SPFBO 7 Intro

Introduction

Hello there, and welcome to The Fantasy Inn!

The Inn is returning for another round of SPFBO, and this year we have a new-look team with some distinguished guest judges. If you haven’t stumbled across our website before, The Fantasy Inn formed back in 2017 when a group of friends met through the Reddit fantasy community and decided: why not make a blog? Since then, we’ve read quite a few books, written the occasional journalism, and even started a podcast.

SPFBO

If you haven’t heard of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off before, then I should clarify that it is an annual competition hosted by Mark Lawrence. To quote the mission of the contest:

The SPFBO exists to shine a light on self-published fantasy. It exists to find excellent books that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. It exists to help readers select, from the enormous range of options, books that have a better chance of entertaining them than a random choice, thereby increasing reader faith in finding a quality self-published read.

Each year, 300 books enter the contest. These are split between 10 blogs and read over the course of 11 months until a single winner remains. You can find more details on the official SPFBO page and track the progress of the contest here.

And now that we’ve got all the pleasantries out of the way, it’s time to introduce you to this year’s judges at the Inn! You might recognise some familiar faces…

Meet Our Judges

Adam

Hi there! My name’s Adam, and I’m a guest judge for the Inn this year. If you’ve come across me online, it’s probably under the alias of Doomscribe – and I have my own sff book review blog called Writings of a Doomscribe. I’ve been a big fan of SPFBO for the last couple of years, so when the Fantasy Inn was looking for guest judges, I knew I had to volunteer.

My reading tastes tend towards the epic fantasy side of the genre, but I’ll read and enjoy pretty much any speculative fiction if I can connect with the characters or the narrative voice. I’m always looking for something new and different, so any book that can pull that off while still being an entertaining read will do well with me!

Devin

Hi, I’m Devin Madson, veteran of two SPFBOs on the author side (the first where I got cut by fellow Inn judge, Jared in the first week!) and now guest judge for The Fantasy Inn. We Ride the Storm came equal second in SPFBO 4 and is now published by Orbit along with its sequel We Lie with Death, with We Cry for Blood due out this August. It’s an honour being back taking part in the competition on the judging side and I can’t wait to get reading.

While my books are all epic fantasy with complex grey characters, I have very eclectic reading taste, enjoying everything from mysteries to romance to dense non-fiction books on almost any subject. If it has strong prose and voice and solid characters then I’m here for it.

Hiu

Hullo. It’s me. I’m back! Apologies to those of you who have met me before, and commiserations to those of you who are stuck with me again. Last year’s judging was a bit of a bittersweet experience for me. I read a couple of books that I really enjoyed, but there were a few more that I really wish I’d liked a little more. The magic in this competition, for me, lies in being able to lift up books you love that deserve a larger platform. So I’m hoping I can find a few more to shout about this year!

My tastes are generally pretty broad. I can enjoy a wide range of subgenres, but I have a few strong dislikes. I tend not to enjoy books featuring snooty characters with no self-awareness, or “darker” books where the darkness doesn’t seem to serve much purpose. Having said that, a strong and colourful narrative voice stands a good chance of grabbing my attention.

Going by last year, my scores seem to be on the lower end in comparison to other judges, but I wouldn’t panic! Where possible, I like my reviews to focus on the aspects of the book I enjoyed, and I like to leave a little wiggle room at the top of my scoring range in case I find something I think is outstanding.

Jared

Hi, I’m Jared. Like Devin, I’m also a judging veteran of two SPFBOs (see Devin’s bio, above), judging for the (defunct) blog Pornokitsch. As a long-time reader of The Fantasy Inn, and with my own blog well and truly retired, I’m delighted to be a guest on such an incredible team. (Think ‘Gronk on the Bucs: out of retirement and shamelessly chasing glory.’)

I’ve edited a lot of books, and written over one million (!?) words of reviews, and I still couldn’t tell you what my taste is. One of my favourite quotes is from Ellery Sedgwick, who edited the Atlantic Monthly in the 1920s. He described his taste as “the whim of one individual.” That feels right to me: taste is, and should be, subjective and unpredictable. SPFBO is also unpredictable, and I look forward to whatever surprises this year’s books may bring.

Kop

Hi, I’m still Kop. I review books sometimes and will be doing so again for SPFBO 7. My reviews are only my opinions, but I will be honest about my thoughts. That said, I’m so looking forward to this year and can’t wait to dive into the books! Best of luck to everyone who’s entered.

Our Process

Detailed updates like who is reading which book, which books we’ve completed, etc. can be found on our SPFBO landing page (link to come soon). Below is the process we plan to follow for judging SPFBO 7, which may change slightly as we learn along the way and figure out how we can improve.

• Our 30 books are split evenly between us, with everyone assigned 6 books. Like last year, we have done a snake draft to pick our initial batches based on the blurbs, which was great fun and involved a lot of swearing at each other.
• Each judge will try every book assigned to them. We aren’t setting a minimum requirement but we will be giving every book a fair chance and finishing those we really enjoy.
• Books that have promise but end up not being a good fit for that particular judge will be offered to another judge. This means that there is a chance that a judge may pick a semi-finalist from outside of their initial batch (which happened last year)
• With the above point in mind, we will endeavor to explicitly mention when a book has been cut from the contest.
• Some books will get full reviews. Others will receive feedback in a group review with several other books.
• Each judge will select a semi-finalist, for a total of 5 semi-finalists from the Fantasy Inn. Our collective favourite from this 5 will be announced as our finalist going into Phase 2.