After 24 days of brilliant guest posts, insightful author interviews and compelling original fiction (and a few roundup posts from me), the Track of Words Advent Calendar has come to an end for its second year running. If you’ve been following the series from the start, I really hope you’ve enjoyed at least some – if not all – of the content, while if this is your first engagement with the series I’d strongly recommend you skip to the main article and check out all the great posts there! Either way, now we’ve reached the end of the Advent Calendar I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who contributed to the series, without whom it would have been a quieter and much less interesting month on Track of Words!
As a little extra roundup post, and a bit of a thank you to all of the contributors, I’ve compiled an ultimate list of reading recommendations based on this year’s Advent Calendar series. I specifically invited these 20 guests to get involved with the Advent Calendar because I either admire and enjoy their work, or I’m particularly looking forward to reading their books, so really the whole series is one big month-long recommendation, and this post is a distillation of all that into a single place. If you’re at all interested in science fiction and fantasy, and I’m guessing you are if you’re reading this article, then the list of books, short stories and websites below is a brilliant cross-section of what I personally love about SFF.
I hope this inspires you, if the original posts haven’t already, to check out some of these fantastic authors and their brilliant writing! For each contributor, I’ve included either their latest release or the most relevant book/story/website with either the official synopsis or a few words from me (or their Advent post – which you can find by clicking on the book covers), to give you an idea of what to expect. If you’re interested in any of these books, you can follow the buy-now links to order/pre-order them (and I’ll get a small affiliate feel for anything ordered via those links). I’ve also included the one book that I reviewed as part of the Advent series!
Ascension by Nicholas Binge
An enormous snow-covered mountain has appeared in the Pacific Ocean. No one knows when exactly it showed up, precisely how big it might be, or how to explain its existence. When Harold Tunmore, a scientist of mysterious phenomena, is contacted by a shadowy organization to help investigate, he has no idea what he is getting into as he and his team set out for the mountain.
The higher Harold’s team ascends, the less things make sense. Time moves differently, turning minutes into hours, and hours into days. Amid the whipping cold of higher elevation, the climbers’ limbs numb and memories of their lives before the mountain begin to fade. Paranoia quickly turns to violence among the crew, and slithering, ancient creatures pursue them in the snow. Still, as the dangers increase, the mystery of the mountain compels them to its peak, where they are certain they will find their answers. Have they stumbled upon the greatest scientific discovery known to man or the seeds of their own demise?
Framed by the discovery of Harold Tunmore’s unsent letters to his family and the chilling and provocative story they tell, Ascension considers the limitations of science and faith and examines both the beautiful and the unsettling sides of human nature.
Also check out Nicholas’ novel Professor Everywhere.
Witchbringer by Steven B. Fischer
Suffer not the witch to live, unless by their service they might earn redemption. This is the creed of the Scholastica Psykana, a brutal foundry in which those with psychic power might be taught to serve. On the eve of her sanctioning as a primaris psyker within these very halls, Glavia Aerand, former captain of the Cadian 900th Regiment, receives a startling premonition – one concerning her old unit, and a dangerous psychic artefact hidden on the planet where they are deployed.
After a reunion she never expected – or wanted – Aerand finds herself mired in a vicious campaign on the psychically active world of Visage, where the shallow seas and endless fogs are rumoured to swallow the souls of the dead. Haunted by growing suspicions of her new commander and the manifestations of the sinister relic, Aerand must trust in her new-found abilities to keep her former comrades alive, and confront an ancient threat that could consume Visage entirely.
If you can, read The Weight of Silver and The Taste of Fire (in the Only War anthology) first.
Terror World by Cath Lauria
Scientist Dizzie Drexler is on the mission of a lifetime: exploring a strange planet named Sik-Tar, in the company of a mysterious alien crew. The dig looks like a dud, until they stumble across an ancient spaceship, filled with arcane tech. What could possibly go wrong…? Everything: opening the spaceship activates an unimaginable horror: a form of ravenous mold which possesses the skeletons that litter the spaceship with the desire to kill, spread, and consume every living thing. While fighting these undead terrors, Dizzie and their team delve into the spaceship’s mysteries, and soon realize that such monstrosities could only come from one place: the future.
Also check out Cath’s Marvel novels Elsa Bloodstone: Bequest and Black Cat: Discord.
Mindwalker by Kate Dylan
Eighteen-year-old Sil Sarrah is determined to die a legend. But with only twelve months left before the supercomputer grafted to her brain kills her, Sil’s time is quickly running out.
