SPFBO 5 Phase 1

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 3/5
Blood of Heirs	Alicia Wanstall-Burke	Fantasy-Faction	Nick Timy	5/5 4/5
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.

Catherine Schaff-Stump

Camilla Ochlan, Bonita Gutierrez

Victoria Corva