SPSFC

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SPSFC 3 Quarterfinalist: Woe to the Victor

The judges on Team ScienceFiction.news have spent three months diving into the 25 books in our allocation for the third Self-Published Science Fiction Competition, some reading the first 15-20 percent and others reading every book in full. After that process we've selected our six quarterfinalists. The first of the quarterfinalists, which are being announced in no particular order, is Woe to the Victor by Nathan H. Green. The military science fiction novel begins on Earth's last day, when the ... (read more)

2023/12/04

My First 5 Votes in Stage One of SPSFC 3

We are currently in the first stage of the third Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC). Each team of judges is sampling all books in our team's allocation to decide which ones to read in full. For SPSFC 3, the ScienceFiction.news team was assigned 25 books. As one of the judges, I have been reading 15 percent of each book before making a Yes/No decision on whether to recommend it for a full read. My votes will be tallied along with the rest of the team's judges and the six highest ... (read more)

2023/11/14

The 25 Novels We've Received for SPSFC 3

Team ScienceFiction.news has received its allocation of 25 books for the first round of the third Self Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC). The seven judges on the team, who you'll be learning more about this week, will be reading the first 10 to 20 percent of each book to make a Yes/No recommendation on whether to read further. Some judges are planning to read all 25 in full! The six books that get the most Yes votes will be our quarterfinalists. Each of these will be read in its ... (read more)

2023/09/05

Those Left Behind: 'All of Us Go, or None of Us Go'

N.C. Scrimgeour's Those Left Behind did extremely well in the second Self-Published Science Fiction Contest (SPSFC), emerging as one of the seven finalists from a field of over two hundred novels. The book begins as a tale of humans desperate to flee their overpopulated, desiccated and dying planet New Pallas, sending a small crew of cybernetically enhanced humans called Exodans and a few humans with vital skills through an ancient and technologically enigmatic wormhole to a distant ... (read more)

2023/08/21

Announcing Our SPSFC Semifinalists

Each of the 10 teams judging the Self Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC) chooses three books from their allotments to be semifinalists. After two months of reading, the ScienceFiction.news team has selected these three books as tribute. They will be sent to the Capitol, where they will engage in ferocious battle against the 27 books chosen by other teams until only one book remains standing. Even a young adult book can be sent into battle in the SPSFC Games. Semifinalist 3 Dim Stars: ... (read more)

2023/02/02

Announcing Our SPSFC Quarterfinalists

You might wonder about the quality of novels submitted to a self-published competition open to the public. Are they a slush pile of unpolished prose where a story that's well-written and compelling is the exception, or do enough good books get entered in the contest that it makes choosing the best of them genuinely difficult? The ScienceFiction.news team of judges in the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition sampled 27 books in our allocation during the first round and had to pick the ... (read more)

2022/12/03

Hello Universe

This blog achieved liftoff on September 2, 2022. The purpose is to cover the self-publishing and indie scene in science fiction, with a particular focus on the Self Published Science Fiction Competition. The SPSFC has just begun its second contest after the first was won by Iron Truth, a vast and devastating epic of lost generation ships, mech-suit warrior cyborgs and cosmic horror by the Swedish author S. A. Tholin. I’m Rogers Cadenhead, a longtime science fiction fan and Hugo Awards voter ... (read more)

2022/09/02