SPFNO Complete
The Full List of SPFNO Reads
Was I pickier this year? Yes, and apparently no. I was dropping books for literally anything. Yet… out of around 299 first chapters last year, I picked 24 books. Out of 123 this year, I picked 17 books and recommended 22. So I had a very similar acceptance rate to last year despite that I was more selective. If it seems like I’m harsh, it’s just cause I was being a grumpy shopper trying my darndest to not spend more time/money than I’ve got.
For those who weren’t here for the start of this season’s first chapter culling, SPFNO is all the books that were victims of 2024 SPFBO’s random selection culling. I cannot host a whole contest by my lonesome like Mr. Lawrence can, but I figured that I could at least open every book, read the first chapter, and give every book a shot. For recs and adds and only, go here.
1 REC - Dark Town by Palmer Pickering. This is a LitRPG book, so not exactly my jam. But it was fun and well written. A teenage girl and a hobgoblin are tending a bar in a tavern, but it’s clear that they will soon be going on an adventure. This one had a lot of character work and descriptive writing with atmosphere. I feel like the humor to action balance in this is perfect so far, and it’ll be good fun for fans of LitRPG! this is number 10 on the SPFNO spreadsheet.
2 PASS - Alright, this one was not bad, but I am not going to recommend it. Aside from one consistent dialogue grammar mistake (Tag vs Beat grammar), it didn’t have poor grammar. However, overall, the writing was very formulaic. Almost every sentence in the entire chapter followed the same pattern, which made it drone. The plot seemed a bit over the top as well.
3 PASS - This opened with a 25-line paragraph that took up the first page and kept going to the second. I cannot stress this enough—it is hard for many folks with ADHD to read this. The subsequent paragraphs of the chapter were smaller, but I know from experience that if an author does something on the first page, like as not, they do it later too. Also, there’s no ebook, and I am not currently taking on paperbacks due to the upcoming move and my inability to sit down with a print copy.
4 PASS – Another one with formulaic writing. POV distance issues. And again, dialogue grammar is an issue here. “Say the dialogue, and if you’re going to tag it, use a comma,” she said. “But if you’re going to use a beat, use a period.” Like that.
5 REC – This was… delightful? A Coup of Tea by Casey L Blair, a cozy fantasy with whimsical writing. It was first person present tense, which I am not a fan of and took a minute to get used to, but it was well written first person present.
6 PASS - I really really wanted to like this one because it involves some mythology that I love. However, the sequence of actions, character motivations, and happenings really didn't make sense. This could have benefited from more beta readers/editing. Imagine you see a dead body when you get home, someone upstairs is screaming, and then you see a housecat you don't recognize. Do you assume the person upstairs is screaming about the housecat and laugh it off? When you... just saw a dead body? That's what this chapter read like.
7 PASS – I am doing my best here, but calling one single place a marsh, bog, and swamp all on the same page... These are three completely different things. Just because you are writing SFF, does not mean you should make everything up. You should still do basic research on the words you’re using. Please, for the love of swamps.
8 TBRADD - Fletcher M R's The Storm Beneath The World is my first SPFNO add. I do love a creature feature, and it seems that this might be entirely humanless, which is always fun. Not really getting a good feel for the tone yet, but I feel like the worldbuilding is plenty cool enough to sustain me even if it falls outside my usual subgenres. The writing was also clean and didn't give me anything to complain about.
9 REC – The Shattered Arch by M.H. Woodscourt opened with a bit of backstory followed by a dramatic inciting incident. I got big noblebright, high fantasy, and coming-of-age vibes, which is why I’m not adding it, but for fans of heroes, maybe this one’s for you! The MC seems to be NA aged if I'm to guess, and overall it seemed like a high stakes story with some chosen one thrown in for good measure.
10 PASS – dialogue grammar again, several typos, and generally some dialogue that I found unnatural and forced. Not quite “as you know Bob” dialogue, but something like that.
11 REC – Tracker by Adrianne Lemke has a bit of exposition in the opening chapter, but it was framed well for the situation that the character was in, so I still found it engaging. Seems like a contemporary urban fantasy with multiple PoVs (I took a peek at the second chapter) with some good atmosphere to it and no complaints from me with grammar or style! I think a lot of folks will enjoy this one.
