Battle of the Books, Winter 2012 Bracket

Welcome to the first Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books!

We're getting more review copies of books than we can possibly read, so we decided to make them fight to the death!

For more about why we decided to do a Battle of the Books, click here. For all the rules, click here.

We've received our first 16 contenders, selected four "seeded" books -- the four we are most looking forward to out of this group (marked with asterisks) -- placed one seeded book in each quarter of the bracket, and then filled in the rest of the Winter 2012 bracket randomly, to arrive at the following matchups.

First Quarter of Bracket:

J.M. McDermott, When We Were Executioners (Night Shade, Feb)
vs.
Charles de Lint, Eyes Like Leaves*** (Tachyon, Feb)





Cat Adams, The Isis Collar (Tor, Feb)
vs.
Sergey & Marina Dyachenko, The Scar (Tor, Feb)

Second Quarter of Bracket:

Thomas K. Carpenter, Gamers (Black Moon, 2011)
vs.
Orson Scott Card, Shadows in Flight*** (Tor, Jan)





Nathan Long, Jane Carver of Waar (Night Shade, Mar)
vs.
Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson, Sisterhood of Dune (Tor, Jan)

Third Quarter of Bracket:

Ari Marmell, Thief's Covenant (Pyr, Feb)
vs.
Mark Hodder, Burton & Swinburne in Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon (Pyr, Jan)




Stina Leicht, And Blue Skies from Pain*** (Night Shade, Mar)
vs.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Boneyards (Pyr, Jan)

Fourth Quarter of Bracket:

Elizabeth Bear, Range of Ghosts*** (Tor, Mar)
vs.
Mark Chadbourn, Jack of Ravens (Pyr, Mar)





Andy Gavin, The Darkening Dream (Macherato, Jan)
vs.
David Constantine, The Pillars of Hercules (Night Shade, Mar)

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Some notes on the field:
-- A couple of the books are tricky to classify, but by my best count, 4 of the books are science fiction, 11 fantasy, and 1 horror.
-- 11 books are by men, 4 by women, and 1 is a husband-and-wife collaboration.
-- 5 of the books are published by Tor, 4 by Night Shade, 4 by Pyr, 1 by Tachyon, and 2 are self-published.
-- 7 of the books are later volumes in an ongoing series, while 9 are either stand-alones or the first book in a new series.

We will announce the first round results, one per day, from this Tuesday to the following Tuesday. Good luck to all the entrants, and let's have fun!