It’s once again time for the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championships, and once again, Read Indie Fantasy is part of the judging effort. With this post, we introduce our team as well as the books we’re reading in the first round.

The Team

• Lead: Nils Ödlund – Read Indie Fantasy – Bluesky
  • Favourite Genre: Contemporary Fantasy
  • Favourite Books in the Last Year:
    • However Many Must Die, by Phil Williams
    • Huntsong, by Pirateaba
• Tabitha Tomala – Behind the Pages – Bluesky – Instagram
  • Favourite Genre: Fantasy
  • Favourite Book in the Last Year:
    • Blood Over Bright Haven, by M.L. Wang
• Sue Bavey – Sue’s Musings – Bluesky – Instagram
  • Favourite Genre: Norse fantasy/mythology/folklore
  • Favourite Books in the Last Year:
    • The Fire in the Frost, by Lyra Wolf
    • Coal Gets in Your Veins, by Cat Rector
• Lilly Lockwood – WEIRDE Reviews – Bluesky
  • Favourite Genre: High Fantasy
  • Favourite Books in the Last Year:
    • Imbued, by Helyna L. Clove
    • A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers

Team Mascot?

Trudie is sitting this year out due to an enormous amount of other undertakings. We’ll still be enlisting Tru as our unofficial Team Mascot, though, and they’ll be cheering us on from the sidelines (from the margins?).

The Books

Each book will be read by at least two team members. We will select and announce five semifinalists no later than December 20, 2025.

1. It’s You, Isn’t It?

Anthony Paschos

Who are the heirs to the colony?

On the world of Terra-Octa, colonists Avra, her sister, and their friend Penko are the first to catch sight of a massive guardian of the native trees producing Chloron, vital to building the colony. Three years later, the colony is destroyed by an uprising of chlorobots, powered by that same resource.

But all is not as it seems. What at first is a childhood memory to Avra turns deadly as her alien caretaker reveals herself to be more than Avra could understand. At the same time, her father, the general, firms his grasp on how the colony is run.
Told in the past and the present, Avra’s story unravels in time and meaning until she finally understands her family, her blossoming romance with Penko, her alien caretaker, the origins of life, and the betrayal at the base of the colony.

Get ready for It’s You, Isn’t It? by Antony Paschos!

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2. Reap, Sow

S.H. Cooper

The halls are familiar. Lucianne “Lucky” Boyle knows that much. But how she came to be in this strange place that tries to make itself look like home is a mystery. Filled with doors that have no handles, rooms that shift to almost familiar, and faceless people in blue, Lucky is determined to find a way out to get back to her family and the man she loves. Until her family starts to show up, one by one, to lead her down a dark and twisted path that ends in a terrible truth.

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3. The Oldest Footprints

Brian Terence

This novella is part of the collection The Oldest Footprints And Other Stories: Science Fiction Short Story Collection, but only this particular story is entered in the competition

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4. Mistaken Captives

Rhiannon Held

When Faith showed up to work a gig as a server at a wedding dinner, she never expected to be kidnapped, much less to be faced with proof that werewolves are real. A mistaken identity has landed her squarely in the middle of a Were feud, the Russians against the Roanoke pack. Unless she uses all her diplomacy to rein in Laurence, the Were captured with her, the pair may be the first casualties…

A novella in the Silver universe.

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5. House of Cthulhu, Act I: The Horror in Clay

Thom Brannan

Generations beyond the events in H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu,” the Thurston/Angell family has remained it the family seat, prosperous in business and politics. Wayland Thurston wants none of it. However, after the death of his father, he has no choice but to return home to Providence and receive his birthright. He wants none of that, either, but puts in an appearance anyway.

And everything changes.

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6. The Drowned Heir

Jennifer R. Donohue

When her uncle dies at sea, a third child with no place in society undergoes a ceremony to house his spirit and take his role, diminishing the family’s loss. But her uncle’s spirit hasn’t settled the way it’s supposed to, and will not content itself with shore-bound business. Her uncle’s spirit insists, angrily, that it was not just a storm that killed him and wrecked his ship, not a rogue wave; it was an unthinkably large monster.

