Battle of the Books, Bracket Six

Announcing Bracket Six of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books!

Battle of the Books continues with Bracket Six. For why we decided to do a Battle of the Books, click here. For the rules, click here.

Previous Battle of the Books winners have been Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear, The Man from Primrose Lane by James Renner, The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis, The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi, and Harmony (alt.human in the UK) by Keith Brooke.

Aaron will review and judge Bracket Six, which features a new group of sixteen (16) contenders. (Amy pulled together and formatted all the book cover graphics.)

We've selected four "seeded" books -- four we are especially looking forward to (marked with asterisks) -- placed one seeded book in each quarter of the bracket, and then filled in the rest of the bracket randomly.  Here are your matchups.

First Quarter of Bracket:


Ari Marmell
False Covenant
(Pyr)
vs.
Clay and Susan Griffith
Vampire Empire:The Kingmakers
(Pyr)




Ross S. Simon
The Snow
(Damnation)
vs.
Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston
Earth Unaware
(Tor)***

Second Quarter of Bracket


Sam Sykes
The Skybound Sea
(Pyr)
vs.
Nancy Kress
After the Fall Before the Fall During the Fall
(Tachyon)***



B.V. Larson
Technomancer
(47North)
vs.
Rachel Coles
Pazuzu's Girl
(JournalStone)

Third Quarter of Bracket:


Tim Lebbon
London Eye
(Pyr)
vs.
Liz Williams
WorldSoul
(Prime)



James S. A. Corey
Caliban's War
(Orbit)***
vs.
Robin D. Laws
Blood of the City
(Paizo)

Fourth Quarter of Bracket:


Bernd Struben
The13th Zookeeper
(Strider Nolan)
vs.
Megan Powell
No Peace for the Damned
(47North)



Ian McDonald
Be My Enemy
(Pyr)***
vs.
Rowena Cory Daniells
Besieged
(Solaris)

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Some notes on the field:
-- Several of the books are difficult to classify, but by my best count, 6 are science fiction, 4 high fantasy, 3 urban fantasy, 1 YA fantasy, 1 YA science fiction, and 1 horror.
-- The field is comprised of eight men, five women, and three collaborations (James S.A. Corey is two people).
-- The contestants include 5 books from Pyr, 2 from 47North and 1 each from established publishers Orbit, Paizo, Prime, Solaris, Tachyon, and Tor and small publishers Damnation, JournalStone, and Strider Nolan.
-- 4 of the books are labeled as book one of a series, 7 are books continuing an existing series, 1 is a tie-in to the roleplaying game Pathfinder, and the rest appear to be stand-alone books.

We will begin announcing results on Wednesday, and try to make a Battle of the Books post every other day from then until we are done. Best of luck to all the competitors!