12 PASS – Ah, how I missed these flowery prologues that don’t make sense to me! At least this one was rather short though. Then to the chapter, where there’s an excess of adverbs, and a lot of strange word choices and dialogue choices...
13 REC – The Switchboard by Christina Glover is going to make some folks happy. Very cool magic system, very clean writing, and based on the blurb, this is a romantic action/adventure. From the first chapter, I’d say this is heavily character driven with a strong focus on character relationships of various sorts. That said, it doesn’t shirk on worldbuilding or atmosphere. This is contemporary urban, but with a lot more worldbuilding than your average novel from that subgenre.
14 REC – The Masked Crows by Chad Retterath is a Gaslamp urban fantasy with a lot of worldbuilding. Well written and features a street kid in a world where everyone has magic, each ability unique. I see a lot of potential with this sort of “unlimited system” and the possibilities that could come from it. A lot of grimy atmosphere and some fun characters thus far.
15 PASS – A lot of words that sound good but really don’t say anything meaningful + a very woe-is-me MC who’s sort of over-the-top dark and mysterious + some infodumping that failed to hold my attention.
16 PASS – Things happened, seemingly out of nowhere, and the PoV character gave them no thought at all. I like to be a little lost in first chapters, but if the street gets bombed when the MC is out on their morning jog, I feel like you have to say… something… anything. Like acknowledge that it just happened, theorize who might have bombed you, something. Like, “Those darned Pyrats!” would have been sufficient. But there was nothing at all to acknowledge the event.
17 REC - The Thirteenth Prince by Joel Glover seems like a dark political fantasy? The first chapter had a touch of humor and was from the PoV of someone doing a rather menial office job but in a medievalish setting. The modern British cursing (lots of fucking and wanker) might not be for everyone, and the prose is a touch long-winded, but overall well written and I feel like it’ll be entertaining to folks who like the genre
18 PASS – Kinda sad about this one. I’ll first say that formatting was an issue here. The paragraph indents were extra small (two spaces, not a real indent), which made this hard to follow for me. I legitimately got a headache trying to read. Aside from that, the prose was just more clunky than I’d’ve liked. Some repetition, a lot of excess. The content of the chapter was good, but it was buried.
19 REC – Don’t Worry Wendy by Mellissa Plunkett is a Peter Pan story of some sort, when they’re older, with a bit of romance. I’m not the audience for this but I’ve got no complaints with the writing in the first chapter and it seems interesting.
20 TBRADD – Born in Fury by Mosha Winters goes to the TBR. I’m not a huge fan of dragons, and there’s a dragon on the cover, so I’m adding this with reservations. BUT, I loved this opening chapter. I’ve got a soft spot for stories about nomads. And this definitely falls into dark and gritty fantasy. Well written, no complaints, horribly good.
21 PASS – This was a bit chaotic, not plot-wise, but with how it was written. Some internal monologue was italicized, some was just marked with “he/she thought” even though it was from the same character. And there were a couple of things that didn’t make logical sense.
22 PASS – More dialogue grammar issues. But also, sentences that don’t make sense. The ones that do make sense are backstory given with no narrative framing. The scene starts with the characters doing activity A, then abruptly, without activity A ending, they are doing activity B—like they got teleported.
23 PASS – I actually read four full chapters of this (they were short) as I didn’t want to dismiss it to hastily based on a couple of errors and a gut-sensation. However, the gut sensation proved to be right. This was a lot of summaries and not a lot of scene. “For the next two days I did this list of things,” “All my life I had done these things, but now I was doing these other things,” “For the next month, I did this.” There were very brief scenes that preceded or followed these summaries.
24 PASS – Dialogue grammar again. I won’t pass solely based on incorrect dialogue grammar though. My favorite book from last year’s culling also wasn’t fully together with dialogue grammar. However, this also had another problem—not making sense. Changed example:
You walk into the room to see your roommate. The dining room table has been destroyed and they have wounds on their face. But there is also vomit on the floor. Obviously, at this point, you say, “oh no, you got sick, how terrible. I’ll get you some flu meds.” As if the vomit is the only sign that something is amiss.
25 TBRADD – Harbinger of Justice by Andrew Watson had a thrilling and dark prologue followed by an intriguing and fun first chapter. Seeing some great editing, it was no surprise to find Sarah Chorn was responsible. I’ve never caught a whiff of this book or author before, so this one took me by surprise. My only concern adding this, is that I did skim forward and see that it’s multi-pov of the sort where the pov characters are not all immediately connected (Game of Thrones, Shadow of the Gods), and that’s often a struggle for me. Hopefully they merge as the plot goes on though. We’ll see!
