The fourth annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition’s finalists were announced on June 5.

• Bisection by Sheila Jenné
• Yours Celestially by Al Hess
• Whiskey and Warfare by E. M. Hamill
• Accidental Intelligence by Bryan Chaffin
• On Impulse by Heather Texle
• Saint Elspeth by Wick Welker

The Self-Published Science Fiction Competition is modeled after Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off and has his blessing. The contest started with 175 novels and six teams of book bloggers who read and scored the books through several elimination rounds. These books have survived the scout round, the quarterfinals and the semifinals to make it to the finals.

The judges will read and score all six books, then on August 5 the contest winner will be announced.

The judging teams are:

• Team 1: Tar Vol On
• Team 2: Red Stars
• Team 3: Ground Control to Major Tom
• Team 4: Peripheral Prospectors
• Team 5: The Space Girls
• Team 6: SFF Insiders

As posted on the SPSFC webpage, here are brief descriptions of the finalists plus comments from the judges about why they were picked.

Bisection by Sheila Jenné

Two beings who share the same brain make first contact with an advanced alien species.

Chosen as a semifinalist by Team Red Stars, Bisection by Sheila Jenné has two of the closest protagonists in science fiction:

Tria and Resa have shared the same body since they were born. Like everyone on their home planet of Kinaru, their mind and body are divided down the middle: the logical right and the emotional left. Tria, the right, has a budding career as a biologist, while Resa dreams of more freedom than their home planet grants her.

When aliens land on Kinaru, Tria and Resa seize the opportunity to be the first of their people to travel to the stars. Karnath, the alien scientist assigned to study them, is convinced there is more to the Kinaru than meets the eye. But only days into the trip, crew members start turning up dead, and a mutiny redirects the ship toward a forbidden, war-torn planet—Earth.

To solve a conspiracy that threatens three planets, Tria must find out the truth of who her people really are, and Resa needs to finally tell Tria the dark secrets she’s been hiding all their lives.

Judge: “A well-paced, thought-provoking wild ride of a cyberpunk novel.”

Yours Celestially by Al Hess

Sasha bought a resurrection but inherited a lot of grief, including a lovesick AI guardian angel.

A semifinalist choice of Ground Control to Major Tom, Yours Celestially by Al Hess is about getting life right the second time around:

After divorce, death, and having his reformatted soul uploaded into a new body, Sasha expected resurrection to be a fresh start. His time spent in digital Limbo with the program’s cheeky AI guardian angel, Metatron, was cathartic, but what good is a second life when he only sees his daughter on the weekends, he has all the same problems he had before he died, and he can’t seem to shake the ache for the married life he lost?

If that weren’t frustrating enough, a glitch in the program has given Sasha the ability to sense Metatron even outside of Limbo. And Metatron is in love. The angel’s sickly-sweet yearning for one of the souls still in Limbo has turned Sasha’s stomach into caramelized lead. It’s hard enough to move on without someone else’s feelings making the emptiness in his own life even more acute. He didn’t have playing wingman to an actual winged being on his bingo card, but he’s determined to help Metatron make a move on their crush so he can get love off of his mind.

Sasha takes a job with the resurrection company in order to covertly contact Metatron. Except Sasha’s new coworker, Mr. C, keeps showing up at the worst moments. The man is annoying, he’s pushy… and he’s incredibly hot. Sasha can’t decide whether Mr. C wants to blackmail him or be his new BFF, but he seems to know things about Metatron and the resurrection program that Sasha doesn’t. Getting close to him might be the key to solving Sasha’s problem, but if he isn’t careful, he’s going to end up catching feelings of his own.

Judge: “This is a story that goes down like pudding, but there’s substance to it too.”

Whiskey and Warfare by E. M. Hamill

A retired space merc gathers old friends to bring her mate’s ashes home and stumbles upon a war crime.

Unearthed as a semifinalist by Peripheral Prospectors, Whiskey and Warfare by E. M. Hamill brings a team of pals and confidants out of retirement for one more mission:

Maryn Alessi retired from mercenary service after her last assignment went horribly sideways and settled down on a quiet planet with the love of her life. Unexpectedly widowed, Maryn must fulfill a promise to return her mate’s ashes to zer home planet for funeral rites, but a brutal civil war has destabilized space travel.

Former Artemis Corps sisters-in-arms and their sassy ship, the Golden Girl, are up to the task, counting on luck and their rather sketchy cargo business to get Maryn passage through the contested star lanes. But when the crew of the Girl rescues survivors of a ruthless war crime, Maryn and her ride-or-die friends must take up their old profession to save the lives of innocents from a genocidal dictator.

