Hello and welcome to another Monthly Roundup article here on Track of Words – somehow April is already over, and we’re now a third of the way through 2021! In terms of reading I had a great month, split pretty evenly between reading for review and purely for fun, even if I slowed down quite a bit over the last few days as I got away from London and had a bit of time by the seaside. I’ve kept pretty busy on Track of Words too, with 15 posts since my last monthly roundup, weighted quite heavily towards reviews. I didn’t set out to write loads of reviews, it just happened that way!
As usual with these articles, I’ll start with a quick recap of all of April’s posts, then talk a bit about the month as a whole. I’m always interested to know what you think, so once you’ve read through the article, do let me know if there’s anything you’d like to see more or less of on Track of Words!
Reviews
I was pretty happy in March with eight reviews, but in April I managed a whopping 11, which I’m delighted with! Once again I feel like I’ve been reading and reviewing quite widely within the SFF genre – covering long and short form fiction in all sorts of series and IPs, from all around the world!
Elsa Bloodstone: Bequest by Cath Lauria – a madcap thrill-ride full of monster battles, jet-setting and bickering siblings, this action-packed Marvel prose novel is pure pulpy fun, with great characters, and I loved it.
The Tilean’s Talisman by David Guymer – the Black Library debut of Guymer, and a hint of what was to come with his considerable coverage of Gotrek and Felix (although this particular story showed the famous duo from an unusual angle).
Network Effect by Martha Wells – the fifth instalment in Wells’ phenomenal Murderbot Diaries series, and the first full novel, this is everything that’s great about the novellas just in a bigger dose.
Sistersong by Lucy Holland – a beautifully written, powerful tale blending historical fiction, mythology, folklore and epic fantasy to great effect. Based on the traditional murder ballad The Twa Sisters.
Priest of Gallows by Peter McLean – the third book in Peter’s brilliant War for the Rose Throne series, this is probably the darkest one yet, and really puts Tomas Piety through the wringer. It was SO good though, and now I can’t wait for the fourth and final book.
Immersion by Aliette de Bodard – a short but deceptively powerful story exploring fascinating ideas around technology, cultural domination, language and loads more. I’m definitely going to be reading more from de Bodard! I picked this one up within a new anthology called The Best of World SF Volume 1, edited by Lavie Tidhar.
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells – the sixth instalment in the Murderbot Diaries, this sees the series return to its novella-length roots for another fantastic tale of the cynical, paranoid, emotion-shy but delightfully human SecUnit.
Debtless by Chen Qiufan (translated by Blake Stone-Banks) – a strange but powerful sci-fi short story dealing with interesting questions of wealth inequality and memory manipulation by way of dangerous deep-space asteroid mining.
Rogue: Untouched by Alisa Kwitney – the latest in Aconyte Books’ growing Marvel: Heroines range, and a modern, character-driven origin story for one of the best loved X-Men characters (with a few recognisable names included too).
Galene of Ulgu by Timandra Whitecastle – an Age of Sigmar short story featuring the Daughters of Khaine battling alongside the Freeguild against an undead invasion, with a great voice and a gloomy, unsettling atmosphere.
The Angel of Khan el-Khalili by P. Djèlí Clark – a short story set in the same world as A Dead Djinn in Cairo and The Haunting of Tram Car 015, exploring worker rights, guilt, grief and the dangers of bargaining with angels.
Author interviews
While I wrote loads of reviews this month, I only managed a couple of author interviews – but I had lots of fun with both of them! I did have another Black Library interview planned, but the book’s release has been pushed back so I’m holding off on the interview for the time being.
RAPID FIRE: Denny Flowers Talks Fire Made Flesh – here’s Denny to give us the lowdown on his first Black Library novel, and his latest exploration of Necromunda after a brilliant novella and some excellent short stories. It’s worth noting that while this isn’t yet on sale directly from BL/GW it is already available in the wider book trade.
RAPID FIRE: Cath Lauria Talks Elsa Bloodstone: Bequest – I chatted to Cath about her fantastic Marvel prose novel which is out from Aconyte Books in early May, to find out more about who Elsa Bloodstone is and what readers can expect from the book.
Articles
Again, not too many articles in April, but hopefully both of these are useful. Forgive me if I sound like a broken record here, but I really can’t recommend Aconyte Books enough, so if you haven’t yet taken the plunge then maybe this month’s roundup will give you some ideas for where to start (I really, really recommend you do!). Meanwhile if you after some Warhammer 40,000 fiction then you could do a lot worse than Graham McNeill’s epic Uriel Ventris and Honsou stories.
Aconyte Books Roundup: April 2021 – join me for a look at the two new novels from Aconyte that are out in April, plus a look back at the last couple of months worth of recent releases.
40k Reading Order: Ultramarines and Iron Warriors – Graham McNeill – the Uriel Ventris and Honsou series interact and interlink, so here’s a rundown of the author’s recommended reading order for all 28(!) stories.