Then his lover comes knocking with news of an adult son who has set sail along the same shipping lane, and dead uncle and living niece must work together to save a son neither of them knew existed.

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7. Blue

Niranjan

With time running out, can he succeed in helping an innocent man avoid death?

Five years ago, Aydin failed to recapture Joe after he had escaped prison. Now, Aydin and his team are on the job. But things don’t add up, and Aydin doesn’t know if Joe is guilty.

Aydin’s blue eyes could make anyone speak the truth, but first they have to capture Joe. When a member of his team breaks a law, Aydin’s boss gives him an ultimatum: two weeks to capture Joe or he would declare Joe a fugitive, to be terminated at sight.

Aydin knows that Joe’s guilt isn’t certain, but can he prove Joe’s innocence within two weeks? And what of the strange happenings in Joe’s old house?

Blue is a science fantasy mystery with flawed characters, past and present timelines, and magic linked to eye colour. If you love mysteries and fantasy, you will enjoy this tale of magic and murder mysteries.

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8. A Second Life Worth Living

Karen Lucia

Bennet Smith has already died once. He has no interest in a repeat act.

Caught in the crossfire of an increasingly violent revolution, Ben’s first death doesn’t stick. His bones ache. His body still feels phantom pains. Wrongfully killed, he should return ready to fight alongside the revolutionaries striving for change. Instead, he wants no part of it.

Bennet Smith is no hero. He has never been a hero. He has never wanted to be a hero. All Ben has ever wanted is to keep his head down, fly under the radar, and pass completely unnoticed. Death didn’t change that.

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9. The Silenced

Chris Patrick

The Silenced is a gripping dystopian thriller about a world where voices have vanished and language itself is outlawed. In a future where voices are extinct and only the ruling elite may speak, Story, a smuggler of forbidden books discovers a child who can speak, becoming guardian of humanity’s most dangerous secret. Hunted by Silencers, they fight to preserve memory, language, and hope in a world built on silence. Part speculative survival tale, part elegy for lost words, this story is both visceral and lyrical and a reminder that even in silence, stories endure.

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10. The Final Voyage of Avery Mothmere

Helen Whistberry

What would you do if you were shipwrecked, swept ashore, and menaced by a horde of ravenous crabs, only to be saved by an eldritch being and welcomed into a tower of secrets by an even more enigmatic host? As a scientist and traveler, how would you assess a situation that could only be a nightmare such as no human has ever experienced?

Join Avery Mothmere on the adventure of a lifetime! This charming story is by turns Gothic horror, strange romance, unfathomable mystery, and weird fever dream. Features 30 original illustrations by the author.

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11. Grey Enigmas

Gareth Lewis

Alex is a detective in a world that considers them unnecessary. When everyone is a telepath, with their own inner policeman, crimes cannot escape notice. So a murder with no obvious culprit leaves the authorities at a loss. Woken from a virtual sentence, still unrepentantly anti-social, Alex is given the opportunity to finally investigate a mystery. One which puts him in danger, and leads to mysteries of a more personal nature. Exactly how long has he been asleep? And is this really the first mystery he’s been awakened to investigate?

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12. The Nome King and the Shroud

Tim Pratt

The Nome King and the Shroud is new space opera novella by Hugo Award winner Tim Pratt.

Mazha Sun is a “troublesolver,” a specialist in dealing with the unexpected, and when she’s awakened from cryosleep years ahead of schedule, she knows something is very wrong. The colony ship’s AI tells her it’s detected something incredible: a Dyson sphere, an immense stellar structure created by unknown aliens, seemingly dormant and abandoned.

Since the sphere is close (astronomically speaking) to their planned homeworld, Mazha decides they should take a closer look. But the sphere isn’t as dead as it seems: it has an operative artificial intelligence called Shroud, who asks for help staving off a megastructure-destroying cataclysm. Mazha will just need to wake up a few of her colleagues first….

But can Shroud be trusted? And once they enter the interior of the sphere… will the crew and the sleeping colonists ever be allowed to leave?

