SPSFC 3 – Team EPIC has chosen our Quarterfinalists
After several months of reading the team has chosen the books we are putting through to the quarterfinals of the SPSFC 3 competition. Our plan for who gets through to the semi finals will see each judge read the chosen books and assign it a score. The two books with the best scores will make it through to the semis.
So which books did our judges like the most for our initial pile?
ICEBREAKER BY STEVEN WILLIAM HANNAH
Inside their walls, the people are safe from exposure to the unnamed horror that broke the world long ago; but now Bear, the last scientist in Forgehead, takes a case that threatens to throw that safety into question. Someone has been terminally exposed to the phenomenon, despite never having ventured outside the walls. This has only happened once before - to Bear's father.
With the safety of Forgehead in question, and an opportunity to finally discover what happened to his father, Bear must leave the safety of the walls to unravel the mysteries left behind by the pre-cataclysm world; a task that will require him to join the Interloper Initiative, the team who crew the gigantic Crawler landships, the only vehicles that can roam the world outside the walls in relative safety. "Icebreaker" is the first entry in the Interloper Trilogy, a tale of horror and science charting the last days of a dying world, and humanity's endeavour to survive.
Read our review of Icebreaker HERE
THE ART OF WAR BY PETER CAWDRON
Commander Lisa Chao works in the US Navy’s Strategic Planning Center in Pearl Harbor. When tensions rise with China over Taiwan, she has to unravel exactly what's happening in the Pacific and why. What she uncovers leads America to war, but not with China.
Bullets and bombs are no match for an extraterrestrial warship that can fly between stars, but perhaps the answer to the coming war lies not in the present but in the past. Could Sun Tzu’s The Art of War provide humanity with a fighting chance against a technologically superior alien enemy?
Read our review of The Art of War HERE
ECLIPSE (FRACTURED ORBIT BOOK 1) BY HERMAN STEUERNAGEL
When lies crumble, two lives and an entire civilization teeter on the brink of destruction...
Django had everything he ever wanted... now he’s lost it all.
When Django uncovered an unexpected truth, he didn’t know it would end the lives of nearly everyone he cares about. Left only with his sister, his best friend and an uncle who has some unhinged ideas about what might exist outside of the space station Eclipse, he must follow the truth where it leads – even if it leaves him with nothing.
Mikka can’t escape her dubious past… and now must answer for past sins.
Mikka thought she had left her life as a notorious space pirate behind to care for her ailing mother, but the past comes knocking after her ship, the Redemption, answers a cryptic distress call.
Read our review of Eclipse HERE
HARBINGER IN THE NIGHT (THE HUMANITY BLUEPRINT BOOK 1) BY JOHN WARNER AND BILL WOODS
In the near future a new space race is in full swing to be the first to colonize Mars. The United States and allied European governments working alongside private industry are competing against the RSAC, a new Russian-Chinese alliance, to build working spacecraft to make the long journey.
In preparations for the mission, an engineering team from an aerospace/tech conglomerate is building out the interplanetary communications network, when a mysterious object emerges from the depths of interstellar space. As the nations of Earth scramble to investigate this strange comet, they must overcome plots from within and the machinations of a malignant AI in order to be the first to meet the menace, or the promise, that the intruder foretells.
Major Koda Cheveyo, a special operations soldier is tasked to lead his team to face this possible threat while Michael Thompson, a quantum computer engineer, works with his homebrewed AI to counter the emerging peril from within. Together with the help of a billionaire tech tycoon and a government security agent, their mission could reshape the future of humanity.
Read our review of Harbinger in the Night HERE
YESTERDAY PILL BY IAIN BENSON
Hunted.
Disavowed.
Wade will risk the world to save Cassandra.
Anya knows Wade’s past and Cassandra’s future.
Paladin wants Cassandra dead and will go to any length to ensure that happens.
Cassandra has an uncanny ability to stay one step ahead.
And so does Wade. If only he can remember.
Anya abducts Wade and Cassandra at gunpoint from a restaurant, beginning a race around the Mediterranean and beyond. Realising Anya might hold the truth of his past before a seizure wiped his memory, Wade quickly learns more than he ever thought possible. Including a past he had with Anya. Finding why Paladin wants Cassandra dead, and how they keep finding them, will uncover a world-shattering secret.
Read our review of Yesterday Pill HERE
INITIALIZE BY SAMUEL FLEMING
For this cyborg, power is just an upgrade away.
Emmett was used to being caught between college and his engineering internship, but when he gets caught between a powerful hero and an even stronger villain, he becomes collateral damage. Instead of dying, he wakes up a cyborg—a melding of flesh and machine. Turns out his boss wasn’t just an eccentric inventor, and the old man just gave him a shining opportunity to be a hero. Except that’s just the beginning, and things are about to get a lot more complicated.His boss has his own agenda. The boss’s daughter has her own power armor. His roommate works for an evil corporation. And Emmett is just a Class 1 hero.
Superheroes aren’t just masks—some work for corporations, or for the government and the military, and even as mercenaries in wars. Shadowy cabals pull the strings of hero and villain alike. The city of Belport might be peaceful for now, but most of the world is in turmoil. If Emmett is going to have any chance at making a difference, he needs to get stronger. A lot stronger.
So there we have it Team EPIC’s quarterfinalists. We will now be reading each of these, sharing our thoughts and choosing our two semi finalists in the New Year!