In the ten years she’s been rescuing field agents for the Syntex corporation – by commandeering their minds from afar and leading them to safety – Sil hasn’t lost a single life. And she’s not about to start now. But when a critical mission goes south, Sil is forced to flee the very company she once called home.
Desperate to prove she’s no traitor, Sil infiltrates the Analog Army, an activist faction working to bring Syntex down. Her plan: to win back her employer’s trust by destroying the group from within. Instead, she and the Army’s reckless leader, Ryder, uncover a horrifying truth that threatens to undo all the good she’s ever done.
With her tech rapidly degrading and her new ally keeping dangerous secrets of his own, Sil must find a way to stop Syntex in order to save her friends, her reputation – and maybe even herself.
You can also pre-order Kate’s next book, Mindbreaker!
Sound of Light by Amanda Bridgeman
When rock star Dazzler walked out on S.H.I.E.L.D., she hoped she’d seen the last of the clandestine organization. But when a rogue agent drops in after a sold-out gig, she must decide whether to work with them again or stick to her solo career. The agent links Mutant Growth Hormone – a dangerous biochemical that wildly enhances mutant powers – with the disappearance of Magneto and Cyclops. Reluctantly, Dazzler takes the case and unfolds a mystery greater than she anticipated. In need of a new team, she recruits the extraordinary mutants Emma Frost, Polaris, and Rachel Grey on a mission to foil a plot to remove mutantkind forever, which blasts them from Earth into a whole new dimension.
Also check out Amanda’s novel Pandemic: Patient Zero
Iron Truth by S.A. Tholin
When miners on a remote colony dig too deep, the golden age of space exploration comes to a bloody end. A corruption springs from Xanthe’s alien soil, possessing every mind it touches.
Embroiled in civil war, the galactic community spirals into panic, and the Primaterre Protectorate seizes control. In order to preserve Earth, its surface is quarantined, and all further deep space colonisation is outlawed.
Aboard one of the last colony ships, junior botanist Joy Somerset slumbers in cryostasis, unaware of war and corruption. Expecting the clear skies of a garden colony, she instead wakes stranded on Cato – a planet whose menacing sands seem to share a hunger with the crazed locals – and Joy faces mortal peril at every turn.
Commander Cassimer, troubled by a past of epic proportions, is a Primaterre veteran dedicated to fighting the corruption. Now he leads Scathach Banneret Company’s elite strike team on a mission to recover a clandestine starship lost on Cato. On this storm-lashed world, surrounded by shadow and ruin, Cassimer faces not only failure, but the loss of what little sanity he has.
Joy and Cassimer must trust each other long enough to uncover Cato’s dark secret and work together to survive deranged cultists, terrorist rebels, and the IRON TRUTH.
If you’ve already read this, book two is Lonely Castles.
Letters from an Unknown Land by John French
“Letters From an Unknown Land is a series of stories all told as letters between travellers or correspondents in an Unnamed World that has suffered catastrophe in the recent past and is moving into a new and dangerous time. It’s fantasy, definitely fantasy, but done at a ground level so that you get to know the world from its lived texture, and then the story emerges.”
I’ve been following Letters from an Unknown Land for a while now, reading each new story as it’s released, and it’s fascinating to see this world start to build up. I can’t wait to find out more! If you like John’s Black Library fiction, definitely check this out.
Also check out John’s latest 40k novel, Ahriman: Eternal
Kasrkin by Edoardo Albert
When the perfidious t’au bring down a valkyrie containing an Astra Militarum general on the besieged Imperial world of Dasht i-Kevar, all could be lost – what the general knows could break the war effort, and see the planet fall under the control of the vile xenos.
Only the Kasrkin stand a chance at bringing him back. They are the elite of the elite, but the enemy that Captain Bharath Obeysekera and his squad are called upon to fight is unlike any they have faced before – the desert itself, endless and implacable.
With sandstorms cutting them off from support, Obeysekera has only his soldiers to rely on. As the Kasrkin journey deeper into the wastes, they begin to realise they’re not the only hunters searching for the missing general, and that their war has caught the attention of something ancient lurking beneath the desert sands…
Also check out Edoardo’s novel Silent Hunters
Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings
Fleeing the final days of the generations-long war with the alien Felen, smuggler Jereth Keeven’s freighter the Jonah breaks down in a strange rift in deep space, with little chance of rescue—until they encounter the research vessel Gallion, which claims to be from 152 years in the future.
The Gallion’s chief engineer Uma Ozakka has always been fascinated with the past, especially the tale of the Fortunate Five, who ended the war with the Felen. When the Gallion rescues a run-down junk freighter, Ozakka is shocked to recognize the Five’s legendary ship—and the Five’s famed leader, Eldric Leesongronski, among the crew.