26 TBRADD – Grave Covenant by Tobias Youngblood. My reaction to the first line was “Dear me, I don’t think this is going to work out. This’ll be a quick pass I’m sure.” My reaction to the second line was some hearty chuckling. This whole thing was a big roller coaster of entertaining and unexpected turns. Plus, there’s a raccoon, sort of, and that always vibes with me. The fact that an urban fantasy managed to win me over so surely when I’m in my current state of sleep-deprived moodiness definitely speaks well of the writing.
27 REC – Lydia V. Russell's Darling There Are Wolves in the Woods is a fae book, modern times, well written, and according to the reviews dives into romance (which I think the writing supports). I think this’ll be a hit with that crowd overall. No complaints about the writing, and I found the prologue intriguing. The first chapter was in the human modern world, so was less fun for me, but was still well written. I’ve never been much for fae or romance, but I hope this one finds its readers!
28 PASS – I have been sat here for a good while trying to decide if it’s me and my mood or this book that’s the issue. And I think the answer is both and neither. The book contains a lot of things that I personally just don’t like: multiple pre-chapter 1 sections, a boatload of questions, a conversational tone, content that never vibes well with me. Maybe this writing style is for others, maybe it’s not, it’s so far out of my wheelhouse that I couldn’t say.
29 REC – Towers of Nine by Alyssa Louttit seems to a YA Coming of Age magic school book. The opening chapter sets up the premise well and hints at some of the conflicts that might be coming up, along with giving some insight into some of the magic in the world. The writing is good and efficient with minimal complaints from me. I think a lot of folks will enjoy this and it has an audiobook.
30 PASS – Sometimes you’re trying to create this beautiful mysterious image, and you’re putting good elements together, but those good elements do not actually fit. Complete darkness is incompatible with shadows and visuals and walking around. There were other small things.
31 PASS – I don’t believe “said” is invisible. Neither do I believe you should avoid it at all costs, in favor of any other possible tag. I have never seen such an assortment of tags. Also, the prologue. It was a lot. A very prologuey prologue. I have nothing profound or articulate to say about this. I am just not a prologue person. A short one I can handle. Some I find interesting. This one seems… useful. I hate useful prologues. They’re like college. I hated college.
32 PASS – The AI cover was the first sign I was in for a treat. Followed by one of the funnier homophone mix-ups I’ve ever seen, which at least assures me the book wasn’t written entirely by AI. As someone who homophone fumbles all the time, I can’t really fault them, but beta readers… editors… someone should have picked up on *this* one. I have other complaints, but this is the second book IN A ROW with a 14-page prologue, and I feel that random selection has decided to punish me.
33 PASS – The first person PoV was a bit rough for me. I read three chapters (rather short) to try and get a sense of things. I know what’s happening, sure, but this is not very fleshed out. The characters are sort of sitting on the surface of the story, getting teleported around, and the content generally makes me uncomfortable. This is definitely dark and gritty, but not in the way I enjoy. Just in the way that makes me uncomfortable.
34 TBRADD – City of Onyx by Phil Parker opened with a rather funny first chapter. I’m not sure me and this book will be a good fit, but I’m entertained enough to find out. A guy smitten with a prostitute accidentally drinks some poison. I don’t know what else to say about it except that I had fun.
35 PASS – Another AI cover. I read the prologue and first chapter, and I did not find it worth recommending.
36 PASS - Phenomenal worldbuilding and an intriguing plot to start. I really really wanted to enjoy this one. I read two chapters in the hopes that things would smooth out, but this was death by little cuts for me, and that could be in part personal preference. I really felt there was too much needless past perfect, too many formulaic sentences, and a bit too much repetition. Then in chapter two there were some dialogue grammar issues. I suspect this is an amazing story, and I wish it had a bit more editing.
37 PASS - This opened with a lot of exposition, which was made a bit more difficult to get through due to being in the first pov and present tense. I think it is much easier to "get away with" a bit of exposition in past, but this felt like the character was literally explaining the world to me and that was too much. Also worth noting that this prologue was formatted in such a way that it was unreadable to me. Miniscenes. Whiplash. This was just not for me.
