For the second year in a row, The Fantasy Inn is taking part in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO), hosted by Mark Lawrence. The Inn has been a supporter of self-published fantasy since we first started, and we’re excited to get stuck into our second year in the context with a new-look team! If you haven’t already, feel free to check out our intro post.
This page will act as a hub for all SPFBO 7 related content on the Inn. At a glance, you should be able to look at this page and see our most recent reviews, which books have been eliminated, and which have still to be read.
Stage 1 Books, by Judges
The books for each individual judge are listed in the below tables. Goodreads links have been included for each book, and reviews have been included for each book that has received one at this stage. Books will be marked based on their status in the competition at this stage (read, unread, eliminated, etc). Note that a ‘read’ status can also include those books which have been DNF’d, but not yet formally eliminated.
| Judge | Book | Author | Status | Review |
| Adam | Burning Promise | Thiago d’Evecque | Eliminated | link |
| Red Harvest Moon | Miles Hurt | Eliminated | link | |
| Spirit of Shadow | D.A. Holley | Eliminated | link | |
| Old Bolts | Edward Nile | Semifinalist | link | |
| Good Blood | Billy Ketch Allen | Eliminated | link | |
| The Rave | J.R. Traas | Eliminated | link |
| Judge | Book | Author | Status | Review |
| Devin | Lamp of Light | Alex H. Singh | Eliminated | link |
| Breakaway | Dezarea Dunn | Eliminated | link | |
| By The Skies | J.E. Mueller | Eliminated | link | |
| Prophecy of Convergence | Shannon Pemrick | Eliminated | link | |
| Reign & Ruin | J.D. Evans | Finalist | link | |
| Ascendant | Michael R. Miller | Eliminated | link |
| Judge | Book | Author | Status | Review |
| Hiu | Red Sky Blues | Matthew Davis | Eliminated | link |
| Coyote Chronicles | Anton Le Roy | Eliminated | link | |
| Kept From Cages | Phil Williams | Semifinalist | link | |
| Curse Painter | Jordan Rivet | Eliminated | link | |
| Willow of Ashes | Ellie Raine | Eliminated | link | |
| Blood of Ravens | Jen McIntosh | Eliminated | link |
| Judge | Book | Author | Status | Review |
| Jared | Last Sword in the West | Ryan Kirk | Eliminated | link |
| The Flame and the Blade | Meredith Hart | Semifinalist | link | |
| A Change of Blood | G.P. Gabriel | Eliminated | link | |
| Jewels of Smoky Quartz | Anat Eliraz | Eliminated | link | |
| Sword of the Moon King | Jason J. Nugent | Eliminated | link | |
| Dreams of the Dying | Nicolas Lietzau | Eliminated | link |
| Judge | Book | Author | Status | Review |
| Kop | Neglected Merge | Eve Koguce | Eliminated | link |
| Highland Court Chronicles | Farida Mestek | Eliminated | link | |
| Of Shade and Shadow: The Exiled | Rebecca & Niamh Schmid | Eliminated | link | |
| Finnian’s Fiddle | Chandler Groover | Eliminated | link | |
| Ringlander: The Path and the Way | Michael S. Jackson | Semifinalist | link | |
| Bloodlines | K.R. Gangi | Eliminated | link |
As a reminder, below is the process we plan to follow for judging SPFBO 7:
- Our 30 books are split evenly between us, with everyone assigned 6 books. Like last year, we did 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.
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