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Tomas H

<font color="white"><b>Publisher</b><br>Paradox Bo
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Aug 19, 2013
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The interest in our Europa Universalis Short Story Contest has been amazing - so great, in fact, that we had to push up this announcement by two weeks. Now we are finally here.
Equally impressive is the quality of the works that you have sent us. We are blown away by the levels of historical insight and writing skills you have shown. Choosing only three of the 100 submissions has been next to impossible. Yet we had to do it, and so we have!

The Winners
So, without further ado, here are the winning submissions in the Paradox Short Story Contest 2014, in alphabetical order:
"Company", by Luke Bean: A masterful depiction of a brutal German history that never was, seen through the eyes of a boy.
"Écureuils", by Aidan Darnell Hailes: A moving portrait of a woman in an alternate modern US, showing how history is not just in old books - its consequences affect us all, in everyday life.
"The Great Work", by Felix Cook: A thriller take on a plausible yet very different Britain and Scandinavia, a century after a successful Gunpowder Plot.
Congratulations!

The Anthology
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These three short stories will be published in the upcoming book Europa Universalis 4: What If? The Anthology of Alternative History, alongside Harry Turtledove and other writers. Click the thumbnail above to see a bigger image of the book! We will contact the three winners via email to work out all the details.
This book will be published by Paradox Books, in electronic and print form, in May. Keep a close look on the Paradox Books Facebook page (don’t forget to like it!) and our Twitter feed for more information soon.

Honorable Mentions
There are a few other submissions that we would like to mention specifically, even though they didn’t quite make it into the final three:
"And Yet It Moves" by Daniel Jones: A great read and an interesting take on a very famous moment of history.
"Amy's Legacy" by Cindy Brown Ash: A thoughtful insight into the mind of the daughter-that-never-was of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
"The White King" by Joseph Sharp: A feverish and violent roller-coaster of a story about 16th century conquistadors.
"Africae Ascendens" by Dennis M. Lane: A thought-provoking tale of an alternate African history - and future.

Writers of the Future
We also want to give some extra praise to three impressive stories, penned by writers only 13 to 14 years old:
"Rome Reborn" by Brendan Mast
"Europe on Fire" by Adam Hunt
"The Completely Unbiased, Definitive, Anachronistic Encyclopaedia of World History, Vol. 168: Korea" by Anzo Nguyen

A New Forum for All Submissions
We wish we could publish all 100 submissions in our anthology. That being impossible, we have instead opened a new sub-forum here on the EU4 forums, specifically made for you to post your stories in. There, you can let others read your work, get feedback and give feedback to others.
(Remember: Start a new thread for each story.)
 
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Congrats to the winners. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed to not be selected, but I was already unhappy about how much had to be cut just to make the submission short enough. Now I get to take a second crack at it if I want and let my story achieve its full potential... and then figure out what the heck to do with it.

Again, congrats to the winners: look forward to reading y'alls' work when it gets published.
 
Damn. Looks like I lost.

Congrats to those that won though.

When's the next competition taking place? :D
 
Blast, rebels spawned in Napoleons soup. Didn't win, and I kinda know why. Congratulations to the winners though. :D
 
Ah, I didn't win, makes me sad. :(

Good work to the victors, and may they enjoy their spoils!
 
Congratulations!

I'm sure disappointed I didn't win...but I'm excited to see what everyone else did.
 
Mine didn't win. Oh well, congrats to the winners! At least I now have one more story I can send off to publishers.
 
So...what does Writers of the Future entail? :D Anyhow, congrats to all the winners and honorable mentions! Can't wait to read the stories!
 
Congratulations to the winners! I hope to get a copy of the book but I don't know how to get it outside the Internet...

The anthology will be released in May, as ebook and softcover print. To stay up to date on all news, follow our Facebook and Twitter feeds. There's also a list of all writers in the anthology here.