Hello and welcome to another Monthly Roundup post here on Track of Words, where today I’m going to take a look back through everything I posted in February, and talk a bit about how the month went as a whole. I slowed down a little bit further in February, with just nine new posts and one new site page, but as I’ll talk about later on I think I’ve maybe found a new rhythm for working on the site so perhaps this is going to be the new norm. We’ll see! As usual though, I’m quite happy with what I did get written, and I’ve had a pretty good week when it comes to reading.
First things first, let’s take a look at February’s posts…
Reviews
Perhaps because I only wrote one review in January and ended up with a bit of a backlog, I got a few more written in February – and I’ve made a start on a couple more, which I should hopefully have ready to go reasonably soon.
Day of Ascension by Adrian Tchaikovsky – my second review of the year, and – unexpectedly – another Black Library review, this time for the BL debut of a prolific, award-winning author who’s done a great job of handling two intriguing Warhammer 40,000 factions in a relatively short word count. I’d have loved this to be longer, but as it is I was still really impressed.
You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo – I read this back in December and had been meaning to write the review ever since. If you like space opera…and cookery…and sentient spaceships…and found family…and diverse representation…then this book is for you! It’s an unexpected mix, but it works beautifully, and I had a real blast reading this one.
The Last Adventure of Constance Verity by A. Lee Martinez – there’s something fun about a book which deliberately throws in every trope and cliché its author can find, subverting some and embracing others, and that’s exactly what this novel does. In Connie it has the ultimate badass protagonist, but she’s bored of saving the world and just wants a regular life, even though she doesn’t have the slightest clue how to be a regular person. It’s daft and over the top, but a lot of fun.
QUICK REVIEW: The Sins of My Brothers by Peter Fehervari – the latest instalment in Fehervari’s Dark Coil, this is yet another fantastic short story that digs into the history of the Angels Penitent and once again demonstrates why Fehervari is the absolute star of Black Library’s author roster.
Interviews
Going completely the other way to my reviews, I went from publishing four author interviews in January to just the one in February! I really enjoyed reading Clint’s answers for that interview though, and I think the whole thing came out well.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: CL Werner Talks Three Swords – the latest novel in Aconyte Books’ Marvel: Legends of Asgard range, and Werner’s second (after The Sword of Surtur), this action-packed adventure story sounds like a lot of fun! If you like the idea of Asgardian heroes battling sorcerers and dinosaurs, definitely check out the interview to find out more about what you can expect from it.
Blog articles (and site page)
For all that I haven’t really been producing much Black Library content over the last year or so, in February I feel like that swung back the other way. Three of my four blog articles were on BL-related topics, and I have to say I’m pretty happy with all of them. I’m certainly hoping to write more ‘Opinions’ posts soon, and I do have more BL-related thoughts I might end up writing about!
Monthly Roundup – January 2022 – my first retrospective post of the year, looking back at all the reviews (well…review singular, in this case), interviews and articles I published in January, and reviewing how well I’ve done so far with the reading goals that I set myself for the year.
Black Library: What’s Next After the Horus Heresy? – with the Siege of Terra nearly finished, it’s more relevant than ever to consider what Black Library might do next, and what ‘the next Horus Heresy’ might be. I’ve rounded up some of the most common suggestions for future series, and put together some of my own thoughts on what I’d like to see BL do next. Spoiler (not really): I don’t actually want ‘another Heresy’, but rather lots of smaller series!
Warhammer Horror – The Range So Far – Black Library’s Warhammer Horror range has been around for a few years now, and it’s steadily grown into quite a hefty set of books, audio dramas and short stories. I’ve gathered everything into one place with this article, so you can read the synopsis for each title, check out links to my reviews and author interviews, and find out which titles are in the 40k setting and which are in the Age of Sigmar setting.
Opinions: On the Black Library Celebration 2022 – each year I give quite a bit of thought to what I think a ‘celebration’ of Black Library should be, but each year I inevitably find myself a bit disappointed by what actually happens with this event. Here are some of my thoughts on what worked this year, what didn’t work, and what I’d like to see in future.
Track of Words Interviews page – another site page that I’ve been meaning to put together for ages, this now collects together links to all of my SFF author interviews in one place. Check it out for 60+ interviews, including a few with editors and one with a translator! There’s also a link on there to all of my Black Library interviews too.
General Update
Overall I’ve been carrying on in February in a similar vein to how I started the year, still writing reviews and articles and working on interviews, but also making sure I’ve got plenty of time to read and otherwise just kick back. I succumbed to temptation recently and bought myself a new guitar and amp, so my other main hobby has been taking up a bit more time than usual (probably to my neighbours’ consternation), and I’ve been enjoying chipping away at another fun painting project (Warcry Iron Golems, if you’re interested). Looking back I think I’ve found the day job a bit more tiring than usual, which in conjunction with already wanting to spend more time on other hobbies has had a knock-on effect on my writing time (and headspace), but all told I think I managed to find a reasonably good balance.
Last month I used this section to talk in a fair bit of detail about each of my goals for the year and how I’d got on with them, but this time I’m going to concentrate on just two of those goals and then give a very quick rundown of the rest.
Frequency/number of posts
So I started the year aiming for three or four posts per week, but as I alluded to at the start of this article I’m beginning to think that this is perhaps not the right number to aim for at the moment. I’m sure there will be some weeks when I’m totally in the right headspace for writing, when I’ve got lots to say, and maybe I’ve got author interviews or guest posts ready to go, and that’s fine – I’m going to be very happy to have those weeks! When that isn’t the case though, I’m starting to think that a more realistic goal would be to publish twice a week. That’s pretty much what I managed in February, with nine posts and one site page over the course of four weeks.