38 PASS - Very long, needlessly complicated sentences. An example with the same structure: "The really wonderful thing about this specific block of kitchen knives compared to other kitchen knives was that each one had been sharpened enough that Anna, being proficient in cutting all sorts of stuff and a regular heartless murderer, was quite pleased with their sharpness." This is a few words short of the full word count of the actual sentence, but you get the picture. Every other sentence construction was needlessly complex.
39 PASS - The descriptions were very flowery and for reasons I can't quite pinpoint, just felt empty to me. I just felt nothing the whole time I was reading. Until I felt something, which was *uncomfortable.* First it was the breasts. Then it was the weight. Idk. Even just a short mention of a teen girl's breasts in the first chapter is enough to make me put a book down. Because why? But also, do you really need to talk about how fat some random side character is five times? Maybe just chill out with describing people's bodies.
40 PASS - This one isn't bad, but there are some chonky 10-14 sentence paragraphs and a lot of exposition in the first chapter. It's one of those ones where you wonder if it'll get less expositiony as it goes on. The prologue was not for me.
41 REC - Soul Cage by L.R. Schulz had some great worldbuilding and an interesting magic system to go with it. Well written and generally fast, efficient prose. The only reason I'm not picking it up myself is because I'm just not vibing with the MC, but I suspect others will. The prologue was... long. But it was a relevant scene, not some big info dump, so that was a plus. And it was the MC's pov, not some dead person we'll never see again, so another plus.
42 PASS - Huge paragraphs. Some dialogue grammar errors. Over the top characters. And the final reason I'm not going to rec this is the price of the ebook
43 TBRADD, first one after my long break. This was the sort where I was already climbing on the boat of commitment after the first line. Scott Palmer’s A Memory of a Song had an intriguing first chapter. A different sort of ghost-eating magic system, some lovely emotional drama, high stakes, but nothing was bogged down with explanation or infodumps.
44 PASS - This one seems like a fun concept for a fantasy adventure, but it does go on a bit with nothing to really pull me in. I'd have probably still recommended it, but there's an odd disparity between the character voice/writing style and the content. The description says it's for all ages, which fair, it's written in the same sort of way as an older MG/young YA novel. But at the same time there's awkward romance/procreation talk in chapter one. I am just not sure how I feel about this.
45 PASS - This was very descriptive. And the dialogue was lengthy for what it was, and seemed to go nowhere. For a relatively short prologue and short first chapter, nothing really happened. It was almost entirely character thoughts. I don't think a book needs to open with a battle or really exciting action, but this was just a poorly disguised lore dump imo, which is not something that I feel is a good idea for an opening.
46 REC - The Fallen Odyssey by Corey McCullough is well written and seems like a very fun read. The prologue in this one actually serves the important purpose of letting you know that it's not going to be all in a modern setting. But chapter 1 was all in a modern setting, which for me personally is always a bit of a struggle to get into. That it included some familiar dialects did keep it fun, and the character work was fantastic. This is one of those things where if this wan't about first chapters, I might skip all the modern stuff and read the rest.
47 PASS - This one had a lot of beat+tag combos that just bothered me. Also the dialogue. I don't know how to express discontent about the dialogue without giving it away, but it wasn't for me.
48 TBRADD - Brendan Noble's Crimson Court has such a strong start. I love how well the setting is woven into the narrative and made real with the small details. Prologue was appropriately short but impactful. First chapter was perfect for showing the FMC's character and the world building. There was a bit of an info dump, but I didn't mind. The magic system is unique, well thought out, and I'm pretty sure this is going to be delightful.
49 PASS - There is such a thing as too many adverbs and too many adjectives. Sometimes with descriptions, less is more. I've posted about adverb inflation before, and that was very applicable here.
50 PASS - Honestly I think this is the first one I've encountered where I thought several times "yeah, that really needed to be in past perfect." Usually I see overuse instead of underuse. The characters were also a bit over the top.
51 TBRADD - Present tense is almost always a hard sell for me. Still, Violence and Vigilance by David T. List seems like it's a promising story for my fellow dark fantasy lovers. Arenas, nonstandard fantasy creatures, bandits, fights--all around a bunch of stuff I love.
52 PASS - Formatting issues. Infodump. Wording issues. I have other complaints I won't mention.
53 PASS - Typo on the first page, dialogue grammar, prologue that should just be chapter one since chapter one is just sequentially the next thing to happen with the same PoV, info dump, too many small things for me to rec it, but some things are really well done.
