Rory August’s The Last Gifts of the Universe is the winner of the second Self-Published Science Fiction Competition.
The Self-Published Science Fiction Competition, created by Hugh Howey and Duncan Swan, is modeled after Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, and has his blessing. The contest started with 300 novels and ten teams of book bloggers who read and scored the books through several elimination rounds.
In the final round the top seven books were read by all the judges. The teams’ scores for each finalist and links to their reviews are posted on the SPSFC website.
The Tar Vol On review concisely sums up the winning story:
The Last Gifts of the Universe stars two siblings working for a non-profit that sends them to the stars, searching for records from dead civilizations, hoping to find some clue as to the nature of the disaster that has destroyed every known non-human society. In addition to the isolation of [Scout] traveling through space with just one human companion (there’s also a cat [Pumpkin]), the lead is still working through their grief over the death of their mother. And as if the psychological difficulties weren’t enough, there’s a much less ethical and better-funded group also tracking down dead civilizations in hopes of monopolizing alien technologies.
Rory August tweeted this acceptance: “I am so grateful and so happy to see that Last Gifts resonated with so many readers and judges. I’m so proud of Scout and Pumpkin!”
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Congratulations to Rory August!
My SPSFC team was assigned this book and enthusiastically advanced it past the stage where judges read 10 percent of books and decide whether they want to read it in full. Our expectations were met and exceeded in a full read.
The Last Gifts of the Universe has a poignant melancholy premise. Two archivists show up on the planet of a dead civilization where nothing has survived. Not even their cockroaches. The explorers look for caches and other data that might tell them why everything died. The two archivists and their cat go all over space seeking answers that are of vital importance, because their own civilization is the last one in existence.
What follows is a fast-paced plot involving a race against another group that only wants the knowledge for exploitation commercially (short term profit leading to long term disaster — what does that remind me of?). The prospect of intergalactic apocalypse ever looms.
Where the novel rose above the hundreds of other entrants was the emotional impact. There’s a lot about grief and loss, both at a personal and a galactic level.
I thought Rory August’s debut novel looked like a potential winner when I sampled the first 10 percent. After the full read I gave it the highest score of any book I read for SPSFC 2.
The SPSFC has faced some challenges in the first two contests, but the first two winners — this novel and S.A. Tholin’s Iron Truth — are excellent choices by talented writers.