SPSFC4 Review: Team SFF Insiders First Cuts
Review:
The first round of the fourth Self-Published Science-Fiction Competition is in its final months, and that means the time has come to begin saying goodbye to certain books.
The SFF Insiders has read thirty-one books in this first round, with each book being read by two different judges. The following books have been cut by mutual agreement between their two judges.
Please note that, even though these books did not work for us, it doesn’t mean that they won’t work for you, and our views on the books do not mean that they are bad reads. Thank you to all the authors who took the time to enter this competition, and we wish you the best going forward!
The Great Ooflan from Corplop by Charlie D. Weisman
Joe’s Thoughts
I went into this book thinking it could fit in as a Rick & Morty episode or something along those lines, and to some extent it is, though it wouldn’t be a particularly good episode. It’s got good bones about it—an alien comes to Earth believing he will find love, and falls in love at first sight. The setup is there for a lighthearted story about finding love beneath the surface, and to varying degrees it did elicit a chuckle or two from me.
Ultimately, though, the plot aims for “stupid but fun” but forgets the fun, with a very inane story and humor that’s more or less one big fart joke. The main character, Charlando, falls in love with literally the first person he encounters on Earth, and meanwhile, everyone on Earth falls in love with him because he smells so bad that it releases pheromones that cause uncontrolled affection…I guess? And also another character’s parents literally farted themselves to death, so…there’s that.
It’s an inoffensive story that didn’t really do much for me, but may be worth it for you if you want an off-brand Rick & Morty episode.
Manda’s Thoughts
I DNF’d the story at 15%. I am sure there is a niche market out there for a book like this, but instead of leaning into comedy and keeping the odd leveled, it was like listening to punk middle graders talk about girls and farting while dealing with their self doubt. I think that maybe it could have been something. The prose was good, light and entertaining, the concept was interesting, but the characters and actual plot progression were seriously lacking. I think that Weisman is a good writer, but I think might benefit from surveying the landscape and getting some really honest feedback next time around. Maybe in this case my progress was influenced by my personal preference, but it was tough for me to get to 15%. Our Rick and Morty fan teammate also read the book and was also left wanting. For me, love at first sight never felt so wrong.
Tomorrow’s Child by D.G. Barnes
Vivian’s Thoughts
Tomorrow’s Child is a story set in space, where space travel and far flung settlements away from Earth have become the norm. The main character, Jax Hunter, is the captain of the tramp freighter ‘Calypso’, just returned from completing a contract, and is looking forward to getting ‘Calypso’ repaired, and to some long overdue R&R. Her navigator is a young man named Nick. They will be meeting their new engineer after they’ve docked on Jupiter Station, since their previous engineer left for a better paying position elsewhere.
As the story progressed though, I unfortunately found myself disconnecting from it. The new crew member hired to fill the vacant engineer position is a person named Tyler, who the captain meets while in a very compromised position. She has ordered a massage with a little extra service added to her massage, if you get my drift, and has chosen a female to provide it. Her name also happens to be Tyler. When Jax answers the knock at her door, she assumes the person who is standing there is the masseuse. She lets the woman in and promptly drops her robe. Then there’s another knock, and guess who it is? The actual masseuse! Funny misunderstanding, but who Jax assumed was the masseuse is actually the new engineer, Tyler.
After that awkward start, I’d hoped for something less juvenile. But this is the pervasive theme throughout the entire story. The lack of any urgency on the part of the captain when things go sideways in a very bad way, because all she can think about is getting into Tyler’s pants, and vice versa. Innuendos, overt advances, seemingly on every page, even after they’ve been blasted out of a wormhole and crashed on an unknown planet, and their navigator has died in the crash.
Very conveniently, the people who help them are friendly, can provide them with shelter, food, and clothing. AND, wait for it; the matriarch speaks ENGLISH. How odd! Who taught it to her? Apparently, our hapless travelers have also jumped ahead by several decades via a time loop. It just became tiresome, and belief became suspended, which is hard to do when one is reading a science fiction book.
This might be someone’s perfect light read, but it was unfortunately not for me.
Anie’s Thoughts
I had trouble getting into this story as a whole, because from the start it felt very unbelievable, even for science-fiction. The way the crew ends up meeting their new engineer, via a very awkward mishap with massages, immediately took me out of the story.