54 REC - I read the dedication. I knew immediately that I wouldn't be able to read it. That said, I skimmed the first chapter and saw it was well written and used some unusual narrative techniques, so I'll rec it. Waterweaver by Maya Gouliard. Dark (like maybe depressing?) adventure-style fantasy. The description says it involves a baby dragon, though in chapter one there is just a goat, which is still cute.
55 PASS - Another one I knew wouldn't be for me at the content warnings--thank you for having them!--but also not going to rec this after the first chapter. The "as you know bob" dialogue infodump was just too much.
56 PASS - This is why I dislike prologues. This is why it's better when I skip them (I don't for the purposes of the culling cause everyone would be big mad). I was CONVINCED this would be an add in the prologue. Then chapter one switched to modern times/places.
57 TBRADD - First chapter of The Reject by C.J. Ramsey sets up the magic system and conflict of the book quite nicely. Alternate world, a bit of murder mystery, non-standard magic--all things you guys know I love. Reminds me a bit of the Lightbringers magic system?
58 PASS - So... That was a lot of front matter. And then I thought it was over cause there was a tiny scene. But no. It was not over, dear friends. Then there was an in-world legal document. Not a short one either. And then the next thing was the Introduction... In the paperback sample, it doesn't even get that far. I reckon that chapter 1 is over 40 pages into the book. I finally got to chapter 1 in the ebook sample, different characters obviously from both the preface and introduction (which had different characters from each other). So that is 3 character sets introduced before the book has even kicked off. Chapter one switched between 6 different PoV characters (each in their own section) before I called it quits. Look, a heaping ton of work and thought was put into this book. Mad respect. But, a lot of this is stuff that should have been back matter or not in the book at all. When someone picks up a book, they want to start a story. If you need 40 pages to set up the world before the story starts, and another 20 to introduce every PoV character from the start, you're going to scare away a lot of readers. Including this one. I have never read so much front matter in my entire life so I'm going to call it quits early again.
59 PASS - This opened with a joke about grammar--except the joke is probably only funny if you don't know much about grammar and the history of it. This may have spoiled the rest of the read for me a bit despite me trying to ignore it. Humor is different for everyone, so I'm sure this has an audience, but it's really not me. The type of humor here was primarily relying on one device, and it was the sort of device that I find overwhelming and not quite subtle enough.
60 PASS - Most of the first chapter was just the author talking about the backstory. There was no framing, just backstory.
61 PASS - A lot of small issues in chapter one that don't bode well for the rest of the book.
62 PASS - AI cover + irritating writing.
63 PASS - I read the prologue and it was... Idk who the character is talking to? God? There was just a person, talking to someone, without ever addressing them, and they never talked back. And it all felt like exposition. Moving on to the first page of the first chapter and there was a 26-line paragraph (reading on my laptop so I've got plenty of screen right now). The prologue and first chapter could be summarized in a paragraph, not enough happened imo.
64 PASS - I badly want to share a direct quotation of one of the tags, but I shan't. Plus a bunch of little stuff. Tag/beat punctuation, dashes/hyphens etc. I wouldn't not-rec for that alone, the after 1.5 chapters, I still don't really know where this is going.
65 PASS - This has an editor and proofreader listed, but still the tag/beat punctuation
"Hey there!" she said. (right)
"Hey there!" She said. (wrong)
It wouldn't've been for me anyway.
66 PASS - Sighed, snickered, and giggled have all been used for tags. Now look, maybe they can be tags for like a 1-4 word dialogue. Not for like a whole proper sentence. Also everyone is giggling and laughing and snickering way too much.
67 REC - Sword and Mirror by Melissa McGhee is an MG fantasy, so not for me. Still, it seems like a fun and whimsical tale for the young folk. I have zero complaints about the writing, and it seems to have had some good editing! The sample cut off in the middle of the inciting incident, but I felt like it was going to be good. Very skippable prologue imo.
68 PASS - Purple prose gets a bad name for good reason. Sounding fancy at the expense of clarity is *frustrating.* In an attempt to sound fanciful, this chapter has lost the concept of basic grammar and what-these-sentences are supposed to mean. I tried for a minute to do an alternate example, but I can't even. There's just no way to recreate the nonsense grammatical structures here without wasting my morning. In just the *first paragraph* there's a missing pronoun and verb, and they didn't complete the thought in one sentence cause they got lost in their own flowery words. You cannot bamboozle people with fanciness. You still need the words to make sense.
