Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: speculative fiction

CYGNUS Awards for Science Fiction & Speculative Fiction FIRST PLACE Category Winners 2015
Chanticleer Book Reviews is honored to announce the First Place Category Winners for the Cygnus Awards 2015, the science fiction, speculative fiction, and steampunk fiction genre division of the Chanticleer Blue Ribbon Award Writing Competitions.

The Cygnus Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, and Speculative Fiction. The Cygnus Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer Book Reviews Blue Ribbon Awards Writing Competitions.

Please note that Fantasy, Myth & Legend, & Magical Systems entries were moved to the newly offered OZMA Awards for Fantasy Fiction. This contest will be awarded for the first time in 2016.

These First Place Category Winners will be recognized on stage at the Chanticleer Authors Conference on April 30, 2016 Awards Banquet. Good luck to them as they compete for the CYGNUS 2015 Grand Prize.

First Place Category Winners for the Cygnus Awards are:
- John Yarrow for The Time Forward Project
- James Wells for The Great Symmetry
- C. A. Knutsen for Janus Unfolding: Emergence
- Janine A. Southard for Cracked! A Magic iPhone Story
- Jessica Schaub for Gateways
- L.S. Kilroy for The Vitruvian Heir
- Tommy Partl for Mechanized
- Timothy S. Johnston for The Furnace
*This list is now complete 3/16/16

CONGRATULATIONS!

The 1st Place Category Winners compete for the CYGNUS AWARDS 2015 GRAND PRIZE position. The 2015 CYGNUS category winners will be recognized at the Chanticleer Authors Conference and Awards Gala on April 30, 2016. See the Grand Prize Winners from 2014.

The submission deadline for the 2016 CYGNUS Awards is now closed. We are accepting entries into the 2017 Cygnus Awards Novel Competition.

To compete in the 2017 CYGNUS Awards or for more information, please click here.

THE DEADLINE TO ENTER THE 2016 CYGNUS Novel Writing Competitions was January 31st, 2016.

ENTER NOW

Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media, L.L.C. retains the right to not declare “default winners.” Winning works are decided upon merit only. Please visit our Contest Details page for more information about our writing contest guidelines.

CBR’s rigorous writing competition standards are why literary agencies seek out our winning manuscripts and self-published novels. Our high standards are also why our reviews are trusted among booksellers and book distributors.

Please do not hesitate to contact Info@ChantiReviews.com about any questions, concerns, or suggestions about CBR writing competitions. Your input and suggestions are important to us.

Thank you for your interest in Chanticleer Book Reviews International Writing Competitions.
February 26, 2016
The ARIADNE CONNECTION by Sara Stamey, a SciFi Thriller set in Greece

The year is 2027 and planet Earth is angry. Pollution has gone viral, ravaging the global environment while corporate technocracy has invaded all aspects of the media using its sensory-loaded “NeuroLink” productions to commandeer the thoughts and will of the masses.

Radical climate swings, drought and famine, flood and pestilence take on Biblical meaning. And deep inside its core, the bowels of the earth are being rocked by a violent shift of its geomagnetic poles – a shift paired with cataclysmic seismic activity.

With planetary life headed for extinction, mankind reaches out to its “Gods,” both secular and non-secular, for salvation. At the same time whisperings on the NeuroLink claim that there is a savior among them. Saint Ariadne.

With the story of a lifetime in her sghts, NeuroLink celebrity Leeza Conreid calls upon “freelance import expediter” Peter Mitchell to take her into the dark heart of the militarized Mediterranean League’s territory. She’s confident that her history with Ariadne will give her the access she needs, but Leeza has more than a hot story on her mind. Broken promises and a perceived betrayal have warped her soul, launching her on a revenge-driven mission to expose and destroy Ariadne.

