Hello and welcome to my Monthly Roundup for March 2023 here on Track of Words. It’s been a slow month for me personally, and this post you’re reading is only the sixth thing I’ve published in all of March – not since April 2022 have I posted so few times in a month. I’ll talk a little bit later on about why I think things have been so slow, but in short I simply haven’t had the energy, headspace or motivation for working on the site over the last few weeks. Or at least, to get things actually finished. I do have a few pieces in various states of completion so hopefully I’ll have more to talk about in April. I’m still struggling for motivation even as I write this though, so I think I’ll keep things pretty short for this instalment.
March’s Posts
Like I said before, six posts in a month is pretty unusual for me. As always though, quality before quantity – and I’m pleased with everything I did post in March. If you’ve read and enjoyed any of these recent posts (or if you read any of them off the back of this article) please do let me know – I’d love to hear from you!
Interviews
…or rather interview singular. For Black Library fans in particular though, this was a pretty big one! It had been a while since my last BL author interview, so I thought I’d get back into the swing of things and put together something really cool.
RAPID FIRE: Dan Abnett Talks The End and the Death Volume 1 – the Siege of Terra is almost at an end, and I chatted to Dan about the first volume of this, the final book in the series. I took a slightly different approach to most of my interviews, and concentrated on the writing process – how long Dan was working on this for, how it compared to writing Saturnine, what he was aiming for with certain stylistic choices, and so on. I really enjoyed working on this, and I hope you enjoy reading it!
Reviews
In context of such a slow month, I’m pretty happy with March’s reviews – three full book reviews and my usual review roundup. I didn’t set out to read and review two books by the same author in a month, but it just ended up that way!
Untamed Shore by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – I love the fact that Moreno-Garcia chooses to tackle totally different genres and styles in each book, and I really loved this dark, subtle noir set in sun-baked Baja California. It’s a slow-burn story, a thoughtful and psychological character study that’s deceptively dark and utterly fascinating.
Dragonfire by James Swallow – the follow-up to the excellent Firewall, this is Swallow’s second novel set in the world of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell and it’s another breathless, page-turner of a techno-thriller. This one felt a little darker and more ‘realistic’ (if that’s an appropriate word for this sort of thriller) than its predecessor, giving it a nice bit of variety. Swallow really knows how to write this sort of book though, and I simply couldn’t put it down.
Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – my second Moreno-Garcia book of the month, and a novel that I’d had on the shelf for a while but hadn’t until now got around to reading it. I’m very glad that I did though, as this smart historical noir is another brilliant example of how good Moreno-Garcia is. It’s a slow-burn, psychologically complex noir with a brilliant historical setting, and I can’t recommend it enough.
Short and Sweet – March 2023 – in this month’s review roundup I talk a bit about The End and the Death Volume 1 by Dan Abnett, Yoko Tawada’s The Last Children of Tokyo, and From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back. So that’s the first part of the final Siege of Terra novel from Black Library, a strange little difficult-to-classify novella, and a short story anthology exploring 40 new perspectives on the second Star Wars movie. Quite a mixture!
My March
I’ll start off as usual with a quick look back at this month’s reading. At the time of writing this I’ve read 11 (and a half) books so far this month (the same as I managed in February), which takes me to 34 in total for the year. Unusually, five of those books have been non-fiction (four of which in audio), including books about Renaissance Britain, the joys of walking, the realities of life for a mortician, the impact that spending time in nature can have on our mental health, and a mother taking her son on an adventure following the incredible migration of grey whales. I’m finding audio to be the perfect medium for non-fiction at the moment, and these non-fiction books covering a wild variety of subject matter have been a real highlight of the month for me.
Of the other five books, I’ve already reviewed Dragonfire, Velvet Was the Night and From a Certain Point of View, and I’ve made a start on my review for Nicholas Binge’s debut novel Ascension – which I’m expecting to be very popular when it launches in April. I won’t say too much to spoil my review, but let’s just say I was really impressed with this one. Lastly, I also read Cop Hater by Ed McBain, which is the first novel in his 87th Precinct series. I’d been interested to read Matthew Farrer’s comments about this series in his Urdesh interview, so when I stumbled across the first two books in a charity shop in Herne Hill, I figured I’d give them a go. It’s always interesting to read early procedural novels like this, and for all that it’s pretty dated now it’s nevertheless a tight, cleverly constructed story.
So that’s March’s reading. I’m very pleased with this month’s selection, but I think the preponderance of audio perhaps speaks to my generally unsettled mood across a lot of the month. Six physical/digital books is absolutely not to be sniffed at, but for me that’s quite a low number, and I always know when my head isn’t quite right because I find myself not reading as much as usual. I can’t quite put my finger on it this time around, but I suspect a combination of factors have worked together to throw off my productivity and generally leave me feeling not quite myself.
I’ve been pretty low energy for a lot of the month, physically and psychologically, and I’ve found myself turning to video games – or rather one video game, Jedi Fallen Order, which I now love – for relaxation far more than anything else. In the last couple of weeks I’ve also had an unusual number of social commitments, which is very much not like me, and which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed but as always found quite draining (I really, really don’t find that socialising recharges my batteries – exactly the opposite). I’ve also made a start on a couple of quite ambitious interview projects which have been tough to wrap my head around for various reasons, and which I’ve struggled to really get to grips with.
So I think it’s just a blend of all those factors that’s left me a little low and finding it hard to concentrate on much. I keep reminding myself, however, that I’ve still posted at least once each week, and the two-per-week goal is just something I’ve set myself, and which I don’t have to keep up. So rather than beating myself up or forcing myself to write when I haven’t been feeling it, I decided I’d just go with the flow these last few weeks and try to take it easy. With that in mind, I haven’t really had the headspace to be looking out for noteworthy goings-on in SFF the last few weeks, or interesting books/sites/newsletters etc. to recommend, so I’ll skip that section and hopefully pick it back up next month. Fingers crossed I’ll feel a bit more like myself, and normal service will resume.
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So there you go, that’s another Monthly Roundup done and dusted. Thanks for sticking with me this far, if you’re still reading this. If you’ve got any comments or questions, please let me know in the comments or over on Twitter. In the meantime, I hope you have a great April.
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