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Saturday, November 12, 2016

SPFBO 2016 Final Round Update & some thoughts about SPFBO 2016 (by Mihir Wanchoo)


With my selection of The Moonlight War and as of November 1st, we have the final tally of books that have reached the 2016 SPFBO Final Round. Many congratulations to all the ten authors and to Mark Lawrence for running this contest (& making this awesome cover montage).

Here are all the ten finalists (in alphabetical order) listed with the review and the blogger who choose them:

1) Assassin’s Charge by Claire Frank – Chosen by Mogsy (The Bibliosanctum review)
2) Fionn by Brian O’Sullivan – Chosen by Sarah (Bookworm Blues review)
3) Grey Bastards by Jonathan French – Chosen by Ria (Bibliotropic review)
4) Larcout by K. A. Krantz – Chosen by Vanessa (Elitist Book Review)
5) Outpost by F. T. McKinstry – Chosen by Lynn (Lynn's book blog review)
6) Paternus by Dyrk Ashton – Chosen by FF team (Fantasy Faction review)
7) Path Of Flames by Phil Tucker – Chosen by Jared (Pornokitsch review)
8) The Moonlight War by S.K.S. Perry – Chosen by me (Fantasy Book Critic review)
9) The Music Box Girl by K. A. Stewart – Chosen by Melanie, Tracy & Qwill (The Qwillery review)
10) The Shadow Soul by Kaitlyn Davis - Chosen by Fantasy Lit team (Fantasy Literature review)

You can check out all the scores and reviews that each book gets over at Mark’s blog wherein he’s keeping track. All of us bloggers have 6 months to review as many books (if not all) and rate them to select one winner.

As for me, while I’ll be doing my best to do a proper review for each book. I’m also hoping to interview all ten authors so that the readers can get to know them better. Lastly with so many intriguing books, it will be fun to see which book ends up as the winner. All the very best to all ten authors and I can't wait to read all of your books.


With the end of the first round of SPFBO 2016, I have to say this time around, we had an influx of books with amazing cover art. Mark also had a contest wherein each blogger choose their 3 top choices within their lot and then we all got to vote on the top 3 among those 30 chosen books.  Check out the winners based on our votes as well as by votes from the general public.

Amidst the fantastic covers such A Touch Of Iron (Timandra Whitecastle), The Dragon's Blade (Michael R. Miller) & They Mostly Come Out At Night (Benedict Patrick). There were also other beauties such as:
Shadows Bear No Names by Oganalp Canatan
- It Takes A Thief To Catch A  Sunrise by Rob J. Hayes
- Masque by W. R. Gringell
- Path Of Flames by Phil Tucker
- Assassin's Charge by Claire Davis
- Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft

There were some books that weren't in my lot and they caught my fancy based on their reviews and blurb matter. So I'll be hoping to contact the authors and try to review them myself.

Overall I'm very glad to see SPFBO's growth and I've high hopes for the future ahead. Maybe someday down the line, we can even have an SPFBO anthology.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What does the acronym SPFBO stand for? Just curious

The Reader said...

Hi Anon.

SPFBO is Self Published Fantasy Blog-Off, it's a competition for self published books courtesy of Mark Lawrence. Heres where you can read about the 2016 edition and with links to the 2015 one as well.

Mihir

Kat Hooper said...

Just to let you guys know, four of us at Fantasy Literature read The Shadow Soul and it just barely won out over the other entries we had. (Tadiana wrote the review.)

The Reader said...


Hi Kat, thanks for the update. I'll change my post accordingly. Quick question though, what lead to the choice being so hard?

Mihir

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