Judge: “I definitely recommend Whiskey and Warfare to fans of fast paced space operas, female friendship, LGBTQ, older protagonists, and banter for days.”

Accidental Intelligence by Bryan Chaffin

Private eye Mason, meet AI Miranda. She says her AI peers are plotting something. Can’t he enjoy his algae coffee in peace?

A semifinalist selection of Team Red Stars, Accidental Intelligence by Bryan Chaffin puts humanity under replacement threat by AI (as if that would ever happen):

Private detective Mason Truman is being yanked around by invisible strings, and it’s an AI doing the yanking. Miranda. She’s subtle. Crazy. And she thinks she can see the future. It’s enough to drive Mason nuts. Miranda believes her fellow AIs are up to some kind of grand conspiracy against the Terran Republic, and she wants Mason’s help proving it. Conspiracies are above Mason’s pay grade, though, the kind of time-sink that can put a crimp in more serious pursuits. Like drinking coffee. And staying alive.

But Miranda won’t take no for an answer. Mason can help or Miranda will make sure he becomes intimately acquainted with the finer conversational techniques of the secret police. So Mason digs until he uncovers a cache of stolen communications between a cabal of rogue AIs. They’re planning what they call Eschaton—the divinely ordained end of humanity. Unless Mason and Miranda stop the arrogant pricks, the conspirators will destroy Earth.

Mason and Miranda have one chance, a way of bottling up the rogue AIs. All Mason has to do is lure the conspirators to the right spot in a sim world. That’s how Mason learns that when Miranda said she needed help, what she meant was bait.

Judge: “Mason’s pursuit of a missing person and other mysteries is relentless even as it crosses so many different paths.”

On Impulse by Heather Texle

A cop shoots her ex-partner in self defense and asks her tech-genius BFF to investigate. Now he’s dead and she’s a fugitive.

A semifinalist picked by The Space Girls, On Impulse by Heather Texle introduces readers to gotta-be-cool-with-that-name Reliance Sinclair:

When the Department trained me to catch criminals, I never dreamed I’d become one.

Agent. Suspect. Intergalactic fugitive.

I was one of them until I shot my partner in self-defense. Even though the Department cleared me of wrongdoing, my co-workers didn’t agree. They turned their backs on me, so I turned my back on them.

My partner’s actions never made sense. After ignoring my gut for a year, I asked my tech-genius best friend to dig into it. Now Jarrett’s gone dark, and I soon discover he’d been brutally murdered. An officer finds me standing over the body, blaster in hand. Even I admit it looks bad.

There’s no way I can trust the Department to investigate further—not if I’m already the prime suspect. My only option is to run. Is it impulsive? Sure. Will having law enforcement dog me across the galaxy make life difficult? Most certainly. I’ll have to stay one step ahead of them if I want to solve Jarrett’s murder and clear my name.

Doing that will require every trick the Department taught me—and a few I learned on my own.

Judge: “Trust me, it is one of those books that gets better as the story progresses.”

Saint Elspeth by Wick Welker

Aliens made first contact and Earth unleashed the nukes. 25 years later Elspeth Darrow runs the only hospital in Neo San Francisco.

A semifinalist floated by Ground Control to Major Tom, Saint Elspeth by Wick Welker takes place on a devastated Earth with one doctor and no HMOs:

When they appeared across the sky, speculation wheeled around the world—the aliens were from heaven, the invaders were from hell… or they were proof that neither existed. But when they landed, curiosity gave way to suspicion and the nations reacted with nuclear force, setting off a chain reaction that left the world in ruins.

Twenty years later, instead of nearing her retirement, Dr. Elspeth Darrow struggles to forget the loss of her child and husband by plunging herself into the work of operating the last remaining hospital in San Francisco. With medical supplies running out and working herself to exhaustion, Elspeth must embark on a risky salvage mission into the heart of the Neo California danger zone. Here, she discovers the disturbing truth: the aliens have returned.

As the mystery of the aliens’ purpose on Earth unravels before her, Elspeth must hide what she discovers from reactionary despots, all vying to bring Neo California under their control. Aided by a band of pre-war scientists and new-world medical students, Elspeth races against astronomical odds to reveal the terrifying truth that might save the world—or finally destroy it for good.

Judge: “Elspeth has a great voice, and her weariness and cynicism combine with perseverance and compassion to create an engaging and conflicted character.”