Welcome to my not-so-official SPFBO page!
To find out what we were up to in the finals, please check out my SPFBO 5 Finals page!
Let’s get the formalities out of the way first:
What is SPFBO?
The Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off is hosted by none other than Mark Lawrence, author of The Broken Empire, The Red Queen’s War, The Book of Ancestor and Impossible Times trilogies. 300 books compete, judged by 10 blogs and at the end of 10 long, bloody months 1 winner will emerge. You can find every detail on Mark’s SPFBO page along with the process of all 10 blogs in Phase 1.
What do I have to do with SPFBO?
I’m extremely excited that this year my blog is among the big 10! I had a great experience judging for Fantasy Book Review last year, but it’s nothing compared to the fact that I can lead my own team! Jen, Belle, Nick and me will be RockStarlit BookAsylum’s judging team and we are all very happy to be here. Find out more about us and how we are going to do things in this Introduction post!
What this page is for?
I’d like to keep track of our progress. You will find a list of the authors and books in our lot, the reviews we post, our reviews of other SPFBO entrants we read this year or will read in the coming months. I also plan to have a fun series, but more about that later. Basically, you’ll find every relevant link and information here 🙂
Our 30, RockStarlit BookAsylum’s process
As the other blogs, we got 30 books assigned as well. We have 4 judges, who each will pick 1 maybe 2 semi-finalists. We will try to write as many reviews as we can, probably mostly mini reviews and full reviews for our semi-finalists and later the finalists. In the spread sheet below you can follow our process. Those marked with purple got elected as semi finalists. Clicking on the rating you can read the review by the assigned judge. Where there is no rating, there is no review either.
Colour code
Black: still in the game
Red: eliminated
Turquoise: semi-finalist
Purple: finalist
Cím | Szerző | Jen | Belle | Timy | Nick | Average |
The Vessel of Ra | Catherine Shaff-Stump | 4.5 | 6* | 6* | 4* | 5.1 |
The Werewolf Whisperer | Camilla Ochlan, Bonita Gutierrez | 3.5 | 6.5 | 5.5* | 3.5* | 4.8 |
The Ashen Levels | C.F. Welburn | 4* | 3* | 4 | 4.3* | 3.8 |
The Procurement of Souls | Benjamin Hope | 4* | 3* | 5.5* | 4.5* | 4.3 |
Beneath Cruel Fathoms | Anela Deen | 4.5 | 7.5 | 7 | 3.9 | 5.7 |
A Sea of Broken Glass | Sonya M. Black | 7.3 | 8 | 8 | 7.8 | 7.8 |
The 19th Bladesman | S.J. Hartland | 4.5 | 6* | 5.5 | 7 | 5.8 |
Raven’s Edge: A Raven’s Tale Adventure | Alan Ratcliffe | 4* | 6* | 6* | 5* | 5.3 |
King of Ash and Bone | Melissa Wright | 6.8 | 4.5* | 3* | 4* | 4.6 |
The Bastard Prince | Patty Jansen | 4* | 6* | 6* | 4.5* | 5.1 |
After the Fall: Children of the Nephilim | Paul Freeman | 4.5 | 5.5* | 6.5 | 4.5* | 5.3 |
The Thorning Ceremony | Andrew Einspruch | 2* | 1* | 3* | 2.5* | 2.1 |
Feast of the Raven | Catherine Spader | 3.5 | 4* | 5 | 4.5* | 4.3 |
Dragon’s Price: Rise of the Horned Serpent part 1 | Daniel Potter | 6 | 4* | 5.5* | 4.5* | 5 |
Books & Bone | Victoria Corva | 7 | 7 | 8.5 | 7 | 7.4 |
Scions of Nexus | Gregory Mattix | 4* | 7.5* | 6.5 | 6.5 | 6.1 |
Taika Town | Drew Montgomery | 6 | 2* | 4.5 | 7.5 | 5.7 |
Jess Rising | D.M. Guay | 2.5* | 6* | 4* | 2.9* | 3.9 |
