Hello and welcome to October’s Monthly Roundup post here on Track of Words. Each month I write this opening paragraph for my roundup post and boggle at how quickly time is passing – we’ve only two months left in 2022! It’s going to be Christmas before we know it. Looking backwards instead of forwards for the time being however, October has passed in a bit of a blur, starting off a bit slowly but ramping up as the weeks have gone on. I’d say it’s been a middling month for me in terms of productivity, but I’ve got plenty to talk about here. As always I’ll kick things off with a recap of what I’ve been posting these last few weeks, then talk a bit more generally towards the end.
October’s posts
My output on Track of Words continues to fluctuate, but I feel like eight posts in October is about right for what I’m aiming at. Some of these posts were an absolute bugger to write, but others seemed to come easily, so I can’t really complain overall.
Articles
Just the one new article actually (he says in a West Country accent – sorry, can’t help quoting Hot Fuzz), although I did also update a couple of older pieces to bring them up to date with recent releases.
Monthly Roundup – September 2022 – as usual I kicked off the month with my regular retrospective, just like the one you’re reading right now. I had a decent number of reviews, interviews and articles to talk about, as well as a general update including book events, future reviews and last-minute articles.
[Updated] Warhammer Crime – The Range So Far – I’ve recently been reading a few Warhammer Crime stories, and with the release of The Vorbis Conspiracy I thought it was a good opportunity to update this article and bring it as up to date as possible. I’ve not changed a huge amount, just added in some new releases and updated some information about the growing number of connections between stories in the range.
[Updated] Warhammer Horror – The Range So Far – three new Warhammer Horror titles have just been announced, so hot on the heels of updating my Warhammer Crime article I figured I might as well do the same with this one. There aren’t as many connections between stories so this is a slightly simpler article, but I’ve added in all of the latest releases and announcements, as well as the horror e-shorts that were published in October.
Reviews
Six reviews this month, meaning that reviews definitely dominated my output – and these are all book reviews, no short story reviews this time. I did debut a new series though, with my first Short and Sweet post – so far the new format has been quite well received, but I’ll keep an eye on what people think about it.
Even Though I Knew the End by CL Polk – this is a brilliant little hardboiled fantasy novella, set in 1940s Chicago and featuring demons, angels, blood magic and sapphic romance. The amount going on here belies its short length – the noirish voice is great, the world building is vivid and effective, and the plot rattles along exactly as it should for this sort of story. Loved it.
Short and Sweet – October 2022 – I’m trying something new (for me) with this, the first in what I hope will be a (somewhat irregular) series of sort of mini review roundups looking at SFF books I’ve recently read but don’t/won’t have the time or headspace to write full reviews for. The idea is that I’ll be looking at a few books each time – six this time, probably fewer in future – and just giving a flavour of what they’re like and what I thought about them. I’d love to know what you think of this, and whether you’re interested in seeing more, so let me know!
Leech by Hiron Ennes – I’ve never read anything quite like this strange and sinister tale of parasites, distributed consciousness, isolation, identity and creepy, unsettling horror. The central concept – a ravaged world in which a gestalt being which has taken over every medical practitioner, only to stumble across a dangerous parasitical competitor in an isolated, snowbound chateau – is brilliant in its own right, but the execution of it, and Ennes’ beautiful prose, really makes this something special.
The Immortality Thief by Taran Hunt – I picked this up after seeing it described as ‘Indiana Jones on the Event Horizon’, and in hindsight I guess that’s kind of accurate. To be honest I was hoping for more of Event Horizon’s deep, haunting darkness than what I actually got, which turned out to be something that was fun and easy enough to read, but didn’t quite know whether it wanted to be a tense horror story or a fun, pacy adventure. I did enjoy it overall, but I can’t help wishing it had been just a bit more focused.
A Few More Thoughts On: Leech by Hiron Ennes – I enjoyed Leech so much, and had such a lot to say about it, that I actually wrote two posts about it! This second one is less of a regular review, and more a combination of general commentary and comparison with a favourite author of mine – Peter Fehervari. I’m not so much suggesting that Leech reads like a Fehervari novel, as positing that it’s the closest thing I’ve found yet to a story that matches the tone, integrity and overall sense of strangeness that imbues the Dark Coil.
