⚔ Theme: Battle of the Worlds ⚔

John Wick and the Continental. The Na'vi on Pandora. The Hobbits of the Shire. Narnia or Oz, send forth to battle the world you've created. Be it a far away galaxy or an evil Empire. Be it on Planet Earth with just a shift in dimension, perhaps a relationship gone wrong, a world turned upside down or a teenager peering into the world of adulthood. Send forth your Wonderlands! Anything is possible when all genres are welcomed!

Entrant #1

Author: aqsamustaf

Book Name: You Call This Fate? 

Chapter: 33

Best Two Sentences: If you follow me, Mr. Rodwell, or get anyone else to follow me, I might jump in front of a car in panic. Not that I want to, but I don't know what I would do anymore.

Why This Chapter: this chapter captures the two essential themes I am juggling in this book--the contrast between the east and the west and, most importantly, how the past of my MC comes in contact with her present to create unending strife and confusion.

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Entrant #2

Author: HCTownes

Book Name: Nephiria

Chapter: 1

Best Two Sentences  : We've all heard that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and then we found a way to obliterate its glory. What's missing are the details of what happened after our banishment from Eden . . . 

Why This Chapter: This chapter paints a picture of desperation felt by the heir to the Nephirian throne. 

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Entrant #3

Author: SapphireAlena

Book Name: Rise of Ren | Star Wars

Chapter: 67—Revenge of the Jedi 

Best Two Sentences: "It wasn't the first time I've killed, but it was definitely the most pleasant." . . . Luke tightened his grip even further, until he felt the Supreme Leader collapse, asphyxiated.

Why This Chapter:This is the ultimate showdown during the Second Purge as Luke Skywalker not only battles his nephew Kylo Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke but also his own demons as the dark side consumes the Jedi Master. 

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Entrant #4

Author: LyssaGirl7686

Book Name: Veils of Honor 

Chapter: I. The Scout 

Best Two Sentences: "Her hand reached behind her shoulder, revealing the smooth arched back of a bow whose deadly counterparts sat strategically in her palm. Catching the stranger in her sights again, she nocked the arrow, running her fingers gently over its silky, speckled feather as the burning lust for blood filled her body." 

Why This Chapter: In this chapter, it is really the beginning of the story and it brings in the different surroundings of this world the Fae live in, but it also brings in the different rivalries and conflicts that have already begun within societal classings of Fae, with their royal leaders and the relationships they maintain within their immediate families. 

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Entrant #5

Author: Ickyrus

Book Name: The Revolting Rose 

Chapter: 4/Part 2 - Exposé 

Best Two Sentences:  "What kind of vegetable are y'hiding in there, lad? I'll take one potato for me painting and not a spoon of mash more."

Why This Chapter: It's got chunks of world development in it

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Entrant #6

Author: JimInfantino

Book Name: The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide to New New England & Beyond 

Chapter: Skating the Merritt 

Best Two Sentences: Before he knew what was happening he was in a red cushioned tent full of incense with hands over his eyes. He heard her whisper in his ear, ["you'd better steer for the grass. I've caught you."]  

Why This Chapter: This chapter accentuates changes in social interaction in a world of telepathic texting and mutually created consensual hallucinations. 

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Entrant #7

Author: EricDabbs

Book Name: Ocean Blue 

Chapter: 1

Best Two Sentences: As for himself—he understood the likelihood of his fate—death at the hands of the men he worked for, or by the monstrosities he created. At this point, he didn't care which fortune befell him, only that he did the right thing. 

Why This Chapter: The character in this chapter has to battle his desire to live and the conviction to do what's right, which could cost him his life at the hands of a creature with an insatiable appetite. 

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Entrant #8

Author: HardeeBurger

Book Name: The VocaLords 

Chapter: EPISODE FIVE . CHAPTER THREE - Ahhh! VioLinja! 

Best Two Sentences: Where VioLinja had hurt others for perversion and sordid pleasure, Gumi raged with vengeance. It was a far worse thing. 

Why This Chapter: VioLinja and Gumi share two things in common, besides both of them once being members of the rock band, The VocaLords -- they've both been cybernetically engineered to sort Good souls from Evil ones, and they've both been infected with a computer virus that causes them to rage against the science that created them. 

