Hello everyone! Our team has been hard at work reading our Slushpile Phase books this month and it's time for our second update.
I would like to remind everyone of three things
- We are volunteers and please don't hate us. We really wish everyone could win.
- These are the opinions of at least three judges reading at least 20% of the book.
- The book is safe unless explicitly stated otherwise, although this may change as reading progresses.
You can see our team hub here to see a master list of our updates and posts, as well as a master list of safe vs cut books.
Also remember that we are going in roughly alphabetical order but it's not perfect, so don't be alarmed if your book isn't listed where you would expect to see it!
- Final Hope by Joshua Piedra - Cut
Overall the judges felt like this book needed a strong edit. Word choice, repeated words, and tense issues were noted. Also it went from writing in a character's head to a distanced POV where the writing almost feels like the description part of a screenplay. One judge noted that this may be a stylistic choice normally found in Manga but it felt young in a novel form. Other than editing, the science fiction portion felt largely fantastical or spiritual. One judge wrote that despite having issues they enjoyed reading.
2. Hot Ash and the Oasis Defect by Philip Wyeth - Cut
This is a short, detective type scifi novel that ultimately left judges feeling uncomfortable with the content. From a male author, writing a very sexualized female point of view made most of us feel like we wouldn't want to keep reading. While the audio book does not affect our judging, we appreciate the audio file. It is a decent production and some may enjoy this format! The writing was very good overall but we are cutting this one from a content and plot point.perspective. It's worth noting that this went beyond a "not my style" selection.
3. Muriel MacDougall and the Mad God by C. Kiefer - Cut
This is another case where we really feel like the book needed a strong edit. It may be an instance of an author writing English as a second language, but we aren't sure. It hurt immersion quite a bit. The author was stronger with narration than dialogue. We also felt like the book was more of a YA horror, paranormal, 1984-like story than scifi, although it had a dystopian setting. We will note that we love the cover though!
4. Kenai by Dave Dobson - SAFE for now!
Kenai is a well written book with a lot of good aspects. It has some dry archaeology and even drier humor at times, but it also pretty funny overall. There's an overarching mystery that is keeping us engaged as well as a snarky, likeable main character, and even snarkier aliens. Meeting new species is always a huge plus. Judges are excited to find out more about the conspiracy and Jess's past!
There you have it! Stay tuned for another update in a week or two!
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