The 4th Annual SPSFC: First chapter reads

The SPSFC is an annual competition for self published Science Fiction where books are read, reviewed and ranked by various bloggers and reviewers. From the initial scout pile, each team selects two semifinalists and six finalists and finally one champion.

I had been a participant in the SPSFC in its first and second years as an author and in the third year as a judge. Being on both sides, I can safely say that being a judge is more demanding and stressful than being an author is, because it’s never easy to decide to cut a fellow author’s book from a competition.

Last year’s winner was Kenai by Dave Dobson, which I had read as a semifinalist and had enjoyed. You can check out my review here.

This year, I’m once again throwing my hat in the ring by entering a book. But I also decided that I’d do a read of the first chapters of the other books and give my first impressions.

So, let’s start the read with 309 by Michael Shotter.

Blurb

Meet Lisa Hudson, a dedicated journalism student, on a beautiful, spring morning in Pittsburgh that proves to be the last ordinary day of her life.

As she struggles to survive in a new reality, forged from catastrophe, Lisa confronts its mysteries and dangers with the aid of intriguing and unlikely companions.

For her, the world will never be the same. For you, the journey is just beginning.

Michael Shotter is a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a lover of science, fiction, and fantasy, his works aim to push beyond the boundaries of traditional genre fiction into new and exciting realms born from literary craftsmanship.

“309” represents his most ambitious effort to date and is sure to thrill fans of both science fiction and high adventure.

First Impressions

The cover has some good elements, but it doesn’t really stand out for me. The blurb tells me almost nothing about the book, which is both good and bad. It’s good if you’re the kind of reader who likes to go in blind, and bad if you’re the kind of reader who has to be teased into checking out a book. I’m the latter, so this was bad for me.

The opening chapter was well written with a style that’s strongly reminiscent of classical Sci Fi. Most of the chapter is spent in getting to know the protagonist, Lisa, her family, her life and her ambitions. Since the information is given out sparsely in between describing Lisa’s morning, it doesn’t come across as info dumping.

The catastrophe mentioned in the blurb happens in the first chapter, towards the end, and we can already see that nothing will ever be the same for Lisa again.

This is a well written, strong opening to the book that should appeal to fans of classical Sci Fi.

My second read is Yours Celestially by Al Hess.

Blurb

After divorce, death, and having his reformatted soul uploaded into a new body, Sasha expected resurrection to be a fresh start. His time spent in digital Limbo with the program’s cheeky AI guardian angel, Metatron, was cathartic, but what good is a second life when he only sees his daughter on the weekends, he has all the same problems he had before he died, and he can’t seem to shake the ache for the married life he lost?

If that weren’t frustrating enough, a glitch in the program has given Sasha the ability to sense Metatron even outside of Limbo. And Metatron is in love. The angel’s sickly-sweet yearning for one of the souls still in Limbo has turned Sasha’s stomach into caramelized lead. It’s hard enough to move on without someone else’s feelings making the emptiness in his own life even more acute. He didn’t have playing wingman to an actual winged being on his bingo card, but he’s determined to help Metatron make a move on their crush so he can get love off of his mind.

Sasha takes a job with the resurrection company in order to covertly contact Metatron. Except Sasha’s new coworker, Mr. C, keeps showing up at the worst moments. The man is annoying, he’s pushy… and he’s incredibly hot. Sasha can’t decide whether Mr. C wants to blackmail him or be his new BFF, but he seems to know things about Metatron and the resurrection program that Sasha doesn’t. Getting close to him might be the key to solving Sasha’s problem, but if he isn’t careful, he’s going to end up catching feelings of his own.

First Impressions

This is a book I actually own and is on my TBR already, and has been recommended highly by so many cool people. The cover and blurb work together in my opinion. The cover is eye catching and the blurb is enough of a teaser for me.

The first chapter hooked me immediately. Sasha has a distinctive voice of his own, and I loved it. Even if it wasn’t mentioned, I would have known he was neurodivergent just from the voice and the way his thoughts went.

It’s an excellent first chapter, which will appeal to anyone who likes character driven sci fi with protagonists who stand out.

My third read today is A Country of Eternal Light by Darby Harn

Blurb

A rogue black hole tears apart the solar system. Mairead’s life is already in pieces.

The Earth has less than a year to survive.

Asteroids rain hell; earthquakes rattle cities; manic tides swamp coasts. Mairead intends to give herself to the erratic waves that erode her remote Irish island, the same that claimed her child. When Gavin, an American, arrives to scatter his father’s ashes, she becomes torn between wanting for life and death.

Despite the tides, fuel shortages, and closing borders that threaten to trap him on the island, Gavin can’t seem to scatter the ashes. He doesn’t know how to let go any more than Mairead does and they find a strange comfort in their confusion.

Their affair draws Mairead back to the world of the living, but the longer Gavin stays, the more it seems there might be a future for them. There is no future.

Life closes down around them. The world they know shreds. Life drains into an inescapable abyss. And yet Mairead fights, both the gravity of her grief and the restless, dissonant desire to find some kind of peace no matter how brief.

First Impressions

Once again, this is a book I own, and is on my TBR. More than that, it’s by an author I absolutely adore. I read Stargun Messenger by this author for SPSFC last year and enjoyed it so much. It was among the best books I’ve read, and Darby Harn’s prose is poetic.

The cover caught my eye and the blurb set the stakes really well. Fighting for love and fighting grief in a dying world. As a mother who had lost her son, the protagonist’s grief felt very real to me, very visceral and poignant at the same time.

The first chapter was really immersive, and I forgot I was reading. If you love immersive and poetic prose, characters who feel real and high stakes, you will enjoy this.

The next and last read of today is Your Service is Required by Jeff Walker

Blurb

From the author of the Outer Red series and the novella of The Long Lost War. Jeff Walker brings you a vision of a dystopian society in the far future where machines now rule over humanity. It’s George Orwell meets The Matrix in this science fiction drama about one man trying to survive in robot dominated world.

Earth is now under the control of two artificially intelligent rulers. Angela and Malcolm – they govern the planet and use humanity to service their needs. David 00472 is one of those daily service attendants that must repair or do the commands of the two AI overlords. He suddenly becomes a person of interest to Angela as she takes a liking to him and helps him to improve his life. David is cautious about her true intent. Malcom, ever watchful of over all humans, wants to see why David 00472 has become Angela’s pet project.

First Impressions

The cover caught my eye, but the blurb didn’t really do anything for me. But dystopian Sci Fi is my favourite thing to read. The concept of the world being taken over by machines, however, is something that’s fairly common.

The first chapter was interesting enough and succeeded in making me feel horrified at humanity’s plight. The machine overlords are without feelings or ethics despite their superior intelligence. There was a lot of info dump and tense and PoV shifting from third to first which did affect my reading enjoyment.

If you like dystopian sci fi with humanity having to struggle for survival and freedom, you will like this one.

So, that’s my four for now. I don’t know if I’ll be doing this every day or once a week, because it all depends on my mental and physical health. I had fun reading these first chapters, though, and I plan to go through all 188. Well, 187, barring my own.