SPSFC 4 Semifinalists: Saint Elspeth and Yours Celestially

Nearly six months ago reading began in the fifth edition of the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC). Our team Ground Control to Major Tom had an allocation of 30 books and chose these six quarterfinalists:

• Drowning Earth by Sean Willson (Kindle)
• Enigma by Ryan Southwick (Kindle)
• Of Friction by S. J. Lee (Kindle)
• Our Lady of the Artilects by Andrew Gillsmith (Kindle)
• Saint Elspeth by Wick Welker (Kindle)
• Yours Celestially by Al Hess (Kindle)

For the semifinals, the scores were as close as any quarterfinals since the SPSFC began. Every one of the six books had at least two judges award it a 9 or a 10 (on a scale of 10!). The margin between the second and sixth place books was just 0.3. Every one of these novels is recommended -- use the links above to check them out.

In randomly selected order as affirmed by the accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the first of our two semifinalists is Saint Elspeth by Wick Welker.

The novel takes place after the arrival of aliens on Earth, which truth be told could have been handled better by all sides. There was global thermonuclear war and now that 25 years have passed (along with most of humanity), Dr. Elspeth Darrow is the last doctor at the last hospital in Neo San Francisco, serving 15,000 patients with no HMOs and almost no medicine. She must travel to the California danger zone on a salvage run for antibiotics and diuretics.

Judges liked the medical realism brought by Welker, who is an ICU doctor, and the protagonist Elspeth. One wrote, "Welker has something to say about humanity, the nature of first contact, the possibilities of a post-apocalyptic world, and the essential decency of people when you let them be decent."

The second semifinalist is Yours Celestially by Al Hess.

This is a novel about how death doesn't solve all your problems. Sasha bought his own resurrection, which cost a lot of money -- but as they say, you can't take it with you. He came back to all the old regrets: divorce, emotional estrangement from the daughter he never got to see enough. He also brought back a bug -- the uninvited one-way thoughts of Metatron, the AI guardian angel from Limbo who uploaded him into a new bod. Metatron is crushing hard for somebody and that's all the angel thinks about 24/7. This "secondhand love sickness" compels Sasha to take a job with the resurrection company so he can purloin Metatron's email address and unsubscribe his brain.

Variations of the word "charmed" were used by multiple judges assessing this book. One said, "Sasha bemoans a messed up life. When you see it though, he has a tribe that cares deeply what happens to him. I like his people. And I can't overstate the care with which Hess handled everyone's mess."

Congratulations to Wick Welker and Al Hess! Their books will be now read by two other judging teams over the next two months as SPSFC determines the books that will advance to the finals.

A point of clarification: PriceWaterhouseCoopers did not ensure these two books were announced at random. We apologize to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

SPSFC · SPSFC 4 ·

2025/03/31 · Link

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