Welcome to the semi-finalist round of reviews for SFINCS 2! If you’re new to the competition, I’m just one judge representing team Swordsworn this year for the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship AKA SFINCS. You can learn more about SFINCS and our allocated books here.
I’ve already read through our allocation of twenty books for round one, and our team has chosen our five semi-finalists:
Congratulations to our semi-finalists and commiserations to those who didn’t make it through to the next stage. We had a really strong batch of novellas in our team, and I read each and every one to 100% completion. That we had so many good books just shows how fierce the competition can be, and the quality of indie novellas.
We now move onto the semi-finalist stage. In this stage, the semi-finalist books are shuffled around the different teams for us to read and then pick two finalists.
Here are the five semi-finalists allocated to my team, and my review for each novella. Again, we had such a strong batch and I thoroughly enjoyed reading each book:
Blackburn Station by Karen H. Lucia
Jane watched the destruction of her home. Her friends and family, gone. The community of Blackburn Station wiped from the galaxy. Trapped in the confines of her escape pod, she forced herself to take in the totality of the space station’s destruction time and again.
Blackburn Station had always operated outside of Union control. After the attack on the station, nobody but scavengers looking for a payout came to pick up the pieces. Returning to Blackburn is the last thing Jane should want to do, but it is all she can think about.
I’m always excited to try out sci-fi stories, as I don’t read enough sci-fi, and straight away this one gave me Mass Effect vibes. The story starts off powerfully as Jane is forced into space via an escape pod as her home, Blackburn Station, blows up, taking all her family and friends with it. She’s rescued and brought to another space station where the shock of what’s happened leaves her with PTSD and no idea where to go from there. That’s until she comes across a scavenging crew who intend to return to Blackburn Station and pick it apart for scrap. Joining their crew gives Jane a chance to retrieve any valuable data and find out exactly what happened.
As she and the crew head out for Blackburn Station, we learn more about Jane and exactly what the scientists were doing. Jane fits in quickly with the crew, forming a friendship, and a hinted sapphic romance, with one of them. There are themes here of grief and finding meaning after tragedy. I believe this story is a standalone, but the ending threw a lot of new information at the reader and left the conclusion open, that it felt a bit like a prequel to something much larger.
Magic in the Mudshow by Nick Wisseman
A famous circus. A sick elephant. A dead artist encased in wax.
What does it all mean? Neva, a bone-bending dancer, isn’t sure. But she needs to find out before she ends up in wax herself.
Magic in the Mud Show is a historical fantasy set in the Barnum & Bailey circus of 1892. The story serves as a prequel to Witch in the White City.
This is the second novella I’ve read in this contest featuring circus acts, which is a fun coincidence! And both feature a chilling mystery, which only goes to show that circuses are some of the scariest settings, in my opinion! This is the story of a travelling circus, focusing on the POV of Neva, a young dancer who is hoping to impress during the main act and land a staring role. She and her brother both serve the circus, alongside an interest cast of supporting characters. Neva is also hiding a unique ability that allows her to bend her bones, contorting into various physical positions. The story begins when a fight with a rival circus reveals one of their staff encased in a realistic wax suit, and a strange young runaway.
This story is a prequel, but I felt as though the world and characters were introduced well enough that I could keep track of what was going on. As the circus prepares for another performance, Neva keeps coming across strange goings on. She attempts to investigate while getting ready for her performance and looking after the new runaway. There are a lot of characters here, and not enough page time to get to know them all that well, but the action certainly painted a chaotic picture of circus life. The ending felt a little confusing, and ended a little too cleanly for me, but if you enjoy circus settings you may like this one!
Oksy, Come Home by Phil Williams
She came to make a difference, if only they’d let her…
Sniper Oksy hasn’t found her place in the army yet. She knows she’s good – maybe even the best – but Command won’t even give her a gun.
In fact, they mostly want to blame her for everything that goes wrong.
After the latest disaster behind enemy lines, she’s being reassigned to the harrowing trenches, under the threat of ogres, mages and tentacles. How can she convince them to let her fight? How can she prove she belongs here – and not in the miserable home she left behind?
Return to the thrilling, chilling world of the One War with this prequel novella, set before Oksy joined the Blood Scouts.
