Features Interviews

Interview: Queen Terrible Timy talks about SPFBO

Features Interviews4 months ago16 min read

Today, we have an interview with Queen Terrible Timy from Queen’s Book Asylum. Book covers shown throughout the interview are some of Timy’s favourites from SPFBO over the years.

We’re here to talk about SPFBO, but before we get into all that, we’d like to put a face to you, so we know where the information is coming from. You’re currently working on your own novel. Could you describe yourself like you were one the characters in your story?

I’m standing behind the bar, taking inventory of our spirits, when Timy walks into Pandamonium. She is one of our regulars, who has also become a friend. To Wendy, at least, who likes to take her time chatting with Timy about Founders know what. From the glimpses I caught over the years, it’s mostly books, clothes, jewelry, and whatever they have an interest in at any given time. I mostly just block it out, as I have better things to do. Work, for example. When she is not holding up my employees, she likes to sit at her favorite table in the back corner, reading a book, or scribbling next to a glass of juice and snacks. One might not think a lot about her, at least not until you’ve seen her jumping and singing her heart out in the front line. I think people underestimate her, given her small stature and quiet, shy demeanor, but let me tell you, that woman can bite. I once heard a guy trying to call her cute to her face. Let’s just say, he needed a couple of stitches in his forehead, and no one tried to mess with her ever since. Wendy laughed so hard when it happened that she dropped a bottle of liquor. I could have taken that off her pay, but honestly, it was fucking worth it. Damien seems to be rather fond of her, too, although I never figured out why. I mean, sure, she is cool, if a little bit awkward, but I guess I didn’t talk to her that much to get her open up to me as does with the others. We did have a nice chat about tattoos once, though. I don’t know if she went for it in the end, but I think she would totally rock it with that style she has going on.

Is there anything else you want our readers to know about you?

Wow, writing that bit (from Ben’s POV) was HARD. Also maybe I exaggerated on things, but fictional me is a lot cooler, alas. Not a lot of people know that writing and reading came hand in hand for me from a very young age. I’ve put writing aside since I started blogging, so everyone only knows me from that angle. I recently picked up writing again, and we’ll see how that goes for me. I’m switching roles again, and honestly, after nearly 8 years, it’s probably not a bad thing to take a break from blogging and let people see some other sides of me. Ironically, I’m here to talk about SPFBO from the blogger/judge perspective. Go figure.

The majority of people reading this will probably know that SPFBO is a competition where 10 teams of judges select one single winner out of 300 indie fantasy books. So, rather than ask you to explain what SPFBO is, can you tell us how you ended up as a judge?

( For anyone who’s unfamiliar with SPFBO, we have an overview page, here)

Honestly, it was due to luck. I started Queen’s Book Asylum (under a different name) in March 2018. At the time, SPFBO 3 was in Phase 2. I became aware of the competition due to two author friends – one of them was a semi-finalist, the other a finalist. It was in a big part thanks to them that I even started the blog in the first place. My dream was to become famous enough to be considered to judge in the competition. I posted a review or two in the group, and I became friends with one of the judges. When SPFBO 4 came around in the same year, he invited me to be a guest judge on his team. I mostly hung out with them, read some of the books, and helped organise things later on. I also ran interviews and features with the authors in our group. When they stepped down, another friend of mine convinced me to apply for the open spot. To my utter surprise, Mark was more than happy to let me join, and as they say, the rest is history.

Let’s say I’m an author (I am) and that I just got accepted into SPFBO (I didn’t). What can I expect next? Actually, what’s this thing about not even getting accepted into the competition? It wasn’t always like that, was it?

There is going to be a lot of waiting around involved for you as the teams go through their books. It usually takes a day or two while the teams confirm that every book assigned to them meets the requirements – if not, they are disqualified, and the next one in line gets in – and that there is no conflict of interest. In that case, Mark swaps the book with another one from one of the other teams. I would say look out for the introduction posts from the teams, and also get comfortable, because you are going to have a long 5 months ahead of you. We’ll talk about the process later, but I’m going to say here that your best bet is to join either the Facebook group or one of many Discord servers and build connections with other authors. You are all in this together, and I know that friendships were made this way in the past. And try not to set your expectations too high. Nor should you feel entitled to get a review. And remember, the judges do this in their own free time, so be respectful.