I continued on, hoping it was just a bad rom-com moment, but it progressed into something that just went completely off track from the mission at hand, and more and more unbelievable occurrences continued through the rest of the book. In all honesty, this was the first of my book allocation and I wanted to give it a fair chance by not immediately DNF-ing it, but in retrospect I could have saved myself some time by letting it go.
It simply wasn’t for me. If a reader is looking for a more (for lack of a better phrase) plot-hole filled and cheesy hallmark style science-fiction, then maybe.
Hi De Ho, Infecterino! by Andrew Marc Rowe
Joe’s Thoughts
Hi De Ho, Infecterino presents a clever twist on the zombie formula. Against the backdrop of the drug-fueled 1980s, Rowe perhaps takes some inspiration of the Florida Man bath salts days and portrays the zombie apocalypse as a bad acid trip. Parodying the Umbrella Corporation from the Resident Evil series, the nefarious Parasol Industries unleashes a fungal infection that originated as jock itch, and its spread is characterized through a test subject crow escaping captivity, and the infection itself gaining sentience within one of the infected. It’s a unique approach that works well within the context of the story and does set it apart from other zombie tales.
However, that’s where my praise ends. I very rarely DNF books, but Infecterino is one of those rare few: I wound up DNF’ing at around the 55% mark. The first issue is that, for such a short book—only around 200 pages—there are far too many plot threads going on, and the story would have felt much tighter had the number of POVs been cut down to three and it wouldn’t have negatively impacted the overall plot.
The largest issue with the book is its incredibly juvenile—and at many points, outright offensive—humor. Most of the humor plays the same note and revolves around everyone being overly horny for no real reason to the point that it’s the only personality trait for any character of consequence. I’ve no issue with sexually-based humor if there’s reason for it to be there, but it felt like it was only present in Infecterino to get a rise out of readers. And likewise, I like to think I have a high tolerance for dark humor, but what I read came off as being edgy just for the sake of.
If you’re down for an edgy and raunchy zombie tale, this may be one for you.
Ariana’s Thoughts
I DNF’d at 11%. From the Foreword, I had an idea what to expect going in: There are dildos and glory holes and an enormous amount of bodily fluid.
That’s not really an issue for me in books. Where my hackles started getting raised was the Warning. Regardless of what your opinion is on trigger warnings or content warnings in books, I think we can agree if you’re going to have one then make it meaningful or just leave it out. What is listed, as a joke no less, is: In the pages that follow, you will find all manner of unexpected utterances, cursing, swearing, vulgarity, depravity, shagging, onanism, lewd acts, questionable table etiquette and many of the other kinds of things that some human beings tend to find funny.
What does that list not include? Transphobic language, animal experiments and animal death, fatphobia, ableism, SA depiction, drug and needle use, HIV mention, gore and gun violence and I am sure a whole host more things that are genuinely upsetting for readers. Keeping in mind I stopped reading at 11%, which according to Kindle is page 28.
All of this is before I even start commenting on discrepancies that occur in the only two chapters involving Larry that I read.
Historian of Future Past by Revis Grey
Manda’s Thoughts
This was a very difficult read for me. I really wanted to like it, the premise was interesting. Unfortunately we are missing very basic things that make it a DNF for me. Things like leaving blank spaces for name place holders and naming inconsistencies, sentences that make no intelligible sense, and the absence of clear direction, continuity or clarity in many places. I think with work this story has potential, but as-is does not cut the mustard. At the very least it needs an edit.
Ariana’s Thoughts
I unfortunately DNF at 16%.
I was interested based on the blurb and cover. As someone who is a fan of things like El Ministerio del Tiempo, this sounded right up my street. Instead it was overly complicated with inconsistent naming to the extent I was unclear who anyone but the main female MC was.
There was a repeatedly named character that I thought might be important but he is killed in some capacity (I'm not entirely clear on how) so he became irrelevant. This was also the start of me not being convinced by any character interaction. The MC met this named character for like 90 seconds when he hit her with a cart, confirmed she was ok and he left. But she somehow recognised him, his body and fled the scene which is apparently how she's ended up in some kind of mess.
Outside of characters and their mysterious names or titles that are used interchangeably, there is simultaneously too much information and not enough background information.
And I'm really unclear why a person who is noted to be a specialist in 15th-century Turkey was brought in to talk to a 12th century French peasant, or the purpose behind suddenly writing dialogue in French that got translated anyway.
The plot suggested it had good bones and the cover is eye catching but it wasn't for me.
