Monthly Roundup – December 2021

Hello, and welcome to my Monthly Roundup post here on Track of Words. We’ve reached the end of December (not to mention the end of another year), and it’s been a busy few weeks here with a post every day from the 1st to the 25th as part of my Advent Calendar series. I really couldn’t be happier with how this turned out, and I’m incredibly grateful to all of the authors (and one editor) who contributed to the Advent series! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading all of the interviews, guest reviews, guest articles and everything else (including a brand new piece of original fiction) as much as I enjoyed working on them. If you haven’t had a chance to read them all I’ve included all of the relevant links below, and as usual as well as talking about this month’s new posts I’ll give a bit of a general update for the month.

December’s Posts

I don’t think there’s much more to say about the Advent Calendar posts, other than some stats: not including the ‘landing page’ I put together, there are eight guest posts, six articles from me, five interviews, four guest reviews, one review from me, and one piece of original fiction! That’s a lot of good stuff, so I hope you enjoy(ed) it!

Track of Words Advent Calendar 2021 – think of this as a landing page for the whole Advent Calendar, with links out to each article.

Prologues & Premonitions – Peter McLean Guest Post – I’m delighted to welcome author Peter McLean to Track of Words to talk a bit about what things are like for fantasy authors right now, and offer some suggestions for what’s to come in 2022.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Carrie Harris Talks Witches Unleashed – check out this interview with author Carrie Harris talking about her new Marvel novel which features the Ghost Rider taking on Lucifer himself – and then read some sample chapters once you’re done!

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark – Josh Reynolds Guest Review – the brilliant, ever-prolific author Josh Reynolds joins the site with a smart, engaging review of a book that’s close to my heart! Seriously though – this book is amazing.

Best of Black Library 2021 – I haven’t actually read that many Black Library books this year, but here’s my roundup of the best five BL books (released in 2021) that I have read. I’ve also included a couple of honourable mentions and a few 2021 releases I’m still looking forward to reading.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Richard Lee Byers Talks The Rebels of Vanaheim – here’s author Richard Lee Byers with the lowdown on his new Marvel novel, and the sequel to 2020’s The Head of Mimir. It’s another tale of the Asgardian hero Heimdall, who this time is facing off against the undead! Once again, you can also check out some sample chapters of the novel.

Original Fiction: Valkyrie by Danie Ware – I couldn’t be happier to publish this fantastic piece of original fiction from Danie, a tale of the Viking invasion of England that’s full of powerful action and beautiful imagery. I love it!

Mischief, Power and Tricksters – Gabriela Houston Guest Post – Gabriela’s new novel The Wind Child is out in February 2022, and in this really interesting little guest post she discusses the idea and power of tricksters in fiction, a theme that her novel draws upon heavily.

The Hood by Lavie Tidhar – I’m still not really sure what the hell happened in this utterly bonkers book, but I do know that I enjoyed it! A single review can never do justice to this sort of novel, but I’ve done my best to give a sense of how strange and yet compelling this book really is.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: S.A. Sidor Talks Cult of the Spider Queen – I chatted to author S.A. Sidor about his second Arkham Horror novel for Aconyte Books, which takes things out of Arkham itself and into the depths of the Amazon jungle. Just watch out for the spiders! Oh, and make sure you check out the sample chapters too.

Don’t Give Up: 2021 as a Debut Author – Marc Collins Guest Post – it’s been a weird year for all of us I think, but it’s nice to be reminded that things aren’t all bad, and Marc’s excellent guest post discussing his route to becoming a debut Black Library novelist in 2021 does exactly that.

The Twice-dead King: Ruin by Nate Crowley – Victoria Hayward Guest Review – I haven’t read this novel yet but Victoria’s fantastic review of it makes it clear that I do very much need to! This is genuinely one of the most thoughtful, compelling reviews I’ve read in a long time, and I’m proud to have published it.

