Waiting out the ABNA

The last days of the ABNA semi-finals are fast approaching. On February 19 our numbers will be reduced from 835 to 100. None of the entrants can figure out how this is going to be accomplished. Some entries have 100 and more reviews with 5-star ratings, but very poor Publishers' Weekly reviews. Some entries judged superior by PW are hardly reviewed at all. The contest administrators have pledged, on the ABNA homepage, to take customer reviews into consideration when picking the 100, but how they're going to reconcile profligate stars and inferior writing, neglected works of great quality, and the more professional judgments of PW and Amazon Top Reviewers is baffling.

As my PW review found serious fault with the last half of Of Two Minds, and made mock of my protagonist's psychological development, I have little hope of advancing, so I'm just waiting it all out at this point, and continuing to work on other things. Reviews still trickle in, almost entirely from fellow-entrants -- very fine, thoughtful reviews, that I appreciate more than I can say.

But somehow 100 good to excellent novels must be selected, and the ABNA will have to at least seem to fulfill its promises.

I haven't looked at more than a tiny percentage of the semi-finalists' excerpts, but I haven't really seen one that I thought was entirely publication ready. I have seen several that had commercial success written between every line, and I expect to see them in the cut of 100.

I wonder what will become of the rest of us?