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Entrant #9

Author: KellyJBurke

Book Name: Road Kill: Book One 

Chapter: 4. The Death of the World: Part I 

Best Two Sentences:  

1. The exit of the Chi'Grrr Combined Force from hyperspace eclipsed the sun, casting the Earth in its shadow. 

2. Explosions and fire began consuming the city as missiles rained down from Chi'Grr batteries and aircraft, signalling the end of one of the last bastions of humanity in the Wasteland, a beacon of hope and civility in a world full of misery and barbarity.  

Why This Chapter: This chapter captures the post-apocalyptic world of Silent and company, a world marred by violence and full of human and alien oddities. 

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Entrant #10

Author: LyndaCoker

Book Name: The J.E.T.S. Equation - Sitnalta 

Chapter: 16

Best Two Sentences: "You mean I can't get further from the girl than this door?" Jag turned to estimate the distance, "That can't be more than twelve feet!" 

Why This Chapter: Jag, an eighteen-year-old streetwise kid from New York City, awakens to find himself trapped in an alien environment where, somehow, he's inherited an underwater kingdom, a wife , and the task of saving two worlds from annihilation 

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Entrant #11

Author: ChuckDonahue

Book Name: The Courage of the Cowardly Soul 

Chapter: 6—The Shadow of Death 

Best Two Sentences:"Radiant and alive, our totality was more than I ever could have ever fathomed while apart. Life and death, when balanced on a knife edge so fickly and finally were blurred to the point of losing all distinction." 

Why This Chapter: This chapter describes one man's reaction to the chaos of war. His world is very much turned upside down as he heads into the fray of the chaos. 

Entrant #1

Author: AngeltheAuthor320

Book Name: Electric Impulse 

Chapter: Out in the Open Sea 

Best Two Sentences: "Girls like you and your little friends come a dime a dozen for these guys. Where do you think you'll be in a day or two?" 

Why This Chapter: I chose this chapter because it's the first chapter the reader gets to see Aria clash with Shelly. 

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Entrant #2

Author: Tegan1311

Book Name: Lost in the Echo 

Chapter: 7: I Am Peace 

Best Two Sentences: "I find myself walking with these people, the strange peace that fills me pulling me with them. My mind is not in control of my body or maybe it's just that my mind has succumbed to some unknown force, my body a willing servant for its desire." 

Why This Chapter: This is Sci-Fi on another world, the mc coming into contact with a strange group of people about to sacrifice a creature. 

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Entrant #3

Author:  Painebook

Book Name: Paine—Time of Anarchy 

Chapter: 14—The Pain Begins 

Best Two Sentences:  

As the surgical arms clicked back into ready position and the straps loosened, the needle at the end of the last arm stuck forward like a snake. 

"I won't be OK. My brother and mother are dead, my father hates me."  

Why This Chapter: It establishes the futuristic setting and the conflict between father and son. 

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Entrant #4

Author: kemorgan65

Book Name: Shadow of the Past ∞ a 'trilogy' #ShadowOfThePastTrilogy 

Chapter: Hear The Voice ∞ the herstories 

Best Two Sentences:

• Be still and listen. For no lifetime can accommodate the telling of this Story.  

Why This Chapter: This tells the story of the First Earth, what happened before Mickmi, Lora and Selina inadvertently ended up on our Earth, the Second Earth, as the only survivors. 

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Entrant #5

Author: Daniel_Barnett

Book Name: Poor Things 

Chapter: 17. Omen 

Best Two Sentences:

"There was something below Honaw, something that had been buried within the world since light first touched this corner of the universe, and with the prick of a knife it had awoken from watchfulness into despair, from millennia of silence into howling agony, and yet as vast and terrifying as the thought of it was, the fear I felt for Sandy was larger still." 

"[The fog] washed toward us, swallowing the road block after block, gobbling up the crumbled and burning remains of the town, devouring smoke and daylight alike."  

Why This Chapter: This chapter marks the point of no return, when the town of Honaw is swallowed by a sinister red fog and transformed into a wounded, nightmarish world--a world of endless suffering. 

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Entrant #6

Author: TomoeTellez

Book Name: The Written Forgotten 

Chapter: 10 - Stains 

Best Two Sentences: 

1: "I was born with black hair, a characteristic only Ramas have, and yet I am an Albino." 

2: "That is when we become Ramas, monsters with no other ambition than to kill the light in others that we have lost."  

Why This Chapter: In this chapter the common belief, in the artificially made world of Megaiantrum, that good people have white magic and bad people have black magic is revealed to be a fairy tale full of lies. 

