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.