“Saint” Ariadne has her own plan. After pushing into alternative scientific frontiers using pulsed laser, electronic stimulation and a mysterious “tonic” water, she’s on the verge of finding a cure for a rapidly-progressing form of leprosy. But the ongoing electromagnetic upheaval is tapping into something primal in her DNA, and her life’s work as well as her “healing abilities” are under attack. With global salvation at stake, Ariadne must escape from the exile of her father’s house and place her trust in the talents of hard-drinking smuggler Peter Mitchell.

Destined to be a classic in the Speculative Fiction genre, Sara Stamey’s Cygnus Award-winning novel, The Ariadne Connection, takes the reader on a visual feast through the azure waters and rugged Mediterranean landscape of the Greek Islands while tapping into the deep roots of mythological tradition. And her use of well-defined, believable characters invites us to cinch our seatbelts tight and come along for the ride of a lifetime.

With a clever nod to movie blockbusters such as “The Fifth Element” and “Transporter,” Sara Stamey’s near-future novel The Ariadne Connection is a rocket-paced thrill ride that delivers complex, engaging characters in a laser-sharp plot.

October 30, 2015
The CYGNUS AWARDS for Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction 2015 Official Finalist List
The CYGNUS Awards writing competition recognizes emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction. The Cygnus Awards is a division of the Chanticleer Awards International Writing Competitions.

We are pleased to announce the CYGNUS Awards Official Finalists List for 2015, otherwise known as the “Short List” from all the 2015 entries received. The Official Finalists Listing is comprised of works that have passed the first three rounds of judging from the entire field of entrants. To pass the first three rounds of judging, more than sixty pages of the works below have been read and been deemed worthy by the CBR judges of continuing in competition for the CYGNUS Awards FIRST IN CATEGORY positions and their prize packages.

Congratulations to the CYGNUS AWARDS 2015 FINALISTS and Good Luck as they compete for the First Place Category Positions:
- Alex McIntosh – The Limits of Control
- B.T. James – The Tales of New Atlantis: Book One “Summer School”
- Bruce Campbell – Coyote Calls Down the Gods
- Arlianne Napier – Divine Prophecy
- Bruce Campbell – Kidnap City–An ET Love Story
- C. A. Knutsen – Janus Unfolding: Emergence
- C. Edward Baldwin – Rememberers
- Charlotte McGary & Sharon Faiola-Petersen – The Dream Crystals of Gandara
- Steve LeBel for The Universe Builders: Bernie and the Putty
- Debra Erfert – Window of Death
- Deen Ferrell – Cryptic Spaces: Eight Queens
- Elisabeth Hamill – Song Magick
- James Wells – The Great Symmetry
- Janine A. Southard – Cracked! A Magic iPhone Story
- Jared Rinaldi – Bridge Burner Hyperion
- Jessica Schaub – Gateways
- John Yarrow – The Time Forward Project
- Jon D. Zimmer – The Secret Invasion: Book One of The God Chronicles Trilogy
- Julian Hoxter – Cutterjunk
- K. N. Salustro – Chasing Shadows
- Karen Musser Nortman – The Time Travel Trailer
- Earl Crago – Prince of Prism
- Kathrine Leannan – Fantasy
- KB Shaw – Neworld Papers: The Historian’s Tale
- L.S. Kilroy – The Vitruvian Heir
- Peggy L Henderson – Yellowstone Heart Song
- Rhett C Bruno – The Circuit: Executor Rising
- Rhonda L. Davis – Path of the White Wolf
- S. A. Carter – The Kuthun
- S.K. Holder – The Quest of Narrigh
- Rhett C. Bruno – The Circuit: Executor Rising
- S.M. Coan – Innerearth
- Sabina Khan – Realm of the Goddess
- Sydney M. Cooper – Forsaken Lands Book 1: Tragedy
- Timothy S. Johnston – The Freezer
- Timothy S. Johnston – The Furnace
- Tommy Partl – Mechanized
- V. Lakshman – Mythborn 2: Bane of the Warforged
- Yuan Jur – Citadel 7: The Gates of Wrath
Good luck to all the CYGNUS Awards Finalists who made the Short List as they compete for the First In Category Positions!