69 PASS - Fantastic editing (though I don't see an editor listed). But the MC was a bit much for me. I don't really enjoy when the main character flaw is being essentially disgusted by everyone around them.
70 PASS - I will not, under any circumstance, read a book with a trick prologue. It's the principle of it. No thank you.
71 Disqualified - Realized after reading this that it made it into the contest so was incorrectly submitted
72 PASS - Another AI cover from an "artist" who is very openly AI and known to be unkind generally. Not even going to crack this one open since there is no way to get scammed with this cover, the guy is *exceptionally* transparent about his AI use.
73 PASS - Very conversational + frustrating sentence structure.
74 PASS - Altered example sentence: It took her some time to notice that both her eyes, currently staring out ahead of her as if in anticipation of some unknown, yet doubtlessly horrible, sight, were covered by tinted sunglasses. Word count and sentence structure are the same These are the sort of sentences that lose the plot from the start to the end. This was not the only one, but it was in the first paragraph, so I kinda knew how this was going to go before it got going.
75 TBRADD - Dangit. The goal was to only do ones I wouldn't like! As such things go, I inevitably am surprised by the occasional book. Book of Secrets by Claudia Blood, who doesn't seem to be on Twitter so far as I can tell, is a surprise addition. Does it have a certain quantity of typos? Yes, but this is one where I'm perfectly willing to be that annoying reader who sends screenshots of all of them because the read seems more than worth it. I skimmed chapter one, cause it was a pre-apocalypse (clearly labeled, thank you) thing and I didn't feel like torturing myself this morning. But chapter 2? Divine. I love new and unique creatures with a useful purpose. I love post-apoc. I loved the writing. I loved everything about this. It seems like it's going to be a very fun time.
76 TBRADD - Echoes of a Lost Goddess by W.A. Leggatt. Another one I didn't really expect to enjoy, especially once I saw it was in first person. But I really loved the first chapter and want to see where it goes. This is one of those examples of how having a good first chapter doesn't necessarily mean that it's filled with action/battles. The PoV character was doing things though, engaging with other characters in a natural way that gave insight into the worldbuilding and conflicts. I love that. I also love a snowy post apoc environment.
77 PASS - This one was short so I read on a bit to get more of the vibes. It's not a subgenre I usually vibe with, so it'd've been a hard sell anyway, but the formulaic sentence patterns weren't helpful. There was also not enough "life" in the scene if that makes sense.
78 PASS - Alrighty, a typo in the first few paragraphs never bodes well. But also there is a punctuation issue in here so unique that I believe the book would be identifiable if I mentioned it. I am not sure how one acquires this bad habit, it's a weird one. Other small things...
79 PASS - I think this committed like ten of my personal pet peeves on the first page. The biggest one though is not staying committed to the PoV. Thankfully the chapter was quite short.
80 PASS - Long prologue, some punctuation issues, YA and modern--nothing particularly wrong with it, but it's too far out of my wheelhouse for me to really recommend.
81 PASS - Trying a bit too hard to be profound in a very long-winded way. I'd also like to note the importance of scene transitions when it comes to things like dreaming and flashbacks. Then it takes a deep dive into a pet peeve plot point.
82 PASS - A whole lot of telling. Now, does "show don't tell" get thrown around a little too much? Yes. But I don't want 70% of the opening scene summarized to me over the course of three pages. Summary + two lines of dialogue + skip to later that day summary
83 REC - This is a YA, CoA story, so not for me. The Glass Frog by J. Brandon Lowry. It has a lot of old-school charm for those who are looking for stories that are told in the vein of The Little White Horse, The Labyrinth, and other such whimsical things.
84 REC - Demon Hunter Academy by Alexander Nader. Occult, urban, paranormal fantasy in Tennessee. Definitely not my jam, a bit too crass/angry, but there's an audience for it out there.
85 PASS - Obviously AI cover fully generated, not even edited to cover up the slop. No sample available anyway so can't read it.
86 PASS - Look. It's one thing to infodump. It's another thing to infodump and then immediately have your characters start talking about everything that was infodumped. Like you *just* said all that already.
