Honored to make the short list

A few weeks ago I posted about the Booknests' Fantasy Award, and how Age of War was picked by a panel to be one of the 50 titles submitted for consideration. The judges included nine popular fantasy blogs (Bookworm Blues, Fantasy Book Critic, Fantasy Book Review, Fantasy-Faction, Grimdark Magazine, The Fantasy Hive, The Fantasy Inn, The Grim Tidings Podcast, and The Weatherwax Report), three big fantasy imprints (Gollancz, Harper Voyager, and Orbit), and two well-respected agents (John Jarrold and Joshua Bilmes of JABberwocky Literary Agency).

What an amazing list with some incredible books, and I was pleased to be included. What I didn't expect was to make the short list. After all,  forty books had to go, and I expected mine would be one of them. But out of some miracle (and thank you to everyone who voted), the book made it to the shortlist.

Once again, I'm including some data from Goodreads (which I've updated from my last post). The odds-on favorite would be Children of Blood and Bone although I won't count out how much people enjoy Brandon Sanderson's work.

Title	Author	Rating	# Ratings	# shelved
A Time of Dread	John Gwynne	4.47	1,031	5,769
Age of War	Michael J. Sullivan	4.47	3,764	18,415
Bloody Rose	Nicholas Eames	4.39	1,750	8,624
Children of Blood and Bone	Tomi Adeyemi	4.28	45,682	183,220
Iron Gold	Pierce Brown	4.26	21,141	72,530
Master Assassins	Robert V.S. Redick	4.18	658	4,466
Oathbringer	Brandon Sanderson	4.63	59,709	142,362
Spinning Silver	Naomi Novik	4.32	15,225	69,506
The Fall of Gondolin	J.R.R. Tolkien	4.08	593	7,812
The Girl In The Tower	Katherine Arden	4.42	17,319	52,275

Voting is open for the next round, and again don't feel obligated to vote for Age of War (you'll just be throwing your vote away, but by all means, vote for whichever book you want to see win.