Belief’s Horizon | I.W. Ferguson | 6.7 | 6.5 | 7 | 6 | 6.6 |
Our Bloody Pearl | D.N. Bryn | 7 | 7.5 | 6.8 | 3 | 6.1 |
A Separation of Worlds | Rainbow Maccabre | 2* | 2* | 2* | 3* | 2.3 |
Hound of the Mountain | Stephan Morse | 6.8 | 2* | 5 | 5.5 | 4.8 |
Blood and Shadow | Robin Lythgoe | 4 | 7.5 | 6.5 | 4* | 5.5 |
When The Elves Are Gone | J.B. Allen | 4 | 4* | 6 | 6 | 5 |
Over a God’s Dead Body | Joel Spriggs | 2* | 2* | 2* | 2* | 2 |
By the Hand of Dragons: Rook | Alexzander Christion | 3.5* | 3* | 4 | 2* | 3.3 |
Strathen | Grey Melmoth | 2* | 3* | 2 | 3* | 2.5 |
Dragon Destiny | Helen B. Henderson | 3* | 5* | 6* | 2.7* | 4.2 |
Dragon’s Fury | Brian D. Meeks | 4* | 5.5* | 5.5 | 3* | 4.5 |
The Eldritch Heart | Matthew S. Cox | 3* | 4* | 4.5* | 4* | 3.9 |
*batch mini reviews
Our other SPFBO reviews
We originally used the 5 star rating system, so we kept those. The SPFBO competition uses the 10 star ratings, so if any of the books below will be a finalist, then we’ll convert our ratings accordingly. If you click on the rating, you’ll be able to read our reviews.
Title | Author | Judging Blog | Reviewer | Rating |
First of Shadows | Deck Matthews | The Fantasy Hive | Nick | 4/5 |
Never Die | Rob J. Hayes | Lynn’s Books | Nick Timy | 5/5 |
Blood of Heirs | Alicia Wanstall-Burke | Fantasy-Faction | Nick Timy | 5/5 |
Children of the Different | S.C. Flynn | Lynn’s Books | Nick | 4/5 |
Masters of Deception | JC Kang | The Qwillery | Jen | 4/5 |
Into the Labyrinth | John Bierce | Fantasy Book Critic | Jen | 3/5 |
The Sword of Kaigen | ML Wang | Kitty G | Jen | 5/5 |
Sweetblade | Carol A Park | Superstardrifter | Jen | 4.5/5 |
The City Screams | Phil Williams | Fantasy Book Critic | Jen | 5/5 |
The Lore of Prometheus | Graham Austin-King | Lynn’s Books | Timy | 5/5 |
The Prince of Cats | Daniel E. Olesen | Lynn’s Books | Timy | 4.5/5 |
From the Shadows of the Owl Queen’s Court | Benedict Patrick | Lynn’s Books | Timy | 4.5/5 |
Chasing Graves | Ben Galley | Kitty G | Timy | 4/5 |
Tales from the Asylum
This is a new feature I created for SPFBO. I asked the authors to either create or use their own main characters, put them into an asylum room, give a few details and write a scene about them dealing with the situation.
Camilla Ochlan, Bonita Gutierrez
Progess Update
Nick’s next to last batch of mini reviews
The First Reaping – We say goodbye to 6 books
Jen and Timy’s Second Round of DNFs
Nick’s last batch of mini reviews and the last 8 standing
The Second Reaping – We say goodbye to 5 books
The Third Reaping – We say goodbye to 5 books
The Third Round of DNFs by Timy
Belle’s second round of mini reviews
We announced our first semi-finalist, Our Bloody Pearl by D. N. Bryn!
Another 4 mini reviews from Belle
Another round of mini reviews from Belle
We announced our second semi-finalist, Books and Bone by Victoria Corva!
We announced our third semi-finalist, A Sea of Broken Glass by Sonya M. Black!
And some more mini reviews from Belle
We announced our fourth semi-finalist, Beneath Cruel Fathoms by Anela Deen!
The Last Reaping – We say goodbye to the last 5 books
Finalist Announcement from Team RockStarlit BookAsylum!
The Final Round of DNFs by Jen
The last round of mini reviews from Belle
To find out what we were up to in the finals, please check out my SPFBO 5 Finals page!
35 Comments