SPFBO 10 Semi-Finalist Reveal: Liis

This year, we decided to mix things up a bit and we are not waiting to finish up with the Elimination Round to start having Semi-Finalist Reveals as well. You can just never know what’s going to happen in this Asylum. It’s Liis’ turn to bring our third SPFBO 10 Semi-Finalist Reveal! She will share her thoughts on her remaining 3 titles, and tell you if she picked a semi-finalist!

A bit about our process ICYMI. Each of us cuts 2 of our titles in the Elimination Round. During the Semi-Finalist Reveal, we look at our remaining titles and at the end of the post we announce our semi-finalist. Fair warning: not all of us might pick a semi-finalist. Once we are all done, we’ll be reading each others’ picks and reviewing those titles individually. Finally, we reveal our finalist in October.

We’d like to thank each and every author who submitted their book to SPFBO this year. We know how hard it must be, but sadly, we can’t forward all of you to the finals. As a reminder, you can check out our SPFBO 10 page to see how we allocated our books and follow our progress.

In the Elimination Round, I said goodbye to two titles: Dawn of the Darkest Day by K.C. Woodruff and Glory to the Waxing Sun by Cooper Ward (full Elimination Round post here). Below are my thoughts about the rest of my batch, in alphabetical order:

Bloodwoven by G.J. Terral

Lies woven in blood are lines waiting to be crossed.

Lin is a competent, dedicated soldier but his mission takes a drastic turn when one of his charges is found murdered. Soon after, he is ambushed by magic-twisted monsters, gravely wounded, and abandoned by his one remaining ally.

Waking to find his injuries healed by forbidden magic, Lin is marked as an oathbreaker by the very laws and beliefs he upholds.

Lin soon finds his faith in the faction he’s lived his life upholding tested by the woman who saved him from the brink of death. With his fate hanging by a thread, he faces an impossible choice: stand by his new ally and seek vengeance for his murdered charge or betray her for amnesty from those who’d execute him.

Read: 100%

If I wrote a book, and it was my debut, and my name was G.J. Terral…. Well, then, I would be pretty darn proud. There are a lot of elements in Bloodwoven that appeal to a fantasy reader and personally, I enjoyed how the story as a whole held on firmly to the main character’s internal conflict.

It’s actually quite simple, what Bloodwoven is about. It’s about a soldier who suddenly finds one of his wards murdered, with the alleged murderer in his grasp. His task would be to deliver the alleged murderer to face justice. However, and this is where things get complicated pretty fast, should you always simply trust what your eyes see and what your superior tells you, or should you trust your gut and nagging feeling?

All is not as it seems, and Terral takes Bloodwoven to epic heights with some morally hardhitting questions. Whilst the characters debate over their beliefs, faith, and try to separate the right from wrong, there is no shortage of adventure, action and danger. The morally weighty questions we face throughout the book are just the thing for added depth.

Additionally, what makes this bookish treat stand slightly taller and straighter, is the magic system described. It’s a nice treat for any fantasy reader and in this case, not only does it come with some cool visuals, it delivers one of the biggest conflicts for our main character Lindel.

Yes, I did find the start a bit rocky, that’s likely on me, finding myself in a new world with new characters and what have you. But, the further along the story I got, the easier it went. Do I believe there’s room to improve? Sure. I think Terral’s writing and the setting of the building blocks of his story are solid – with some polishing and final touches, Terral’s books can go from diamond in the rough to, well, quality cut diamond.  

I commend G.J. Terral, he has something really solid happening here, and I believe that we are likely to see enjoyable titles from the author into the future.

Imago by M Zakharuk

Tresor Institute accepts only the worthy, and Ada Călinescu is anything but. Intractable, mannish, a child of convicted terrorists, she can at best hope to be overlooked. Yet somehow the Institute accepts her application for transfer. Her ticket to the polar town of Heilung, home of the Institute, arrives free of charge.

Her only chance to forge a brighter future.

Except Heilung welcomes Ada with news of a brutal murder. Militiamen stalk the town, keen to fill their arrest quotas—and Ada knows she could make an easy scapegoat. At every turn the bloody conspiracy follows her, from the halls of Tresor to the arms of a stranger she yearns to make hers. What starts as a dalliance risks putting Ada at odds with the Bureau itself.

And then expulsion will be the least of her concerns.

Read: 100%

Wow. Let me throw some keywords at you: gothic, academia, dystopian, love, family, horror, identity, power, conspiracy, violence.

We are introduced to Ada, the perfect main character for a dystopian setting. Intelligent, curious, unrelenting. We follow Ada to Tresor Institute, despite the potentially dangerous family ties, and it is in academia that the dark conspiracy hidden under society’s shining image unravels. A society where loyalty is questionable and lies are well hidden, and the reader doesn’t have to wait long to dive headfirst into dangerous action and violence.

The momentum of the story is relentless. It starts with a feeling of ever looming danger. It moves on, into a feeling of false sense of safety, to finish on a complete turmoil of emotions and metaphorical middle finger to the powers that be. Love will win. Individuality will prevail. The sum of all people is made up of single identities.

