Final SPSFC2 Slushpile Thoughts!

Yay I made it through the slush pile 😅 and I believe the rest of the team has too! That said, do look for quarterfinalist updates soon (link at the bottom of this post to the team page!)

That said, here are the final 7 books in the allocation and my own personal thoughts and votes on them!  It’s been an adventure reading 20% of 28 books, and great to be exposed to so many sci-fi authors I’ve never heard of before.

As a general note, I voted yes to keep reading on 8 out of 28 of the books total.  I do plan on reading and reviewing those books, even if they don’t make it to the quarterfinalist round.   I wish everyone’s books good luck moving forward and without further jabbering, here are my first impressions on the last of our books!

(P.s. you can search my prior SPSFC2 posts here using SPSFC2 in the search bar at the top of the page)

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22) Rim City Blues by Elliot Scott is a “sci-fi noir mystery adventure” and definitely has some high points. It’s fast paced, has hilarious chapter titles, is well edited, and the synopses for future books sound promising.  It’s weird and up my alley although I just did not enjoy it on a personal level and couldn’t get into the mystery or the story or the characters so far.  I think fans of the genre should check it out but for me,

Voting: no

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23) Rise of Ahrik by Nathan W. Toronto has an interesting premise and a promise for lots of military action.  I had a hard time becoming engaged with the narrative and writing though and am

voting: no

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24) Road to Juneau by Liam Quane is a YA futuristic novel that takes place after a fictional third world war.  I’m going to recommend it for YA sci-fi fans but had a hard time getting invested in this one.  I think the language put me off more than anything else but I didn’t find much that made me want to keep reading 😭

Voting: no

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25) Sugar Plum Tea by Sinnamon Carnelian is a cute story about warring alien races, one eventually occupying earth to mutual benefit, and a little girl left in the rubble.  I was enjoying reading it until it went from a cute found family story to more romance focused, and at that point it came to light that for a mostly character driven story, I didn’t understand the main character  😅 It was also a bit hard to follow along at times.  I think clean romance readers may enjoy this one but I’m going to have to vote no.  That said though, sign me up for a tall, monogamous, pretty alien boy any day

Voting: no

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26) Trials on the Hard Way Home by Lilith Frost isn’t something I would pick up based off the description most likely, but found it extremely readable.  There’s some mental health things going on and complicated relationships as a pair of husbands flee a planet for either a real or imagined reason, and that’s all part of the mystery.  There’s a lot of mystery and a bit of sci-fi and I’m curious enough to keep reading

Vote: yes

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27) Unknown Horizons by Casey White starts out with an alien abduction and looks like it’s heading towards space opera territory by the end of the first 125 pages or so.  I like the concept and action but am a little iffy on continuing, just based on how long it was taking things to develop and start happening.  I think the space opera audience should check this one out because it could be a case of ‘it’s not you it’s me’, but ultimately I am going to say no.

I did vote this book for my favorite cover in our group though, isn’t it lovely!

Vote: no

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8) Webley and the World Machine wraps up my initial round of reading! It’s got a fun concept for a book that is geared towards young adults but I was not a huge fan of the characters at all.  I’m also a big plot reader and just kind of overally was not interested in the opening chapters.  There are lots of good reviews for this one though so if you like humor check it out!

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Well – that’s it from me on the slush pile books! I believe we have 7 quarterfinalists selected that will be announced this week, so I’ll hopefully be reading roughly one of those per week between now and the end of January! Keep an eye out on https://thespsfc.org/team-3-at-boundarys-edge/ for the books we have decided to read in full!