I’ve heard great things about Phil William’s Blood Scouts series of World World-inspired military fantasy featuring an all-female squad of characters. Alas, I hadn’t had time to dip my toes into that world yet… Until now! Oksy, Come Home is a prequel novella set within the Blood Scouts world and focusses on the character of Oksy. She’s a sniper with the urge to prove herself. However, her superiors don’t seem to like having a sole woman within their unit, thinking of her as a liability more than anything. Sexism eh! While she gets passed over to the trenches, to be discarded and forgotten, Oksy sees an opportunity to help protect her squad mates… if only she’d be given the chance.
I often struggle with prequel novellas because the author throws me into a world I don’t yet know, with characters I haven’t yet met, and expects me to understand and keep up. I’m pleased to say I had no such problems settling in here. Even though this is just a small glimpse into Oksy’s life, it ended on a satisfying note. Dipping into this world has piqued my interest further for the Blood Scouts!
Once We Flew by Nikky Lee
Four generations ago a generation ship crashed into the sands of Savene. Since then, its survivors have eked out an existence in the planet’s hostile desert. Yet, the tech is failing, the sands are encroaching, and people are dying.
Rescue is still generations away—if it comes at all.
But Marsa is a survivor.
And an outcast.
Infected with the Chrysalis—a disease that grants its carriers uncanny abilities—she keeps her distance from her dwindling community.
Until an old friend’s dying wish sends her and a young boy across Savene’s inhospitable sands in search of something Marsa had thought she’d long forgotten.
Hope.
The second sci-fi book in my semi-finalist batch, this one immediately gave me Star Wars vibes, as the story is set on a desert planet featuring a colony of humans who are stranded there and doing their best to make it work after leaving earth. Life hasn’t been easy, and some of the colonists have been infected by an odd disease that leaves crystal-like tumorous growths while also granting magical powers. The story is told from the POV of Marsa, and older woman with a crystal growth in her foot. She’s witnessed the colony fade over the years, as well as the ill health of her best friend to a similar crystal growth. All of this misery has left Marsa hardened and living a life of seclusion, until her best friend’s son comes to collect Marsa to pass on her dying wishes.
This final moment, and a magical vision, pushes Marsa into making a treacherous journey across the desert in search of promised hope for the colonists – either a way off the planet, or a better way to live. I’m a big fan of adventurous journeys in fiction, especially where there is a element of mystery around the world. Once We Flew definitely hit all those right notes for me with a character I instantly connected with and found endearing and a story that had some genuinely touching moments. I especially appreciated having an older woman as the protagonist. It’s not often they get to be a hero of an adventure or have their own heroic journey, and I also liked how she navigated her world with the aches and pains of age, as well as the chronic illness related to her foot.
Once We Flew is a wonderful standalone sci-fi story that gave me everything I wanted from a novella. I look forward to reading more from the author.
The Brightest Star by Andy Peloquin
The Brightest Star is a prequel novella to the Queen of Thieves series…
This is another prequel novella, this time looking into the life of a side character within the Queen of Thieves series. The blurb really gave me nothing to work with, meaning I was going in completely unaware of what to expect. This is the story of a young boy, Jarl, as he and his family struggle to survive in a poor part of town while his younger sister is sick and his father is being targeted by local mobsters over debts owed. The story is told from Jarl’s POV, and you can feel his helplessness on the page as life and society seem to be against him and his family. But as he helps his father work for a living, he develops an uncanny insight that just may well save his life.
I’m not sure if the Queen of Thieves series is considered grimdark fantasy, but this novella is grim indeed, as Jarl and his family suffer setbacks and can’t seem to catch a break. It’s an emotionally told story, and clearly acts as an origin story for Jarl that sets up his story for the main series. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my Oksy, Come Home review above, I struggle to connect with prequels that don’t act as a standalone, and that’s the case here. From from the start I’m thrown into the deep end with a list of named characters and places that left me feeling lost. I believe this prequel novella will probably work better for readers and fans of the series, and certainly the emotional punches will hurt more if you’re already familiar with the characters. Sadly, it didn’t quite work for me.
Our Chosen Finalists
As this review roundup has been posted a little late, I can reveal that our team has chosen two of these semi-finalists to go through to the finals! Without further ado, here are the two finalists from Team Swordsworn:
Congratulations to the finalists! Once the other team finalists have been allocated, we’ll move onto the final round and choose a winner for this year’s SFINCS!