87 PASS - There are some fields/activities that have accompanying jargon that go with them. Learning the jargon is good, but learning how to use it correctly is also good.
88 PASS - AI Cover. I might've tried the first chapter regardless if it weren't for the hypocritical copyright page. Checked their twitter, and they are both publicly using AI, and complaining about AI being trained on their books.
89 REC - Final one for the day will be Spectral by A.J. Cerna. It's YA Cyberpunk, which is an unusual combination, and has a very close first person PoV that's done well. If the MC was a bit more relatable to me, this would've been an add.
90 PASS. Modified example: Character A: "You did great out there!" 2 paragraphs later MC: "Why is no one talking about how I awesome I did?" This is basically how this entire chapter felt. Like there was some kind of bizarre disconnect between the MC and reality.
91 PASS - We all know that juggling pronouns can be difficult when there are a few characters in a scene. But when you can't juggle your he/hims right when there are only 2 guys in the scene, I really don't trust you're going to juggle it better if there's ever a scene with 3
92 PASS - Sometimes there is a storytelling technique that's good in theory, but needs some polishing. This is one of those times. It is very very difficult to use more distant narrative voices effectively. Otherwise, outside of my wheelhouse genre wise.
93 TBRADD - The Blood Stones by Tori Tecken is the last of the Coming of Age fantasy on the list, but despite the younger MC, this first chapter wasn't short on brutality, potential conflicts, or worldbuilding. Pretty excited to get into this one.
94 PASS - This is like a too-many-wizards-in-the-washroom issue for me. I *love* a good magic system. But introducing this many seemingly unrelated magic concepts in chapter one just has me feeling overwhelmed.
95 PASS - There are only two characters talking. You don't need both a tag and a beat every single line of dialogue.
96 PASS - The prologue was neither informative nor fun. The first chapter had a series of characters that I just wasn't a fan of. To boot, I had to reread repeatedly because one character was being referred to by three different names.
97 PASS - Idk how to rec this or add it because after the first chapter, I still don't know how this fits into SFF. The plot feels a bit too on the nose so far as well.
98 PASS - I kind of felt like this scene could've/should've been fleshed out more. It was like a fight without a fight. The enemy just sort of went “poof”… but like really.
99 REC - Under Galaxian Skies by Natalie Kelda does start out a bit too sad for me, but well written, great character work and there's some good worldbuilding in there already.
100 PASS - This could be fantastic, but there's really no way to know with these first two chapters, as the story hasn't got going in any way yet. I know nothing about the SFF fantasy aspect, and the conflict has only been vaguely hinted at.
101 PASS - This has the opposite problem of that earlier one... no tags and beats at all. 100% dialogue.
102 PASS - A 42-line dialogue paragraph. No breaks.
103 PASS - Look, I know I have a lot of pet peeves, but I'm going to talk about another one. When the FMC is worried about her hair/makeup/shoes/outfit in a situation where she should definitely have other things on her mind. Like there are times and FMCs where this is a feature (my FMC is pretty much a prostitute, so these things are relevant to the job), but if there's a zombie outbreak and I'm biking to the Home Depot, these things are not relevant. It feels like femininity trivialized to vanity.
104 PASS - Openly AI cover artist.
105 PASS - Mislabeled Amazon categories or this would've been grouped with the other YA first chapters. It's not bad. But the dialogue was very "oh no we're young maidens in distress" vibes.
106 PASS - After the 19-page prologue, there was an even longer first chapter. Maybe these things would be okay if I didn't have to read about every single tiny move the character made and every single thing that was going on in the background. Not all detail is good detail.
107 TBRADD - Morgan Shank’s Die Young opens with a punch. A ton of action (troll fight and rune-based combat) before it hooked me with an intriguing conflict. I can also already see the hints of some fun worldbuilding.
108 REC - Wrath of Olympus by E.K. Kkoulla. A lot happened. A lot. And it took me a bit to realize that this was more like sections and not chapters. So I read way more than a chapter's worth! This is like mythology meets murder mystery meets adventure so far in a somewhat brutal setting (slavery and abuse seem to be big themes here). This isn't quite in my wheelhouse, but I might end up reading it anyway given that it's shorter (250 pages). But for the purposes of this, we'll call it a rec/potential mood read.
109 PASS - I am very sensitive to formatting issues. There are no paragraph indents or extra spacing between paragraphs. I'm not going to force myself to suffer through reading that.