Witches Unleashed by Carrie Harris – what’s not to like about a Marvel prose novel featuring the Ghost Rider and a trio of witches (well, technically one of them is a half-demon) battling Lucifer in a town called Salem? This one is part of Aconyte Books’ excellent Marvel: Untold range, and while I would have loved it to have been a bit less PG-13 (hopefully Ghost Rider will really get to cut loose in a future novel) I had a lot of fun reading about these characters trying to figure out how to work together and deal with their problems and insecurities…while facing off against not just Lucifer but also another devious demon and plenty of other nasties.
Interviews
Just the one interview in October (although I’m hoping I’ll have a few more in November), which kicks off another new series for me. I’m really looking forward to putting more of these together, and I hope you enjoy them – do let me know what you think.
SFF Community Spotlight: Shazzie From Reader@Work & Fantasy Book Critic – this is the first in what I’m hoping will be an ongoing (and long-running) series of interviews where I chat to some of the brilliant people who make the SFF book community such a fun place to be. In this instance I’m chatting to the excellent book blogger/reviewer Shazzie, who runs her own site Reader at Work as well as writing for Fantasy Book Critic. We cover all sorts of good stuff, from what motivates her to keep writing to what makes a good review in her mind, as well as loads of great book recommendations!
General update
At the start of the year I said that I was aiming to write fewer reviews in 2022 and instead concentrate on articles and interviews. Well that hasn’t really happened, as you can see from October’s posts, but I have at least been planning a few interviews this month, and generally thinking about new (for me, at least) things to do. One of those new things was my first Short and Sweet post, an idea that I shamelessly pinched from my friend Fabienne. I’m hoping this will help me to concentrate the majority of my review-related efforts on the books that I’m really keen to write about in depth, but still give me the opportunity to cover other books that I maybe don’t have as much to say about, or simply don’t have the time to spend on a full review. We’ll see how it goes – let me know if you’ve got any thoughts, comments, suggestions etc. on this idea!
The other new series I kicked off in October was my SFF Community Spotlight, which is an idea I’ve been playing around with for a few months now. It largely stems from feeling like I’m not very good at engaging with other bloggers, reviewers etc. on social media (I only really use Twitter, and I’m not very good at just chatting and making friends on there), but wanting to find a way to support and celebrate some of the brilliant people out there who make the online SFF book community such a cool place. I know not everyone wants to follow lots of different reviewers, but I actually think it’s quite a healthy thing to do (I should follow more myself), and hopefully through this series I can give a little boost to a few people who are putting in loads of great work. The plan is to hopefully chat to not just bloggers and reviewers but also podcasters, editors, translators, publicists, and so on. I’m very open to suggestions for who to include, so let me know if you’ve got any ideas!
I’ve also got one author interview ready and lined up for early November, with hopefully at least one or two more coming later in the month, so keep an eye out for those. I really am keen to get more interviews organised, and maybe get back to having some guest posts too, but it’s just a case of identifying who to talk to and about what, then finding the time both for me to arrange things and the authors/guests to contribute their answers, posts etc. It’s a lot of work on my part, and I can only imagine how much more work it is for the authors! I’ll keep working on this, and we’ll see what happens though.
In terms of my usual reading update for the month, I read 12 books in October despite something of a slow start (which was weird, because I really enjoyed the first couple of books…they just took me a while to read), and unusually only two of those were audiobooks. I’ve generally been managing three or four audios per month, but this time around I slightly struggled for listening time for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I’ve had to cut down on how long I spend walking (and therefore listening) because I’ve damaged my foot, and am trying to rest it as much as possible. Secondly, I was away at the start of the month (in Kent) and then again at the end (in Denmark), and inevitably I spent very little time with headphones on while away. I certainly enjoyed both audiobooks I did listen to, so it wasn’t for lack of interest!
Anyway, October’s 12 books take me to 125 in total for the year to date (40 in audio, 85 in ebook/physical formats). I can’t quite believe how close it looks like I’m going to get to 150 for the whole year, by the time November and December are done, and I definitely think I’ll pass 2021’s total of 136 (which I’m fairly sure was the most I’d ever read in a year). At the moment 57% of the books I’ve read have been written by either female or non-binary authors, or male/female partnerships, which I’m really pleased with, and I must say it’s been – so far – another fantastic year for great SFF books! As for Track of Words, the total views for 2022 YTD have almost matched 2021’s year end numbers, so it looks like being a bumper year for the site too!
***
I think that’s everything for this month’s roundup. If there’s anything you’d like me to cover in these articles in future please do let me know. I hope you enjoyed October, and read some great books of your own – here’s hoping we’ll all have an excellent November!
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.
