There are two enormous book sales going on right now, and my Mennik Thorn novels, SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD, NECTAR FOR THE GOD, and STRANGE CARGO, are part of both sales. You can get all three books for 99p/99c each in the UK and US. (Sorry, Amazon doesn’t allow the same sale reductions outside those territories.)
First up is the SPFBO finalist sale. SPFBO is the most reputable and high profile contest for indie fantasy books, and over 40 finalists from all years, including most of this year’s finalists, are in the sale.
As I’ve mentioned before (and, hell, will probably mention again, because cool things are cool), SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD is a finalist for the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) this year. There are ten books in the finals, and they are a pretty diverse bunch. There’s probably something there for everyone. Here’s a nice flowchart graphic to help you pick which one to read!
I have been negligent in failing to mention here in this blog that my fantasy novel, SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD, reached the finals of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) competition. The competition started with 300 self-published fantasy novels and is now down to the best 10 for the finals.
The winner won’t be announced until next year, but I am really excited and happy to have reached the finals.
Here’s what the judges from Fantasy Faction said about SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD:
“Our judges were completely hooked by this page-turner of a mystery, set in a well-drawn world with fully fleshed characters. The characters especially won rave reviews. Supporting characters captured our affection; Mennik’s snarky humor and good heart won us over completely. It’s also a polished, well-balanced read, with plenty of humor to leaven the grisly murders, and all the tension and surprises one could wish for in a mystery. All in all, we loved rooting for Mennik through each twist and turn.”
Some absolutely amazing books have come out of the finals of this competition over the last five years, and whatever place SHADOW OF A DEAD GOD ends up taking, I am ecstatic to have got this far. Thanks are due to Mark Lawrence (the organiser and founder of the competition) and all the blogs and reviewers that judge it.
I’m going to post a longer discussion of this on my newsletter, but in the meantime:
A Wind from the Wilderness, at the time of writing this review, is a semi-finalist in the current SPFBO (Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off), a competition to find the best self-published fantasy book, and it deserves its place.
This is a historical fantasy, mostly set during the first crusade as a Frankish and Greek army makes its way towards Jerusalem. It focuses mainly on three characters, A Syrian boy, Lukas, a Turkish girl, Ayla, and a Frankish count, Saint-Gilles. Lukas is a refugee in time, cast forward by dark magic four hundred and some years from his own time and caught up in the crusade. Ayla is looking for revenge against the Watchers, a group who killed her father.
The book follows their journey.
The book that this most reminded me of was A Game of Thrones (not surprising, perhaps, with A Game of Thrones being strongly influenced by history and historical fiction itself), not in the specific events but in the style of story. We have that same mixture of the young people (Lukas and Ayla) trying to get home and get revenge, joined with the battles and political scheming, mostly shown through Saint-Gilles’ point of view. The writing is vivid and lush. I don’t know much about the period, but the author convinced me that she did, and the details are immersive.
Oddly, as a fantasy fan, the part of the story that interested me least was the magic. It lacked the believability and the richness of the historical parts of the book, and sometimes I wished this was a straight historical novel. I had a few minor nitpicks. Although the writing was very good, there were a couple of places where Lukas spent a lot of time swallowing and gulping, and there were a few repeated words and phrases. All of this would be easy to fix in another copyedit, but it didn’t distract from my enjoyment. There were also a couple of chapters from other points of view that didn’t really add anything for me.
This is an extremely strong book. If you like historical fantasy or just historical fiction, I highly recommend this. Beware, though, if you can’t cope with harm to children, because there is one incident that may distress you, but I don’t want to give spoilers.
I’m looking forward to the sequels, which I understand will follow other members of Lukas’s family who have also been lost in other time periods.
Those of you who take an interest in self-published fantasy novels might well be aware of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, a competition to find the best self-published fantasy novels. It’s now in its sixth year, and every year it highlights the cream of self-published fantasy. It’s run by author Mark Lawrence in association with ten book review blogs, and it winnows down 300 entries to 10 finalists and, eventually, one winner.
If you don’t follow self-published novels, you’re probably in the same place as I was a few years ago, knowing that there must be some great self-published novels out there, maybe even having come across a few through recommendations, but not knowing how to find the best ones from among the, honestly, crap.
Self-publishing has come on a lot in the last five or so years. It has become more professional and higher quality, and the best self-published books are every bit as good as best traditionally-published books. But the problem of finding those books has remained the same. Until I came across this competition, I had concluded that I just wasn’t going to reliably find good self-published books.
Here are some of the great books that I’ve discovered from finalists in the SPFBO competition:
Check some of them out. They really are worth your time. And there are many others. Here’s the full list of finalists and winners (scroll down that page). I’ve got plenty on my TBR, just waiting for me to get them, books like Alicia Wanstall-Burke’s Blood of Heirs, Virginia McClain’s Blade’s Edge, and Barbara Kloss’s Gods of Men.
When I decided to self-publish Shadow of a Dead God, the sixth edition of this competition was just about to start, so I entered. I think the competition does a great job at finding fantastic books. I have no idea if I’ll make it to the finals — undoubtedly ever year some great books don’t even get that far. Arguably the most egregious example is the magnificent Senlin Ascends, by Josiah Bancroft which fell at the first round and which I think many people since have agreed is an exceptionally good book. But there are always more than 10 deserving books each year, and not every one of them can be a finalist. Even if my book falls by the wayside early on, I am really enjoying being part of the community of writers and judges taking part in this. Even this early on in this year’s competition, I’ve come across some really good books.
You can follow along in the competition in the Facebook group, or if you don’t like Facebook, you can keep an eye on the progress of entries on the official competition webpage.