110 PASS - Crimes of punctuation + formulaic sentence structure issues.
111 PASS - Please label your prologues as prologues. There is no reason to torment me like this. Also that's a hyphen not a dash. Plurals don't need apostrophes.
112 PASS - I am not reading this. There is no reason not to list your artist on your copyright page, especially when it seems to be a real artist who is actually quite good. But worse, when I go to your author website and SM cover reveals and still can't find hide nor hair of your artist mentioned. Your cover is so stunning that I just spent ten minutes looking for the artist, and you can't bother giving them credit anywhere in the known universe? Not cool bro.
113 REC - Blood of My Heart by K.P Burchifield. This is definitely not for me at all due to the spice, but I know there's lots of spice fans out there, this is just not the sort of dark fantasy I was expecting
114 REC - Reed Westgate’s Infernal Games. Another one that's just not my variety of dark fantasy, urban dark fantasy with demons. My impression reading it, so far as comps go, is like Buffy the Vampire Slayer vibes but much much darker?
115 REC - I know I said we'd made it through the YA, but E. Solofoni added Sora to the SPFNO list late and this has always been about getting every book that got SPFNOed a chance. This was an instance where the prologue served a purpose, telling you a bit about the worldbuilding and conflict and what to expect since the first chapter doesn't really have room for that. This is alternate world fantasy though I didn't get a good feel for the details aside from a goddess and horned people
116 TBRADD - I started this one last year and bounced off one of the first sentences, put it down, and contemplated (as I often do) whether it was the book or if I was just moody/hungry. In most of these cases it turns out to be the book, but in this case, I do think that I was just hungry, cause despite today's exhaustion, I enjoyed the chapter this time, though that one sentence still made me narrow my eyes a bit at the stylistic choice of wording. I think it might grow on me though. R.E. Sanders A Path of Blades is a bit more serious and technical of a combat tone than most indie S&S, but also has a very close PoV. Definitely alt world fantasy, and based on the vibes I'm going to guess we're headed to some low-magic territory. I think this is going to be a great grounded fantasy after I read something that's a bit more flashy and over the top like Crimson Court. In any case, it's an add
117 TBRADD - This is a tentative add, as it's possibly the most dramatically grimdark of the SPFNOs so far? Stephen Hubbard’s A Conspiracy of Ravens. This sets up some intriguing internal character conflict right out the gates, along with violence and worldbuilding. Curious to see where it goes primarily on account of feeling like there'll be good character development.
118 PASS - Sometimes it feels like the back and forth of the dialogue doesn't line up. Like we have gone from "hello" to "That's a wonderful story but I'm not interested in tales about piglets." While I'm left here waiting for the "Oh hello, how are you?"
119 PASS - Y'all, I will ~eat~ when it comes to poetic constructions that functionally serve even if formally or prescriptively they are sneered upon. However, what I will not eat is a construction that is distasteful to the ears. What might you ask is distasteful to the ears? When you have a noun phrase that involves two distinct nouns but they are neither coordinated nor parallel in plurality, so there is no way for the verb to align with both. Example: "In the forest there are no pigs, no dog." I will not eat this. I am so sorry.
120 PASS - There was a vast difference between the supposed subgenre and the tone here. And the characters were... cartoonish?
121 PASS - I really dislike when I have to reread something because we want to call one person multiple things to avoid saying the same title/name/job over and over. It's made worse when it's early in the book and with multiple characters. Let me settle in first.
122 TBRADD - Partial Function by JCM Berne
- Older FMC. I love that. Not enough of that in the wilds of dark and epic fantasy. - Unique alternate world magic system
- Makes fun of itself, which I for certain needed given the nature of the opening scene lol. Overall, this scene illustrated the vibes and the content to be expected really well. It was a bit dramatic/tropey but that was balanced well enough with humor. Also, there is a very good dog, and I am of course partial to such things.
123 TBRADD - I saved the best for last. I knew I'd need something fantastic to end this journey on, and this didn't disappoint. Drop dead gorgeous prologue with a tone and storytelling frame to match the dark folklore subgenre. I have been burned by several selkie books, but I can tell already this one is going to have a bit more of that gritty authenticity. Thus far the plotting and the FMC are divine. But honestly, it's the writing. I love the writing. N.C. Scrimgeour’s Sea of Souls!