As for being accepted, well… The lottery system is pretty new; SPFBO 11 is the second year that it’s been used. Before that, Mark opened the submission form and closed it once we had 300 entries, plus a few extras in case of disqualifications. This worked quite well, until… the competition had become very popular, and one year we had the submissions filled in 41 minutes (give or take, I don’t remember the specific time). A lot of people missed out due to being in different time zones, or not being able to go online at work, etc. Mark felt like the lottery system would be the best alternative to allow time for everyone to enter and then leave it to luck who will be the 300 contestants. Is it a perfect system? No. But this is what we have now.

The competition has grown in popularity over the years. What else has changed? How is it different now compared to when you started?

Technically, not a lot has changed – well, okay, we moved on with the times, and Mark now uses a Google form instead of receiving 300+ emails, which makes everyone’s work so much easier. We also always have some new faces in the judging teams, which helps to keep things fresh and unpredictable. There is also a notable shift in subgenres submitted – for years, SPFBO was known as a competition that favored grimdark novels, which probably was true at the time, but it’s good to see that other subgenres also got recognition over the years.

One, rather sad change is that we don’t have a cover contest anymore, due to the surge of generative AI images, which makes judging them hard.

The official competition page talks about phase 1 and phase 2 of the competition, but I also hear people talking about semi-finals. What’s up with that? How does the selection process work and is it the same for all teams?

While we’re on that topic, do all judges read all the books? Do you have to finish each book?

Ooh, a lot to unpack here. As the rules on Mark’s page say, judges are not required to fully read every book in their lot, nor are we required to write more than one review – for the book we pick as our finalist. The judges over the years went above and beyond when it comes to the competition, reviewing as many books as possible, even if they were cut. I’m not sure who started picking semi-finalists, but once again, that had become a standard among the judges. We like to showcase the books we think stand out from our 30 books, giving them the semi-finalist title and thus an extra spotlight, saying “hey, look, we definitely think you should check this one out!”. Again, this is not required by the rules; it’s just something we picked up over the years.

All judges/teams have a different process – again, worth checking out their intro posts/social media to find out how they are going to do things. Some teams divide the books between themselves, and everyone picks their favorite from their mini batches, which then become semi-finalists. Usually, at this stage, everyone reads the semi-finalists (fully, or partly, depending on a lot of factors) and they pick their finalist. Other teams do the slush pile approach, which means that everyone in the team reads a sample of all 30 books, and eventually they pick the ones that got the most likes, and they go from there. Other teams divide their books in a way that they get tried by more than one person, each book getting at least two chances to wow. Each approach has its pros and cons, and some require more time than others. We usually divided the books between ourselves – everyone got to pick at least one or two books they really wanted to try, and the rest was random allocation. In my first year as a team leading judge, we did the sample all 30 books approach, which was great, but I said never again, lol.

You’re not part of the judging effort this year. Can you talk a little about that? Also, what are some/one of the most memorable events from your time with SPFBO?

I’ve been taking part in SPFBO for 6 seasons plus the Champions’ League. I took a one year break somewhere in the middle as I was going through a very bad burnout. I decided to step down, because the brief break while we did the Champions’ League (I only read one book for that, so that didn’t take much effort on my part) just wasn’t enough to bring back the excitement for the competition. In the last two seasons (Champions’ League excluded), I struggled a lot, and wasn’t enjoying it as much as I used to. It didn’t help that there was only 1 book in two years that I can say I loved. That’s not very good odds. I also wasn’t very sure whether I would have been able to have a full team or not, again, for various reasons. One of the final factors was that I’m not enjoying blogging a lot in general anymore, and this year I wanted to put it in the backseat so I can focus on writing, but also allow myself to rediscover the joy of reading for fun, rather than for the need of reviewing. I’m slowing down, trying to pursue other things, and attempting to build some sort of social life offline.