That still feels like a reasonable output, but it should also give me time to fit in writing along with everything else, and plenty of time for reading and general down time. It might also help me write more ‘Opinions’ pieces, as I’m keen to do more – and have plenty of ideas – but this sort of content can often take me a while to put together.
Reading challenge
As always, numbers aren’t my top priority when it comes to reading – the most important thing is that I enjoy what I’m reading – but it’s still fun to look back at what I’ve been reading over the last few weeks. I didn’t expect to read as much as in January, and so it transpired, but I still read another 10 books, and that’s including getting 70 or so pages into what turned out to be my first DNF of the year. I don’t like giving up on books, and it’s entirely possible that I just wasn’t in the right mood for TL Huchu’s The Library of the Dead, but I really didn’t get along with it. I tried to love it, but I just didn’t.
Since I started writing this article I finished my first March book, taking me to 26 in total…
Anyway, 10 books in February (plus one so far in March) added to the 15 I read in January takes me halfway to my target of 52, although I’d be surprised if I keep up this pace for the whole year. Still, I imagine I’ll probably end up increasing the target after a while, like I usually do, and who knows – maybe I will keep reading loads! I’ve certainly been choosing quite a lot of shorter books, whether that’s novella-length audios, children’s books, or just novels which aren’t that long. Don’t get me wrong, there’s something lovely about settling down with a really long book that you can get completely lost in, but I’m increasingly finding that shorter reads suit me better at the moment.
As for February’s reads themselves, I would say that there were a couple of ‘qualified’ likes – I did enjoy Elly Griffiths’ The Janus Stone (the second Ruth Galloway novel), but I wasn’t entirely sold on the narrator, and I think I’ll probably go back to print books for the rest of the series. I might start scouring second-hand bookshops for them, I quite enjoy doing that. As for The Successors, a new Warhammer 40,000 anthology from Black Library, I picked it up purely so that I could read the new Peter Fehervari story (which was wonderful), but figured I might as well read the rest of the stories too. Some were really good, but overall I’d say it was a mixed bag, and there were a couple that I just really didn’t enjoy. Still, not bad all told.
Those two books notwithstanding, I had a lot of fun with February’s reading. I’m aiming to write a review for Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things – a sort of vampire noir set in Mexico City, very cool – and I really enjoyed rereading Seven Devils by Laura Lam and Elizabeth May as preparation for reading (and hopefully reviewing) the sequel, Seven Mercies. I also got my regular dose of detective stories with John le Carré’s Call for the Dead and LJ Ross’ The Shrine (two very different books, but both enjoyable in their own ways), and lost myself in a simple, straightforward adventure with Sabotage on the Solar Express by MG Leonard and Sam Sedgeman (the whole Adventures on Trains series is a total joy).
Lastly, I spent some time in the Mortal Reams with two Age of Sigmar novels, starting with Anna Stephens’ Warhammer Horror novel Gothghul Hollow. If I can find the time I might write a review of this, but suffice to say I enjoyed its slow-burn sense of gothic horror, and in particular the interesting idea it explored of what a ghost story might be like for people who know for certain that ghosts do exist. Interesting stuff. At the other end of the spectrum, I listened to Darius Hinks’ Ghoulslayer in audio (narrated by the always-wonderful Jonathan Keeble) for some straight-up Warhammer action with one of my all-time favourite characters. With Soulslayer coming out soon, it seemed like a good time to revisit Ghoulslayer and (hopefully) finally read Gitslayer!
Anyway, I talked more than I’d planned there about February’s reading, so let’s quickly go through how I got on with my other goals…
- Site goal: focus less on reviews: reviews actually accounted for a greater proportion of what I wrote this month than I perhaps planned. That may have been down to wanting to catch up on reviews I’d been meaning to write for a while, but also just reading books which I felt like I had things to talk about. I can’t complain I suppose, and I still put together plenty of other types of content too.
- Site goal: broad coverage: overall I think I achieved a reasonably good coverage, but February was definitely more Black Library-heavy than I expected. That probably won’t be the case for the whole year, so I don’t mind a month or two with lots of BL content.
- Reading goal: audiobooks: with 50% of February’s books being in audio format, I’d say I hit this goal!
- Reading goal: read for fun and to review: again, I’m happy with how I did here. Two or maybe three (depending on how I get on) out of my 10 February reads were for review, with all the rest being books I chose to read purely for fun.
- Reading goal: variety and diversity: I’m still not doing great on reading books from non-white authors, but five and a half (one was a male/female writing partnership) out of the 10 books I read in February were written by female authors, so that’s not bad. I’m currently tracking at 56% female for the year, in terms of author gender.
- Reading goal: catch up: I’m finally starting to get there in terms of catching up on books I was sent in 2021, with a reread of Seven Devils in preparation for Seven Mercies, and the excellent Certain Dark Things which was a review copy. Hopefully I can read at least one or two more from my ARC backlog in March.
***
That covers all of my goals for the year, so I’ll stop talking now. I hope you’ve had as good a February as was possible under the circumstances (crazy world and all that…I’m trying not to think about it too much), and fingers crossed you’ve read plenty of good books too! I hope you have a great March, with even more great books!
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.
If you’d like to support Track of Words and help me to keep working on new content, you can leave me a tip over on my Ko-Fi page.