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13. The Shimmering Prayer of Sûkiurâq

S.L. Dove Cooper

A deliciously queer magical person story in a secondary world with floating cities and airships, perfect for fans of She-Ra and Steven Universe.

All thaes life, Oibe Ekêmai has wanted to become a lêqnaemi, a travelling dancer skilled at nudging the world’s magic into making everyone’s lives a little easier. Thae has trained years for their chance at the Festival of Paths, where new apprentices will be chosen.

But the lêqnaemi have secrets they only reveal to those chosen to join their ranks and Oibe Ekêmai and thaes new friends soon find themselves thrust into an age-old conflict. With almost no preparation and certainly no training, their group will have to face the horrors all lêqnaemi have sworn to face and triumph, or the entire world may be lost to darkness forever.

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14. Little Beauty

Mark Jonathan Runte

Cherbourg, Normandy – 1159

Shy Jehanne always lived at the mercy of her sisters’ spite and bitterness, preferring a life with the saints in her father’s library. Cherbourg was home and for her, it was the smaller pleasures of watching the ships in the harbor, searching for her father’s vessels.

She might have continued on that path, were it not for the storm that sank his beloved Maud and left her family ruined. Her sisters resented leaving Cherbourg’s society for a small home on the edges of a nearby wood. While her sisters griped over selling their baubles and her brothers struggled with simple woodcutting, she was teaching herself the basics of hunting to feed them through the long winter.

She never counted upon finding a huntsman and his party in the woods, nor accompanying him back to his country estate. No more that than the curse on his heart.

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15. Servant of the Muses

Brad A. White

Jake Conrad is a two-bit detective in the city by the bay. For twenty dollars a day – plus expenses – he’ll take your case. When his assistant Clio vanishes one foggy San Francisco morning, Jake finds himself on his hardest case yet. A mysterious redhead wants Clio found, but some people want to make sure she stays lost forever. Everyone’s got a motive, and everyone’s playing their own game. If Jake can’t figure it out, his hero’s journey may be over before it begins in this noir mythical mystery.

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16. Water’s Edge

Ellie Lieberman

Beware the embrace of the water deep
The darkness pulls you down to sleep
To an early grave you lay
For the rest of your days

Midnight on Halloween, supernatural investigative reporter, Gretchen Mallory Belle receives a phone call that sends her chasing the urban legend of her hometown.

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17. The First Day

Keelan Powell

One moment, Perth was one of the most isolated cities on Earth.

The next moment, that spot of light at the edge of the world was all that was left.

All alone, how will the people of Perth confront their first day?

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18. Dance With Me

Livia J. Elliot

A haunting and poignant fairy tale for adult readers, blending delicate imagery with psychological depth.

In a world of beauty, a ceramic-made ballerina awakens atop her music box. She must dance for her elven owners, and so her ballet goes on and on. They praise her elegance, her poise and balance, until one day she falls and her ceramic fractures—but the ballerina dances again, ignoring her ever-increasing fissures. The music plays, captivating and demanding… but should she dance? Even when what she once loved becomes a trap?

A clever, dark, psychological fairy tale for adult readers.

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19. Skyfold

T.J. McKay

Rain is the tyranny of gods.

Cabbott and Riven Soh’vail have a plan — to steal the Skyfold’s source and free their people from Sovereign rule.

For centuries, the Sovereigns have used their god-like power to rule Prytarria, a world of islands floating in the clouds and caught in eternal storms.

Some, like Cabbott, suffer under Sovereign power while dreaming of cloudless skies. Some, like Riven, defy their masters and laugh in the face of a Sovereign’s curse. Still others plot and scheme, for the day humans can reclaim their glory.

And together, those with the courage to risk it all shall sow the seeds of a new age, and a world born free of the Sovereigns.

Full of thrills, adventure, and the power of love against evil, Skyfold is an epic fantasy heist you’ll never forget, with monsters aplenty and twists at every turn.

Journey where every game has a cost, and every dream a price to be paid.

To those who dare, demen pragos.
“Find purpose in play, and master your world.”