General update
Last month I used this section to talk about a reading slump I’d found myself in, and how I got myself back out again. As April has progressed I’ve been pleased to feel well and truly out of the slump and back into my usual reading rhythm, which as I’m sure you can imagine has been a real relief. Even with a few days away in Dorset, where I hardly read anything at all, I managed 12 books in April – five audiobooks and seven print books – of which five I read to review and the other seven just for fun. Obviously it’s not all about how many books I read, but thankfully I had a lot of fun with all 12 and have really enjoyed my reading over the last few weeks. Speaking of Dorset, too – if you ever have the chance to visit that part of the world, I can strongly recommend it! I was staying near Bridport (safe and socially distanced, of course), and was lucky to have fantastic weather the whole time, and those few days away from London were an absolute delight.
Honestly, it’s so beautiful there!
As well as spending a few days by the seaside, enjoying the rare English sun, something that often helps me when I need to get into good habits or out of bad ones is to look for a bit of organisation in my life, and I thought it would be a good idea in this situation too. I wanted to try and maintain my momentum and rhythm not just with reading but with Track of Words in general and everything else I’ve got going on, so at the start of the month I decided to have a go with a bullet journal – or at least a heavily simplified version of one. If you’re wondering what a bullet journal is, just search online and you’ll find all sorts of examples. I just took the basic element of a sort of ‘to-do grid’ for the whole month, with all the tasks I want to do every day down the side, and the days of the month along the top. I might extend it into a more complex tool in time, but I thought I’d start off simple.
I set myself a handful of daily tasks, ranging from things I know I can do really easily – like completing at least one lesson on Duolingo (I’m returning to what few memories I have of GCSE German) – to things that I know I want to do but haven’t always found the motivation for. That includes going for a walk each day, writing something for ToW every day, doing some housework, sitting down to a hobby session (i.e. painting or assembling Warhammer minis), that sort of thing. The idea was to focus on a small range of tasks that I wanted to get into better habits with. I love a good to-do list but I’d never tried a bullet journal or even just a basic grid like this, and you know what? I wish I’d tried this sooner! Aside from the few days I was away (when there wasn’t any housework to do) I’ve ticked everything off the grid every day in April, and I’ve really enjoyed having the structure to help keep me motivated. In the grand scheme of things it’s hardly a superhuman achievement, but it’s felt great to have this to work towards.
So I’m definitely going to keep going with this in May, and see how I get on – hopefully I’ll enjoy it just as much. If you’re wondering what this has to do with reading, well for me it all ties in together. If I’m feeling organised and motivated in general life, I feel better about putting time aside for reading, and at the same time it helps me to keep on top of my reviews so that I don’t end up falling behind and worrying about a backlog. And it works! I managed to get all of my reviews written in good time after reading each of my to-review books in April, and the 12 books I read in total have taken me up to 50 for the year so far! Very pleased with that.
Each month in these articles I’m also taking a look at how I’m getting on with one of my 2021 goals, which is to read more books that aren’t written by men. That’s not to say that I don’t want to read any by men, just that I actively want to read more written by women (or any authors who don’t identify as male). Out of my 12 books in April I was delighted to read 10 written by women, and that takes me to 26 (well, technically 26 and a half, including The Stitcher and the Mute written by husband/wife team D.K. Fields) out of 50 for the year overall. I’m delighted with that, and I’m going to do my best to maintain that good ratio. Looking at my TBR list I do have quite a few male-authored books coming up, but that’s fine…it just means I can keep an eye out for other books to pick up that aren’t written by men!
Anyway, that’s pretty much it for this month I think. I’ll just finish with a quick mention of Arkady Martine’s wonderful novel A Memory Called Empire, which I read back in January 2020 and absolutely loved. I’ve got the sequel – A Desolation Called Peace – lined up to read very soon, but I decided to revisit A Memory… in audio before making a start on the second book. It’s quite a complex book, and I’m assuming the second one will be too, so I thought it would be a good idea to be fully up to speed…and I’m so glad I made that decision. The audiobook edition is absolutely wonderful, and I found it a total joy to come back to these characters once more, and remind myself of why I loved it so much the first time around. In my review I called A Memory Called Empire “an immersive, slow-burning space opera weaving themes of cultural identity, legacy, memory and linguistics into a tight story of courtly intrigue”, and if you haven’t already read it then I can highly recommend you give it a go!
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So that’s it from me for another month – here’s hoping May is a good month for all of you! I’m always keen to hear about what you’ve enjoyed reading or listening to recently, what you think about the interviews and articles I’ve been publishing of late, whether you’ve read and enjoyed any of the books I tackled this month, and whether there’s anything you’d like to see in these roundup articles! Do drop me a line in the comments below, or get in touch on Twitter.
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