More than $30,000 dollars in cash and prizes are awarded to Chanticleer International Blue Ribbon Awards Winners annually.

The CYGNUS First Place Category award winners will compete for the CYGNUS Grand Prize Award for the 2015 Best Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction. Grand Prize winners, blue ribbons, and prizes will be announced and awarded on April 29, 2016 at the Chanticleer Authors Conference and Awards Gala, Bellingham, Wash.

The First In Category award winners will receive an award package including a complimentary book review, digital award badges, shelf talkers, book stickers, and more.

We are now accepting entries into the 2017 CYGNUS Awards. The deadline is January 31st, 2017. Click here for more information or to enter. We have split CYGNUS Awards in to two separate competitions: Cygnus for Science Fiction and the OZMA awards for Fantasy. Visit our contest page for more information.

More than $30,000 worth of cash and prizes will be awarded to the 2015 Chanticleer Novel Writing Competition winners! Ten genres to enter your novels and compete on an international level.

Who will take home the $1,000 purse this coming April at the Chanticleer Awards Gala and Banquet?
October 27, 2015
An Editorial Review of “Shadow Guardians” by Brett A. Lawrence

Shadow Guardians is a science fiction novel that steps away from warring aliens and warp drives to delve into individual potential. The premise focuses on how one would react if extracted from normal life and inserted into a totally new construct of so-called “life” while retaining all of your previous life’s memories. Would you take death instead?

Lawrence starts his story with Abigail and Dennis Webster who have just celebrated their anniversary with a special dinner at a fine restaurant, ensconced in the warmth of their closeness in the cockpit of their Piper aircraft. They are taking off from Tacoma, Washington, toward their temporary home in Everett. Abby and Dennis’s affectionate reflections are interrupted by the raucous noise of another craft’s intrusion in their airspace. There is scarcely time for thought before a crash sends them heading downward into the frigid Puget Sound.

That same evening, Lindsey Maguire, a beautiful but self-serving and arrogant bank executive, is abducted by a hired killer, destined to be pushed over a bridge railing to her death.

Instead of dying, the would-be victims find themselves groggily awakening in the alien confines of an interstellar spaceship, the “Starlight Mistress.” Each reacts differently to the news that they have been rescued and transported by two representatives of the distant planet of Majora—Milankaar (or Mil), a humanoid born there, and his companion Miriam, a human rescued from Earth some time ago, who has joined Mil in his mission of learning more about Earth and its people.

The fascinating difference between Lawrence’s captivating sci-fi novel and most others of this genre is his focus on the personalities and feelings of the rescued beings of our era and their reactions to the knowledge that their lives will be continued on the planet Majora. Their initial shock and disbelief evolve in different ways, which Lawrence deftly paints. The survivors are offered an impossible choice that, regardless of their decision, ensures their old life is over. But Mil—an intelligent, generous, and thoughtful character—seeks to help his guests deal with their present reality and look forward to a new life on the relatively peaceful and pleasant planet of Majora—especially Dennis and Abby whose marriage threatens to crumble under the strain.

The interspatial action heats up when a Chelonite slave-abducting ship attacks the “Starlight Mistress.” The pages fly by as fast as the spaceships when Mil draws the slavers to the rocky surface of the moon in an effort to evade or destroy their attackers. Lawrence’s precise descriptions of the lunar landscape, skillfully drawn from America’s moon landings and explorations, lend reality to the death-defying chase, skimming over mountains and diving through the Valles Alpes. If Mil can’t out fly the Chelonite vermin, he’ll have to outwit them.

As Brett Lawrence says in his bio, if all goes well for the Shadow Guardians, we might just see a sequel to this, his first published novel. This reviewer, for one, certainly hopes so, because Shadow Guardians gave me an exciting ride and a thought-provoking great read!

December 18, 2013