Black Library in 2022 – this is my ‘looking ahead’ post, in which I offer some observations on what was revealed in the Black Library online preview, highlight a few other books that have previously been announced for 2022, and talk in quite a bit of detail about what I’d like to see from BL next year.

EDITOR INTERVIEW: Gwendolyn Nix Talks School of X – this new anthology of X-Men short stories is available right now, and I spoke to editor Gwendolyn Nix to get the lowdown on the anthology’s themes and what we can expect from it – and as usual you can check out some sample chapters too!

Things I Read and Loved in 2021 – Lora Gray Guest Post – check out Lora’s recommendations for fantastic speculation fiction and poetry published in 2021. If you’re in need of a new read or two, whether you’re looking for novels, short fiction or poetry, there are some fantastic-sounding recommendations here!

The Most Popular Reviews in 2021 – I thought it might be interesting to take a look at which of my reviews have been the most popular this year. There are some surprises in here, but I’m delighted to see that readers are continuing to enjoy all of these reviews!

Day Zero by C. Robert Cargill – Graham McNeill Guest Review – the legend that is Graham McNeill is here with a guest review in which he takes a fascinating look at this apocalyptic adventure novel, which sounds amazing! It’s definitely going on my TBR list.

When Life Gives You Bushfires – Nate Crowley Guest Post – this article from Nate is a really powerful, honest retrospective of the last couple of years and the impact they’ve had on the creative process. It’s a fascinating post, and I think most of us will be able to relate to this at least in part.

The Spy Novels That Inspired Assassinorum: Kingmaker – Robert Rath Guest Post – I don’t know about you but I’m really looking forward to Rob’s upcoming Assassinorum novel. In this guest post Rob gives us the lowdown on some of the influences behind the novel and the preceding short stories.

In Praise of Susanna Clarke – 2021 has been the year of Susanna Clarke for me personally, and in this article I talk a bit about each of her books, what they’ve meant to me this year, and why I think Clarke is an absolute literary treasure.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Adrian Tchaikovsky Talks Day of Ascension – prolific, award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky’s first Black Library novel is coming out very soon, so I asked him for the lowdown on what we can expect from this, as well as a couple more SFF books he has coming in 2022.

Horror Fiction & Visual Media – David Annandale Guest Post – David’s writing has always been horror-influenced, whether overtly or not, so I can’t think of anyone better to talk about the relationship between written horror fiction and visual media, and how the different forms influence each other.

To Judge a Book by its Cover – Thomas Parrott Guest Post – ahead of his own debut novel coming out next year, here’s Tom with a great guest post looking ahead to 2022 and picking out a few upcoming novels that have particularly caught his eye.

Best SFF Books 2021 – here’s my roundup of the 10 best SFF books I’ve read in 2021, from L5R, Warhammer and Star Wars to historical fantasy, gangster family drama and loads more. Also includes an additional five books as honourable mentions.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers – Rob Young Guest Review – this is a novel I’ve been meaning to read for ages but never quite got round to, however reading Rob’s fantastic review has reminded me just how much this sounds like exactly the sort of thing I like!

TBR: SFF Books Coming in 2022 – for the final Advent post of the year, here’s my pick of the SFF novels due out next year that I’m really looking forward to. I’ve included 10 general SFF books – some standalones, some parts of trilogies or series – and a further five Black Library novels.

Bleeding From Cold Sleep – Peter Fehervari – I managed one final review of 2021, taking a more in-depth look than usual at a short story…in this case Peter Fehervari’s first non-Warhammer story! I really enjoyed this story, and the glimpse it offered of what Fehervari could do outside the constraints of a shared IP – I really, really hope this is only the first of many!

General Update

It’s certainly been a busy month for me, dominated by two things: continuing to try and get my head around the new job, and putting together the Advent Calendar series. Talking about work is boring so let’s just say that’s an ongoing endeavour, and talk instead about books and articles and fun stuff like that, right?

