Secrets of the Hidden Library - 3rd Annual Fiction Competition. (COMPETITION OVER - winners on Page 3!)

Dragontree wrote:

Christ the standard of these is great!

I feel writing the first story wasn't a good tactical move

I had similar 'early bird' reservations last year, but it all worked out.

This is my first time trying 40k fiction of any kind


My entry


http://www.thedarkcity.net/t12602-desolations-and-siphons#141608

Here is my entry - fashionably late

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t12604-parched#141620

And here is mine. Almost late, as befits me as normal.

http://www.thedarkcity.net/t12608-a-sea-of-thirst#141689

I hope you like it

Officially TCS900 did whiff the deadline, but I am of the opinion of letting him in anyway. I'll make that decision when I'm more awake/have thought about it more as I'm working some pretty wonky hours right at this moment and just wanted to manage to pop in and announce the close of the competition.

We started a bit slow but looks like we got into double digits thanks to a last minute surge which does make me quite happy as I didn't advertise this thing as well as I've done in the past years - I'll have to make sure to be on top of that next year.

The People's Choice Polls will probably be put up Friday or Saturday and I will also start poking at the judges at that point to make sure they're getting through their reading as well. I apologize for the lateness there - it's mostly just me and the job causing that delay.

Regards,
Thor.

I've enjoyed reading through the entries, and thought it was particularly interesting to see both the diversity of approaches, and also the themes that were common.

Lots of Kabalites were represented, particularly Archons, and Haemonculi and their creations appeared in several. Wyches not so much. I suppose that could be an indicator of where the Codex is at the moment. We do nonetheless appear to appreciate gender balance in our fiction.

Unsurprisingly there were also a lot of stories focussing on power, and as well as a ready interpretation of the theme I suspect that speaks to what we as Dark Eldar players like to see in our faction and its fiction.

I was surprised at how many stories avoided immediate violent resolution. While not exactly a majority, I thought it was particularly revealing given that Warhammer 40,000 is a wargame.

Finally, because I am a massive nerd, I threw together a word cloud of the collected entries:



The sample size is small enough that some of the more frequently used names stand out, but other candidates for most often used words include 'eyes', 'time', 'now', 'back', and of course, 'thirst', 'pain' and 'blood'.

Here endeth the meta-analysis!

Sorry about that. I entered it as early as I could (although I had forgotten about the competition for a week or so.

Good luck to all else who're entering

I'm a participant, and I don't mind letting TCS900 in. It's a friendly competition after all.

I only mind if he snatches victory from me.

Interesting how small the theme word is in that cloud...

Jimsolo wrote:

I only mind if he snatches victory from me.

I'll feel quite sheepish if that happens.

Good luck to everyone.
TCS900

I'm getting terribly excited now and am enjoying re-reading stories in preparation for voting for them! Some absolute doozies in there!

Good job everyone

Okay, so TCS900 is in, and I'll be getting up the polls and starting the judging within the next day or so!

Reader Polls are up - go, vote, and be prosperous!

For now, the real thirst is waiting for the winner!

Votes have been tabulated and the judges have made final calls.
Expect the results to be presented up here in this thread Thursday (or, if I do really well with my podcast editing speed, today).

The tension!!!

Greetings and welcome to this, the grand announcement of the winners of the Hidden Library's 3rd Competition!

But first, as always, I like to provide random trivia that amuses me!

• There were 16 stories written for the competition.
  
• There were only 14 entrants though, because one competitor wrote 3 stories. (hey Partridge!)
  
• 6, 709 words were penned for this competition (not counting any deletions to make stories fit )
  
• The shortest story was Hulk Hunt at 374 words.
  
• Only 4 stories hit the maximum word count of 500, most authors falling into the 495-499 range.
  
• There were also 4 stories at 497 words each - making it the second most popular word count.
  
• For the first time ever two stories shared the same title.
  
• Each of those stories also tied themselves in the Reader's Choice Polls.
  
• At least 3 stories (that I noticed) didn't even use the theme word in the story itself.
  

I would also like to take this time to thank everyone who competed. As always, I am willing to (if you PM me) float you back some of the feedback from the judges, with no names attached, if you'd like to get that feedback. The overall top stories were all generally agreed upon, most of the debate was in the fine line of figuring out which one we could all agree on.

So, without further ado let me present to you your victors;

When you are a guest in the Dark City there are many issues to concern yourself with. The fine dance of parlay, power, and predation are all on display. Do you have what it takes to enter the center of power of one of your foes? Or will you balk at even the tiniest and most innocuous invitation?

2nd Place!:

Treachery and betrayal are a way of life (and death) for the Dark Eldar. One must protect oneself at all times. But, as one Dark Eldar will learn, even the most sturdy walls and finest defenses cannot fully protect from what is within.

1st Place!:

Ah, but what is this? The official #1 choice of Reader's Choice also was the Judge's top pick? Well...in some ways I suppose that means the win was well deserved, but it does bring up an issue. After all, the next highest winners in the polls were...She Who Thirsts, and...She Who Thirsts! That's right, two identically named tales also got identical votes, so it was back to the Judges, using their scores and value calls as the tiebreaker. So, find out who our Reader's Choice is, as we learn whose thirst shall reign supreme;

Reader's Choice!:

Again, thank you all for competing!
If you are one of our winners please get me your mailing address via PM and I will hook you up with one of our wonderful moderating staff who have volunteered to supply the prizes for this competition (and a hearty thanks again to them, without their support we would not have prizes beyond atta'boy awards )

Congratulation to the winners.

Well done to the winners, enjoy your richly deserved kudos!

Thanks again to Thor for running this competition! I for one will look forward to the next...

Omg! I was not expecting that at all after reading some of the other entries and seeing the polls - this has absolutely made my day

You had a great story. You definitely deserved to be rewarded for it!

Congrats to the winners! It was much fun writing and reading for this, it'll be interesting to get feedback and use that for next year. More entrants please

Congratulations to the winners!

Congratulations to the (other) winners!

And many, many thanks for all those who voted for my story! There was some tough competition, so thank you all.

I just hired somes mandrakes to punish the winner. So, watch out for what you drink, in the next weeks.

(ps.: congratulation! )

ps. bis: I would find it most interresting to have the ranking of each entry, with their points.