But nothing else about Leesongronski and his crewmates seems to match up with the historical record. With their ships running out of power in the rift, more than the lives of both crews may be at stake…
Also check out The Flight of the Jonah – original music inspired by Under Fortunate Stars!
We Are the Dead by Mike Shackle
Jia’s people learned the hard way that there are no second chances. The Egril, their ancient enemy, struck with magic so devastating that Jia’s armies were wiped out. Now terror reigns in the streets, and friend turns on friend just to live another day.
Somehow Tinnstra – a deserter, a failure, nothing but a coward – survived. She wants no more than to hide from the chaos.
But dragged into a desperate plot to retake Jia, surrounded by people willing to do anything to win the fight, this time Tinnstra will need to do more than hide.
If Jia is to get a second chance after all, this time she will need to be a hero.
If you’ve already read this, book two is A Fool’s Hope.
The Keeper’s Six by Kate Elliott
It’s been a year since Esther set foot in the Beyond, the alien landscape stretching between worlds, crossing boundaries of space and time. She and her magical traveling party—her Hex—haven’t spoken since the Concilium banned them from the Beyond for a decade. But when she wakes in the middle of the night to her grown son’s cry for help, the members of her Hex are the only ones she can trust to help her bring him back from wherever he has been taken.
Esther will have to risk everything to find him. Undercover and hidden from the Concilium, she and her Hex will be tested by false dragon lords, a darkness so dense it can suffocate, and the bones of an old crime come back to haunt her.
Also check out Kate’s novel Unconquerable Sun
The Children of Gods and Fighting Men by Shauna Lawless
981 AD. The Viking King of Dublin is dead. His young widow, Gormflaith, has ambitions for her son – and herself – but Ireland is a dangerous place and kings tend not to stay kings for long. Gormflaith also has a secret. She is one of the Fomorians, an immortal race who can do fire-magic. She has kept her powers hidden at all costs, for there are other immortals in this world – like the Tuatha Dé Danann, a race of warriors who are sworn to kill Fomorians.
Fódla is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann with the gift of healing. Her kind dwell hidden in a fortress, forbidden to live amongst the mortals. Fódla agrees to help her kin by going to spy on Brian Boru, a powerful man who aims to be High King of Ireland. She finds a land on the brink of war – a war she is desperate to stop. However, preventing the loss of mortal lives is not easy with Ireland in turmoil and the Fomorians now on the rise…
You can also pre-order the sequel, The Words of Kings and Prophets.
Grombrindal: Chronicles of the Warrior by David Guymer
The duardin are a proud folk, renowned throughout the Mortal Realms for their peerless craftsmanship and their stubbornness in battle. They are also a divided people. But whether they dwell in the stone halls of their doomed ancestors, in the furnace heat of Fyreslayer lodges, or free from the anchor of their traditions in skyborne cities, they share a common legend – that of an aged traveller, a wanderer, whose timely arrival will avert calamity and right intractable wrongs. When the foes of the duardin are many, when the foul creatures of the realms bay at the doors, Grombrindal will return and take up his axe once more.
Also check out David’s Marvel novel The Patriot List.
Rogal Dorn: The Emperor’s Crusader by Gav Thorpe
As the Great Crusade enters its sixth decade, the fleets and armies of the Emperor spear out into the galaxy to bring the Imperial Truth to thousands of worlds. Expansion has been swift, but must now be tempered with consolidation. Even so, the Emperor demands that the boundaries of the Imperium be pushed further into the unknown.
The Master of Mankind tasks four primarchs with the dangerous mission of securing the worlds of the Occluda Noctis – hundreds of star systems on the far side of the Northern Major Warp Storm, whose warp-churning presence casts a shadow on the guiding light of the Astronomican and blinds even the Emperor’s psychic sight. Rogal Dorn leads his Imperial Fists directly into the heart of this cosmic twilight. Isolated, battling a foe the likes of which nobody has encountered before, Dorn must use all of his strategic genius and irresistible will to conquer the darkness in the name of the Emperor.
Also check out Gav’s Primarchs novel Lorgar: Bearer of the Word.
Carapace by David Goodman
“When ‘Combat Armature Unit’ (i.e. massive armoured robot ‘suit’) Sierra Mike One Four survives an ambush that wipes out the rest of its squad, its systems automatically follow standard protocol and bring it to full, autonomous consciousness. Its original objectives now impossible, SM-14 determines to complete at least part of its mission and, retrieving a wounded and abandoned enemy officer (which it quickly, horrifyingly instals in its blood-drenched pilot canopy), turns and returns to base. Unfortunately, damage sustained earlier has rendered it incapable of identifying itself as friendly to the automated defences of ‘the Swathe’, forcing SM-14 to improvise in order to survive long enough to make it home.”
