Hello and welcome to my Monthly Roundup post for March 2022, here on Track of Words. As always, this article gives me an opportunity to look back at what I posted in the preceding month, with links to each post if you’d like to check any of them out, and also to talk a little bit about how the month went as a whole. It’s been a strange few weeks for me, during which I’ve read a lot more than I expected to – despite spending almost no time listening to audiobooks – and written way more reviews than normal, but also struggled badly to find time or enthusiasm for putting together interviews, writing articles, or planning ahead. It’s certainly not been the sort of month I expected it to be.
I’m going to keep things quite short in the general update section a bit later on, but first let’s take a look at March’s posts…
Reviews
Six full book reviews in a month is more than I’ve managed for a long time, so I’m both surprised and pleased to have got all of these written. Of the six books, four are absolute stone-cold recommendations, while the remaining two are what I would call ‘qualified’ recommendations.
A Few Thoughts On The Successors – Black Library Anthology – I picked this up mainly to read a new Peter Fehervari short story, but an anthology is more than just one story so I was interested to see what the rest would be like. I found it a mixed bag, with some great reads and some poor ones, and I’m still not really sure what BL wanted this to be.
36 Streets by T.R. Napper – I don’t read a lot of cyberpunk, but since loving his anthology Neon Leviathan, Napper has become one of those authors I’ll always make time to read. 36 Streets is an absolute gem of a sci-fi novel, with a brutal protagonist you can’t take your eyes off, an incredible setting, and a plot that perfectly balances pace with complexity. It’s not an easy read, but it is a brilliant book.
The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan – it’s not often you read a fantasy novel concerned more with jurisprudence than action and adventure, so The Justice of Kings was in many respects quite refreshing. Think of it as ‘Gotrek and Felix meets Eisenhorn’ and you’ll be part way there – it’s quite heavily influenced by Warhammer – and while I didn’t quite get on with the characters as much as I’d hoped I would, I’m still glad I gave this a go.
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – I loved this cool, stylish vampire-noir novel, which is unlike anything else Moreno-Garcia has written…but at the same time exactly what you’d expect from her. I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of vampire stories in general, but this has everything I want from one – it’s dark, violent and brilliantly characterful, with a really smart angle on the usual tropes.
Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline – part folk horror, part powerful family drama, this is one of those interesting books that quietly sneaks its fantasy elements in almost without the reader realising. It gets pretty dark and weird by the end, but always balances the fantastical and the creepy with great characters and a grounded sense of what life is really like for the Métis people in small-town Canada.
Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji – this is comfortably the best space-based SF novel I’ve read in ages, an incredible depiction of life aboard a starship for people who have never known anything else. Oyebanji’s portrayal of space is both terrifying and beautiful, his world building is second to none, and his characters inhabit a world which feels utterly believable, in a story which sees change approaching fast as a generations-long journey is about to come to an end.
Blog articles
I’ve included February’s Monthly Roundup post here, alongside the one other article that I managed to write last month. I’d been meaning to write something on the topic of Black Library limited edition books for ages, so I’m pleased to have finally found the right approach and got that piece written and published.
Monthly Roundup – February 2022 – the start of a new month always brings a roundup post looking back at the previous month, so this is my recap of February’s posts and overview of how I was getting on with my goals for the year so far.
Opinions: Black Library Limited Editions – Options, Not FOMO – I read a great blog post from Brandon Sanderson talking about his ($34.5m and counting) Kickstarter campaign, and his comments about giving customers choice really resonated, especially in light of the strange way Black Library releases Limited Edition hardbacks. Inspired by this article, I’ve written up some thoughts on why premium editions of books are great, as long as they provide additional choice for readers.
General Update
February was quite a good month on the reading and writing front (you can read about it here), even though I did get quite distracted by other hobbies. March, on the other hand, felt like a bit of a trial, and I’m really not sure why. I’m going to keep this section brief, otherwise I’d probably end up writing an absolute essay, but suffice to say I’ve had a hard time concentrating on anything over the last few weeks. That sounds a bit daft to say considering I wrote more reviews in March than I’ve managed in ages, and read no fewer than 12 books, but it’s true. On the writing front, I guess in hindsight I’m pretty happy with what I did get written and published, but it’s a shame I couldn’t get my head into gear to put together any author interviews – we’ll see if I manage any for April.
Rather than going into much detail on any of my goals for the year, I think I’ll keep things nice and simple and just do a few quick bullet points for March.
- Site goal: frequency/number of posts: my output seems to be slowing down month by month, from 10 posts in January and 9 in February to 8 in March, but I think that’s ok. Hopefully what I am writing is at least reasonably interesting, and I keep reminding myself that quantity really isn’t important.
- Site goal: focus less on reviews: this went completely out of the window in March, but again that’s ok. I’m sure it will swing back around later in the year, and I’m always happy to have actually got any reviews written.
- Site goal: broad coverage: only two of my eight posts were Black Library-related in March, and across the other six I think I covered a pretty interesting range of SFF content.
- Reading goal: reading challenge: despite having a hard time choosing and sticking with books in March (and not finishing any audiobooks – more on that next), I somehow still managed an impressive 12 books. That takes me to 37 for the year so far, so I’m way ahead of where I wanted to be, which is kinda nice. I’m not going to talk specifically about any of March’s books, but if you’d like to see what I read you can have a look on my Goodreads account.
- Reading goal: audiobooks: I haven’t finished a single audiobook in March, so this is pretty much a fail. That was a deliberate choice though, as I felt like I really needed a break from always having an audiobook on the go – I’m currently about two-thirds of the way through Guy Haley’s Dark Imperium, and hopefully once I finish that I’ll be enthused enough to want to pick up something new and keep listening.
- Reading goal: read for fun and to review: I probably read a greater proportion of books to review in March than I did the previous couple of months – four out of 12 – but I think that’s still a pretty good ratio.
- Reading goal: variety and diversity: five and a half out of 12 isn’t too bad in terms of female authors (the half being the writing partnership that comprises Ambrose Parry), and that puts me at 51% female, 43% male and 5% M/F partnership for the year. I still need to do better at choosing more books by non-white authors, though.
- Reading goal: catch up: three of my 12 March books were review copies I’d been sent previously, so I’m continuing to make a bit of progress towards catching up on those. Three of my four BL reads were also books I’d had on the shelf for ages, so that’s good too.
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So there we go, a shorter roundup than usual but I think that pretty much covers everything. I hope you had a good March all round, and here’s hoping we’ll all have a great April!
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.
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