing rather than a future threat, and placing the AI-people in the driver’s seat with the moral quandaries. Intriguing. A recent release with only a couple ratings. The author has 11 others which look to be mostly sci fi leaning into horror.
Blurb: Sasha Michaels has it all. Sheâs got the looks, some natural, some bought-and-paid for. Sheâs got the fame, with over one-hundred million Omniverse subscribers and a shot at breaking into the coveted Top 100. Sheâs got the wealth that comes with both. And she has the ultimate accessory, an even more famous husband. Alex Michaels is a HotDropper, a cybernetic corporate mercenary whose missions are streamed worldwide. But when Alex is killed on only his second mission, Sasha soon finds out that everything she thought she owned is now property of his paymasters, who invested hundreds of millions in him and intend to collect on the debt. Now she must serve as a rank-and-file trooper in the militia of the LifeWise corporation, until she pays off or she dies. Some people call it indentured service, but the troopers know it by a different name. They call it the Widowâs Tithe.
Dave’s Notes: I’m not sure what to make of this society – sounds completely bonkers and over the top – but the setup of a major social media influencer forced to do cybermercenary work against her will sounds like the beginnings of either a bloody journey of trial and redemption or a Kevin Hart movie. Cool title, hinting at a less comedic, darker vibe. The author has six books out. This one doesn’t have any ratings yet, so I’m going in with a blank slate.
Side note: The other cover I really loved from our allocation isTransference by Ian Patterson, but that ended up in the other half with the other three judges.
After participating in SPSFC twice (#1 and #3) with Daros and Kenai, and lacking a book to enter this year, I decided to try my hand at judging. I’ll be part of the Peripheral Prospectors team this year, led by Athena over at OneReadingNurse.com. Our team home will be over at Athena’s site, but I’ll be posting my reactions and reviews and anything else I think of here. I’m excited to join the team, and we’ll have more information on the team and our books in the coming days.
I’ve been looking at the list of books we’ve gotten, and as a teaser, here are the genres (as reported by the authors) for the books in our group. We currently have 31 books in our group, and they can list multiple subgenres. (Note: allocations are not finalized yet and could change.)