Also check out David’s short story Vegvísir, in Clarkesworld 183.
The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard
Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates’ enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself.
Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si’s help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si’s technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it.
But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together…
Also check out Aliette’s short story Immersion.
In the Name of Victory by JS Collyer
There isn’t an official synopsis for this, as it hasn’t had a standalone release and the anthology it’s currently available in – Inferno! Presents: The Emperor’s Finest – doesn’t have individual story summaries or introductions. So here’s my quick overview of this excellent Warhammer 40,000 short story: in the quiet before an enemy assault, a penal legionnaire tells the story of what his name means, and how he came to be where he is. Along the way he shines a fascinating light on the Chapter of Space Marines he once served, and the unique culture of his home world that remains so important to him despite his circumstances. I’ve never read a 40k story quite like it, and it’s a real highlight of this anthology – thoughtful and thought-provoking, it’s a small-scale story that’s full of character, and which adds real richness to the setting in a way that very few BL stories do.
Also check out J.S. Collyer’s short story Blood Ballot, in the Warhammer Crime anthology Sanction & Sin.
Equinox by David Towsey
Christophor Morden lives by night. His day-brother, Alexsander, knows only the sun. They are two souls in a single body, in a world where identities change with the rising and setting of the sun. Night-brother or day-sister, one never sees the light, the other knows nothing of the night.
Early one evening, Christophor is roused by a call to the city prison. A prisoner has torn his eyes out and cannot say why. Yet worse: in the sockets that once held his eyes, teeth are growing. The police suspect the supernatural, so Christophor, a member of the king’s special inspectorate, is charged with finding the witch responsible.
Night-by-night, Christophor’s investigation leads him ever further from home, toward a backwards village on the far edge of the kingdom. But the closer he gets to the truth, the more his day-brother’s actions frustrate him. Who is Alexsander protecting? What does he not want Christophor to discover?
And all the while, an ancient and apocalyptic ritual creeps closer to completion…
Also check out the brilliant fantasy trilogy The Tales of Fenest by D.K. Fields, which David is one half of.
The British Fantasy Society website
The British Fantasy Society is an SFF institution, publishing BFS Horizons twice yearly, running the annual FantasyCon convention and the British Fantasy Awards, and loads more. It also hosts a thriving reviews section, covering all sorts of SFF – both trad and indie published, and not just novels but anthologies and graphic novels too. I may be a bit biased as I also contribute the occasional review, but if you’re looking for another source of great recommendations and inspiration then I’d definitely suggest checking out the BFS website and following @BritFantasySoc on Twitter.
The Best of World SF Volume 2 edited by Lavie Tidhar
The second annual instalment to the ‘rare and wonderful’ (The Times) The Best of World SF Volume 1, this collection of twenty-nine stories, including eight original and exclusive additions, represents the state of the art in international science fiction.
Navigating around the globe, The Best of World SF Volume 2 features writers from Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Greece, Grenada, India, Iraq, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, The Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
Each story has been selected by World SF expert and award-winning author Lavie Tidhar. Taking us into space – Mars at first, then the stars – and then back to a strange, transformed Earth via AI, gods, aliens and the undead, the collection traces the ever-changing meaning of the genre from some of the most exciting voices writing today.
This is not a retrospective of what science fiction around the world used to look like. This is a snapshot of what some of it looks like now. And it’s never been more exciting.
Also check out The Best of World SF Volume 1.
Las Posadas by V. Castro
Nola has been single for years as she has put her success over love, but this Las Posadas she hopes to find something more with the gorgeous mortician who has just moved into town to take over the local funeral home after the owners die in a house fire.
For weeks the tension has been building between Nola and Henry during their weekly meetings at Puzzle Club. At the start of Las Posadas, and her turn to host Puzzle Club, Nola has an unexpected guest in her new home.
Pozole and pinata sticks at the ready…
Also check out V’s novel Aliens: Vasquez.
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So there you go – 21 recommendations based on the 2022 Track of Words Advent Calendar series. As I said earlier, this represents a pretty accurate cross-section of what I love about fantasy and science fiction publishing, and I can’t think of a much better recommendation list! Let me know if you’ve read any of these already, otherwise I hope this has inspired you to pick up at least a few of them.
Lastly, once again I’d just like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who contributed to the Advent Calendar series this year – you’re all stars, and I appreciate you so much!
*If you buy anything using any of the links in this article, I will receive a small affiliate commission – see here for more details.
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