Battle of the Books, Spring 2012 Bracket

Elizabeth Bear's Range of Ghosts is in the record books as our Winter 2012 champion, but the review copies keep pouring in, so . . .



Welcome to the Spring 2012 Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books!

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

We've received 16 more 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 Spring 2012 bracket randomly. Here are your matchups.

First Quarter of Bracket:

Syrie & Ryan M. James, Forbidden (HarperTeen, Jan)
vs.
Julie Cross, Tempest (Macmillan Audio / St. Martin's, Jan)





Christopher Fowler, Hell Train*** (Solaris, Jan)
vs.
James Maxey, Greatshadow (Solaris, Feb)

Second Quarter of Bracket:

Ken MacLeod, The Night Sessions*** (Pyr, Apr)
vs.
Rod Rees, The Demi-Monde: Winter (William Morrow, Jan)





Simon Bestwick, The Faceless (Solaris, Feb)
vs.
Jon Sprunk, Shadow's Master (Pyr, Apr)

Third Quarter of Bracket:

Ben Marcus, The Flame Alphabet*** (Alfred A. Knopf, Jan)
vs.
Mark Chadbourn, The Burning Man (Pyr, Apr)




Eric G. Wilson, Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Feb)
vs.
Tony Hays, The Stolen Bride (Tor/Forge, Apr)

Fourth Quarter of Bracket:

James Renner, The Man from Primrose Lane (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Mar)
vs.
Weston Ochse, Blood Ocean (Abaddon, Feb)




Saladin Ahmed, Throne of the Crescent Moon*** (DAW, Feb)
vs.
Victoria Foyt, Revealing Eden (Sand Dollar, Jan)

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, 3 of the books are science fiction, 4 high fantasy, 4 contemporary fantasy, 3 horror, and 2 miscellaneous. (The miscellaneous books are a non-fiction book that looked of interest to readers of horror and dystopian fiction, and a mystery book with an Arthurian setting that we thought would appeal to fantasy readers.)
-- This is a more male-dominated field than the Winter Bracket, with 13 books by men, 2 by women, and 1 mother-and-son collaboration.
-- Solaris decided to join the Battle of the Books fun, which is why we have more horror this time. This bracket include 3 books from Solaris, 3 from Pyr, 2 from Farrar Straus & Giroux, and 1 each from Tor/Forge, HarperCollins, William Morrow, Alfred A. Knopf, Abaddon, DAW, Sand Dollar, and Macmillan Audio (our first audiobook submission).
-- This time only 2 of the books are sequels: Jon Sprunk's Shadow's Master and Mark Chadbourn's The Burning Man.

We will begin announcing first round results on Tuesday, March 6. Good luck to all the entrants!