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Entrant #7

Author: Athaja

Book Name: Marooned part 2 

Chapter: 1 

Best Two Sentences: Zaius' stare was anything but gleeful. „I need you to find out everything you can about these humans - we must know of their plans. If they pose a danger to our society . . . if there are more of them on the way . . . we must be prepared." 

Why This Chapter: Zaius, the apes' leader, is deeply worried what the arrival of the astronauts will mean for his own people, and the way they are treated as a result foreshadows the clash between humans and apes that will inevitably happen in the climax. 

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Entrant #8

Author: Cocosghost

Book Name: The Ring

Chapter: 7 Bottle of Red Bottle of White 

Best Two Sentences: 

"What about sex? Is that modified in the future too?" 

"No, that's only for natural pro creative purposes."  

Why This Chapter: Cultural time clash between a Time Jumper from the future, and an ex Navy Seal from the present during a romantic Italian dinner. 

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Entrant #9

Author: ChristopherOpyr

Book Name: Inflow 

Chapter: 2 - Warning Shots 

Best Two Sentences: Pressure was rising, the line could rupture at any moment, and no one wanted anything to be done about it. He'd stepped in much deeper shit than he'd anticipated, and he had no way out. 

Why This Chapter: In this chapter the action has well begun, allowing us to move through the world and finally see not only the water facility, but also the surface of Mars and the political and bureaucratic machinations that control it. 

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Entrant #10

Author: ZonderZorg

Book Name: Posted As Missing 

Chapter: One 

Best Two Sentences: David focused on the dead bodies again, and after checking the horizon for signs of movement, he crept out of the crater and into the increasing stench of spilt guts and rotting flesh to search for the least bloodied uniform, sending scavenging rats scurrying from his path. Unable to hold his gag, he dropped to his hands and knees as he puked, feeling the retch of his empty stomach and the sting of bile in his mouth wounds. 

Why This Chapter: This takes place during the World War One at the Second Battle of Ypres shortly after the Germans had used poisonous gas for the first time in warfare, marking the turning point into modern warfare. 

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Entrant #11

Author: syllabuspearl

Book Name: Freedom Fighters 

Chapter: 21. Charge 

Best Two Sentences: In the first flush of the morning, the planes skirted the line between shadow and light. Their jet engines whirred incessantly like a drill. 

Why This Chapter: In 1950s pre-revolutionary Cuba, Cuban guerillas fighting against the dictator's regime gets ambushed in the jungle, resulting in a desperate battle in which the main character, Dario, and his best friend, Camilo, experiences war for its first time. 

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Entrant #12

Author: mezblume

Book Name: Manor of Mystery 

Chapter: 3: The Green Man's Secret 

Best Two Sentences: Somehow, my wish to be a part of that other girl's world, of Sophia's world, had come true. And what was more—the thought chilled me like cold water running down my spine—I had no idea how to get back to my own world again. 

Why This Chapter: When Katie Watson falls through a time-portal painting, she finds herself in a past world of dark superstitions and strange customs without knowing how she's got there or how to back to her own world again. 

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Entrant #13

Author: FJeeves

Book Name: Burning Embers

Chapter: Chapter 6

Best Two Sentences: In the distance, purple mountains lurked in a haze at the edge of the world. Below were uncountable hundreds and thousands of shops, houses, temples and small green parks.

Why This Chapter: The chapter builds foreboding for the future, and asks the questions - what if her dreams were real and actually took place? 

Voting Details

Voting Time Frame: Friday, December 1 - Saturday, January 20 (11:59 PM CST)

How to Vote: Beginning December 1st, cast a vote for your favorite three chapters submitted by your team members by posting it in the comment section below using the following format:

1) I vote for ... because ... (Be sure to include a brief reason why you chose it.)

Voting Support:

- You can only vote on the Entries from your team.

- You don't have to list your votes in a scale (e.g. favorite, 2nd favorite, 3rd favorite), but you can if you want to.

- Remember that a valid chapter is deserving of a vote only if the majority of the chapter matches the theme of the Battle.

- The top-three entries per team (so six entries total) will move on to the final judging round.

- The Board will judge the entries and declare a winner by January 31, 2018.

Additional Information

- One entry per Author.

- No word limit because a short chapter is not indicative of a better read than a longer chapter.

- The majority of the submitted chapter must have aspects of the theme and if not, it obviously doesn't qualify.

- Only active #NBR members and board members can take part in the challenge.

- Participants are not allowed to vote for their own entry.

- Board members who submit an entry may  not vote in either phase.

Questions or concerns should be addressed in the comment section below as a provisional 'Frequently Asked Question' section.