In the eight years I’ve been working on Track of Words, December has always been a busy month – in my first year of running the site (2014) I decided to review every short story in the Black Library Advent Calendar, and from then on it’s become something of a tradition to do something similar. As I’m sure you can tell I’ve pulled back from covering BL quite so much (although there’s still plenty for Warhammer fans), and this year I decided I wanted to take a risk and do something totally different. The result was what you’ve hopefully read and enjoyed this year, in which I put together 7 posts of my own (6 articles/1 review) and invited 18 guests (17 authors and 1 editor) to contribute as well, whether in the form of an interview or an article/review/story of their own.

I’ve published a few guest posts before but never this many, and I had previously only hosted one guest review – and never any fiction of any sort – so this really felt like breaking new ground for me. At one point I was thinking I might continue to post something every day for the rest of the month, but like I said it was a lot of work putting all of this stuff together, so I decided not to push things and to take a break instead. Since 2018 at least (and possibly earlier) I’ve posted something every day in December – and often November and/or January – but these days I’m keen to find a better life balance, and maintain good habits around taking breaks from writing!

Despite the work it entailed, I really couldn’t be happier with how the Advent Calendar turned out, and I can’t say thanks enough to everyone who took the time to contribute. If you’ve got any favourites from amongst the series, do let me know! Next December is obviously a long way away so it’s far too early to plan anything for Advent 2022, but I’m keen to continue with this sort of content on a regular basis. I’d love to publish regular guest posts and/or guest reviews alongside the usual author interviews, and I’ve already chatted to a few authors who are interested in getting involved. If you’re reading this and you’re an SFF author, please do let me know if you would like to contribute something! If you’re not an author but you are a reader, let me know if there’s anything you would like to see in 2022.

I always give at least a quick reading update in these roundups, so I’ll finish off with that as usual. With all the Advent work going on I feel like my reading slowed down in December, but when I look back I’ve still read 8 (maybe 9 if I finish my current audiobook) books, so that’s still pretty good! I definitely focused on novellas and shorter novels, but I’m happy with that; for all that I love a good doorstopper, I’m a big fan of shorter books and – dare I say it – I often find the word count constraints leads to leaner, more focused fiction. There’s certainly very little excess fat in William Meikle’s S-Squad books, and I had a lot of fun reading my second of the series – Operation Antarctica.

Likewise, while I couldn’t really get on with Mike Brooks’ ork novel Brutal Kunnin’ earlier in the year because I simply wasn’t enjoying the non-ork sections, his novella Da Gobbo’s Revenge was pure greenskin silliness and it was a lot of fun! I read Meikle’s and Brooks’ books purely for entertainment rather than to review, and likewise most of the other books in December – again in terms of work/life balance, I think I needed to just enjoy reading this month rather than thinking too much about it. The only books I read to review were The Hood by Lavie Tidhar (you can read my review here) and You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo (review coming soon), both of which were at least a bit mad, but very enjoyable!

I’m not going to talk too much about my 2021 reading challenge here – the main focus of which was to read a better mix of authors by gender – because I’m planning on covering that in more detail for the year as a whole in a later article. All things considered though, I’m pretty happy with December on that front with another good gender split…and ultimately, what’s probably most important is that I enjoyed every one of the books I read this month! For all that I’m keen to read more broadly, I also want to make sure I enjoy what I’m reading – that’s certainly been the case this month, and this year as a whole.

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Anyway, that’s that for the final Monthly Roundup post of 2021! I’m always keen to hear about what you’ve enjoyed reading or listening to recently, and I hope you’ve enjoyed however many Track of Words posts you’ve read this month. Do let me know if you’ve got any comments or questions about what I’ve been covering or whether there’s anything you’d like to see (in these roundup articles or on the site in general) – you can drop me a line in the comments below, or get in touch on Twitter.

In the meantime, thanks for visiting Track of Words in 2021. I hope you have a great end of the year, and here’s to a good 2022!

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