D.M.Barnham

I was hoping to get these partial reviews out quicker than this, but I came to the realisation that Judging is hard … lol. So sorry about any delays. I suspect I’ll throw in several “Undecideds” along the way as I make my way through our pile. Anyways to the first two reviews:

---

SPSFC3 First Phase Mini Reviews

I Am An Astronaut

by Zhangqi Bai

My Vote:

No.

Note on Votes: A Yes/No vote is just my own. The other judges in the team might vote differently. Undecided usually means I think it has potential but I still have others to read before ranking them by personal preference.

Summary:

DNF (approximately 10% read) – An astronaut wakes up in an escape pod with a shocking hangover and with no memory of the night before. He struggles to piece together what happened to the ship and why he is drifting out in space with nobody coming to get him.

Overall impression & Criticisms:

I felt terribly bad reading this story. It’s clear the author isn’t a native English speaker from the get-go. The writing pose and dialogue quality is for the most part, unreadable. It flows poorly and at times difficult to know what the writer is trying to say. As such I can’t really review it.

My advice to anyone who uses English as a second language (and isn’t confident in using it) is to write in your mother tongue. I know that sucks. I know it might dramatically narrow your market and would mean you don’t have access to things like SPSFC, which is pivotal in gaining some attention. But effectively communicating is more important. You can’t crack a market if you can’t connect and communicate with the audience. But you can gain attention writing in the language that’s most comfortable for you, and if you crack that market then your work will be converted into other languages by professionals.

If you really want to be in the English market my only other advice (and this might be tricky to do) is to either co-write with someone whom you’re comfortable with working with (and vice versa) … or try and find someone to convert your story from your language into English (I can imagine this would be difficult, but you can always try).

I’m sorry that this is a hard no from me, it seems painfully unfair. I do wish you success in the future with a method of telling your story in the best way possible for you.

Amazon Link: www.amazon.com.au/I-am-astronaut-Zhangqi-Bai/dp/B09HGZZSDJ

---

SPSFC3 First Phase Mini Reviews

Woe to the Victor

by Nathan H Green

My Vote:

Yes.

Note on Votes: A Yes/No vote is just my own. The other judges in the team might vote differently. Undecided usually means I think it has potential but I still have others to read before ranking them by personal preference.

Summary:

At ~18% read.  Earth isn’t just about to be invaded. It’s about to be annihilated with all of humanity wiped clean off the map. The alien species called the Maaravi are merciless and the difference in technology is monumental, to the point that humanity has no chance at all. All their outer colonies have fallen and all that remains is the cradle: Earth, and the other Sol system colonies. Faced with no other choice Earth has hastily constructed a colony ship and selected the finest and brightest while the rest of humanity is left to their fate. There is one last stance. One last desperate fight to give the colony ship time to escape. There’s no false hope here. The military knows they’re going down, but they’re determined to make one last stand and fight to the end. To give the colonyship time to escape and hopefully find a planet to settle far away from their merciless foe.

Overall impression & Criticisms:

I didn’t want to stop reading Woe to the Victor. But if I kept going then other books would probably miss out. So I had to stop myself. I finished Chapter 5 (the 18% mark) which ends with the dreaded arrival of the Maaravi In the Sol System, meanwhile the Mayweather (a retrofitted colony/escape ship) is nearly at its escape point but with the aliens hot on its tail.

It’s gripping stuff and I want to know what happens. 

This is one of the best-written books I’ve come across, that includes books with big publishers. It flows so well. The dialogue is natural, the characters feel real (including one psychopath who I hate at this moment but is so unpredictable I just want to see what she ends up doing) and the tension and conflict scenes are realistic. Everything in this story fits right for me. If it doesn’t make it to the next round I’ll make sure I’ll finish it. That’s for sure.

Another aspect I love is how completely outclassed humanity is. They’ve crossed paths with a foe that outdoes them so completely and utterly that the small victories they achieve mostly involve just surviving. It’s such a breath of fresh air. There’s no silly Independence Day rubbish here. Hope isn’t in victory, it’s in a ship filled with a few thousand humans who manage to escape while billions of others die. It’s been a long time since Carl Sagan graced the screens and told us that any first contact between two different space-faring factions possessing similar technological levels would be minuscule. One would most likely be significantly more advanced than the other. But we rarely see that in sci-fi and when we do it’s almost always benevolent (not that I’m complaining, I love those stories too). So I’m thrilled to see this massive wall between two species and I’m curious at the nature of the alien race. I do hope we see a little more into their thinking, but if they’re just a catalyst for deep-space survival then I’m fine with that too.

There is only one thing that bothered me about this read through and it’s a very small and petty thing … and that’s why the F are these people using the imperial system? Come on, there are only 3 countries in the world that stubbornly stick to that system and one of them is Myanmar. Metric is king, just admit it.

Anyways, I still have a lot of books to read and I have no idea if any of them are on par or better (going by the murmurings of my fellow team judges there are a few gems to be discovered) but I do hope this one becomes one of my full reads.

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com.au/Woe-Victor-Nathan-H-Green-ebook/dp/B0B831X71W

---

#SFSPC #SPSFC3