Imago started out really great – I absolutely adored the artistic, observant prose used to set the scene and create the feeling of atmosphere. It was cold, it was gloomy, it was melancholic. It did things to my soul that I very much enjoyed.  I wish the second half of the story would have kept a similar feel – though this is personal preference – but it made sense for things to come to a head and crescendo into chaos before conclusion. Imago has to be read. It’s difficult to put into words what it all could potentially be and mean to readers. It may shock with some horror elements, but it could also deliver a truly powerful metaphorical experience.

What does Zakharuk do well? I mean, all of it. The dark side of humanity. Love. Prose. People. Identity. The representation of accepting self and pushing back against the suffocating boundaries of society as well as the unethical over-reaching of the powers that be.

The Stranger of Ul Darak by S.C. Eston

Sometimes saving a world means rebelling against it.

In an age long forgotten, nineteen hundred and eighty-three Seals were forged—magical disks placed around the world to repel the cosmic chaos beyond.

In the centuries that followed, the Sentinels were tasked with protecting those Seals. For countless generations, they succeeded.

Until now.

At six years old, Shéana is recruited to the order of the Sentinels. A decade later, she displays powers unlike anything any Sentinel has shown before. When she feels the world stirring in pain, she knows the shield surrounding Tyronia has been breached. The great chain is broken. And the order of the Sentinels lies in discord.

In the isolated village of Valdur, young Arth struggles to belong. Spurned by the other children, he ventures south to the endless mountains, and the strange barrier marking the edge of existence. The Final Horizon. Here he witnesses the a man emerging from beyond the veil—where nothing can possibly exist. A man Arth knows he must protect.

Now the fate of two worlds rests on a knife’s edge. Only the courage of a village boy and the power of a fledgling Sentinel can save them.

But to save their worlds, they must reject all they’ve been taught, leaving behind everyone and everything they’ve ever known.

Read: 100%

Juuuust in case you skipped over the blurb of the book, I will draw your attention to it again. This is important. Read this:

“In an age long forgotten, nineteen hundred and eighty-three Seals were forged—magical disks placed around the world to repel the cosmic chaos beyond.

In the centuries that followed, the Sentinels were tasked with protecting those Seals. For countless generations, they succeeded.

Until now.”

Magical disks, cosmic chaos, Sentinels and now… all is going to pot. The premise, then, is simple: the world, as everyone knows it, is changing. It’s not a sudden, big explosion, that turns everything upside down, it seems to be a gradual, slow change manifesting through earthquakes, bringing devastation and destruction. A natural force, which a mere human is no opponent to. The focus of it all is a huge, looming mountain range. The people living on the one side of it believe there is nothing beyond it. This is the Final Horizon, guarded by a magical barrier, the place where world ends. And yet, a stranger appears through the gorge.

The Stranger of Ul Darak is *mind blown emoji*. It just feels like a whole Universe in between the covers of a book, or so it feels – that’s how vast is its plot.

This book is no lightweight! It covers everything. You will find out about the mountains, the Sentinels and how it works in their part of the world (their pecking order, their tasks, their magical abilities), you will find out about the village of Valdur (their daily life, their fears, concerns and relationships important to the story). Of course, the reader will meet the stranger and the young boy who takes him in.

The writing of this book is… just… natural. The story covers a lot but it never, not once, felt like a chore. I loved being immersed in this fantasy tale that had the huge task of introducing the things yet to come without info dumping.

The Stranger of Ul Darak is one of those fantasy tales that is as solid and as polished as it could possibly be. It feels like a finished product, ready for the bookshelves. It has a classical fantasy feel without graphic grimness. I mean, Eston manages to deliver a chonky, slow paced book, meant for enjoyment as the reader can get lost in the world and things yet to pass. And he does it whilst remaining accessible and suitable to even the younger reader. It has characters to whet the appetite across the board – your regular folk and the Sentinels, the kind people and those who act on their prejudice, and those who act on their fear. There is intrigue with the ancient magic, and mystery and impending sense of doom, without feeling oppressive. The seed for the sense of adventure and exploration is planted within this book and it is a story that you wish to keep reading.

SPFBO9 was easy on me. My semi-finalist choice last year was just a no-brainer. SPFBO10? Good grief, I’ve been agonising over the cuts and the semi-finalist for most of this Phase 1. It was a difficult choice, because most of my batch was made up of books which in their unique way gripped me and had something to truly love about them. If I could pick 4 semifinalists, I would. But this is not a children’s bike race where everyone gets a medal. Author or reader, know that these books are all worth your attention and please do check them out. But in the end, there can only be one, and the fight is not over yet anyway. This is where things really get competitive! The book I choose as my champion to go further in the competition is…

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The Stranger of Ul Darak by S.C. Eston

I appreciate when a book feels longer in page count than it actually is, and when that imagined length actually goes by faster than expected. Really, the book is like 400+ pages and I feel like I have read an 800-pager in the time it takes to read a 200-pager. Readers know what I am talking about. The epic in The Stranger of Ul Darak flows smoothly.

Our congratulations to S.C. Eston for becoming Queen’s Book Asylum’s third semi-finalist!

To keep up with our progress and the competition, please check out our SPFBO 10 page!