As for memorable events, well, Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater winning was most definitely a memorable one. It was my semi-finalist choice, and I was so happy with her winning. And then I got to lure her into judging with us! We’ve become friends, and I’ll always be grateful for that. I honestly don’t think the blog would have lasted this long (will be celebrating 8 years soon!) if I didn’t get involved with SPFBO. I got to know people I can call friends from both sides, and I even got to meet Mark Lawrence! But let me tell you, I’m still mad about some books missing out on being finalists…

That’s all about SPFBO, but we’re not quite done yet. You’re working on a book of your own. How’s that coming along and when can we read it?

Ha! Indeed, I do. It’s titled Inkfeather (for now, but it’s very likely that I’ll stick to it), and originally it was a short story I worked on before I became busy with blogging. It’s very early days (well, I’ve been at it for a year now, but you know), I’m currently about 29K words into it and hoping to have a draft of the first part (out of three) done soon. This year, I want to have more focus on it and get as much done as possible. Realistically, I think I’d say 2/3rd, but it depends on how I progress. Thankfully, I have trusted friends to keep me on my toes. I don’t know if and when it’ll be ready for the world to see, but I’m not rushing it. I don’t want to put any pressure on myself, so it’ll be ready when it’ll be ready. I’m quite determined to finish it at least, and we’ll see what happens after that. I don’t even have a pen name yet!

And a few quick questions. What’s your favourite…

…book, in recent times?

Ooh, this is a rude one. Okay, I’ll save myself the pain and will say Jack of Thorns by A.K. Faulkner, which was my favorite indie book in 2025 (according to my handy top 10 post, only one trad book was ahead of it!).

…book, from SPFBO (all of it, ever)?

I’ll take back what I said, this is the rude one. You can’t expect me to pick only one from…literally 3000 books that were entered in the last 10 years. I refuse to play this game, sir. I will, however, give you book(s) from 10 authors – 5 finalists and 5 who didn’t make it.

My non-finalist favorites: The Yarnsworld series by Benedict Patrick is a definite must; I’m a huge fan of his. And then there is Dyer Street Punk Witches by Phil Williams (or any other of his books, really, but this is my favorite from him), The Windborn Saga books by Alex S. Bradshaw, Faithless and The Lore of Prometheus by Graham Austin-King, Books and Bone by Victoria Corva.

My finalist favorites: Small Miracles by Olivia Atwater, A Rival Most Vial by R.K. Ashwick, Symphony of the Wind by Stevie McKinnon, The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids by Michael McClung, and Black Stone Heart by Michael R. Fletcher.

…game, in recent times?

Chant of Sennaar. I’m still not sure if the game or my PC froze while I was getting to the end, but I lost ALL of my progress, and I’m still mad about it. At one point, I’ll go back to replay it, though.

`…advice for someone who wants to start their own book blog?

Don’t do it. Okay, seriously, be prepared that it takes a lot of time and commitment to run a blog, often for little or no reward. You get to know cool people, though, so that’s a bonus. And ARCs. And be better at networking than I’ll ever be.

…source of inspiration?

Music mostly, I’d say. And the too many true crime documentaries I watch… And a bit of my studies way back from university.

…way to clear your mind when everything gets a bit much?

Hmm, listening to music, getting lost in some crafting project, a jigsaw puzzle, or a board game. Also, hugging my favorite plush panda, if all else fails.

Do you have any last words?

Thank you so much for having me and letting me ramble on! And good luck to every SPFBO entrant this year! And if you attend BristolCon 2026, please come say hi!

Queen Terrible Timy

Timy, known to some as Queen Terrible Timy, hails from a magical land called Hungary, born and raised in its capital city, Budapest. Books have been her refuge and best friends ever since she can remember, along with music and her favorite stuffed panda(s). She might or might not be obsessed with said animals. When approached out in the wild, please remember Timy is a tight ball of anxiety disguised as a human being, possibly in need of a hug. And very likely a place on the spectrum, if someone could save her a seat.

Timy is the owner and editor of Queen’s Book Asylum. In her free time, she likes to craft things, collect panda stuff, go to concerts, travel, play board games, and take the literary world one book at a time. Either invading as a character or a beta reader when the occasion arises. She is currently working on her own debut novel, titled Inkfeather.