You may have heard, but I had the fantastic fortune and honour that my Blood Scouts novella, Oksy, Come Home, was chosen as a finalist in this year’s SFINCS competition.

SFINCS is a marvellous initiative to highlight indie novellas in the speculative fiction sphere, now in its second year, and it is still expanding, so I wanted to do a bit to help raise visibility. I’ve reached out to my fellow finalists this year to highlight their work with a series of interviews which I’ll be publishing here over the coming weeks. (Resisting the unfortunate instinct to call them SFINCSterviews).

Interview Series

I also thought it’d be helpful to share exactly what the contest is and to provide a little space here to introduce all the current finalists and their reviews.

What is SFINCS?

First, a quick introduction. Taken from the SFINCS site:

The Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS, pronounced “sphinx”) is a yearly competition to recognize, honor, and celebrate the talent and creativity present in the indie community. We are a sister competition to both SPFBO and SPSFC, and we highlight greatness in the novella format in all areas of speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc.).

Mission Statement for The Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship

With the rise of both indie publishing and the novella format, this competition hopes to bring exposure to the amazing shorter works of speculative fiction that are often left out of other indie and self-publishing competitions. It will help authors and readers connect with books that they may have never found, while also promoting the strength and quality of indie publishing.

It’s a noble cause taken on by a group of generous book bloggers, run from the goodness of their hearts. You can find out more about them all on the official SFINCS website.

We’re currently in the last stage of SFINCS 2, with judges going through ten finalists to choose an ultimate champion.

You can find the full results of last year’s competition here.

Who/what are the current finalists?

We have 10 books left in the competition this year, each packing magnificent wonders into seemingly tiny spaces. Being novellas, they are notably quick (and cheap) reads, yet as finalists they also come readily recommended by numerous judges.

I personally plan on reading them all, and have got through about half so far.

In no particular order (pretty much as I found them on the SFINCS site, except with my own last, which only seems polite), here are the current SFINCS finalists: