Hello and welcome to the April 2023 Monthly Roundup on Track of Words. After talking quite a lot in the last instalment about how slow March was for me (particularly in terms of writing) I was hoping I’d have more to talk about this time around. As it happens though, April has in fact been even slower, not least because I’ve spent more than half of the month unwell. I do have a few pieces to talk about from what I posted in April so I’ll go through those as usual, and talk a little about the month’s reading, but once again I’ll keep things quite short overall.
April’s Posts
Because I’m posting this in May, rather than April, my total number of posts for the month stands at five – one fewer than I managed in March. As always though, I’m doing my best to remind myself that it’s quality over quantity! And to be fair, I’m pleased with all of the month’s posts, from the one interview (something a little different this time) to the three full reviews and the review roundup. Here’s a rundown of those five posts, in publication order:
Have You Decided On Your Question by Lindsey Croal – a fascinating little novelette (i.e. longer than a short story but shorter than a novella) from Shortwave Publishing, this takes a darkly compelling approach to a Sliding Doors-style ‘What If’ question and delivers a smart, page-turning tale of technologically-enhanced obsession. It’s a really interesting story that’s dark, contemporary and full of ambiguity.
Tim van Lipzig Talks The Horus Heresy Omnibus Project – for all that I enjoyed reading the Heresy series in publication order I can see how daunting it must feel for new readers, and Black Library has never done a good job of providing a useful reading order. There are plenty of fan-created options, but the HH Omnibus Project is in my opinion the most interesting of the lot, so I was delighted to chat to its creator Tim van Lipzig to get the lowdown on what it’s for and how it came about.
Ascension by Nicholas Binge – I do love a high-concept science fiction thriller, and they don’t come much more high-concept than this one. A vast mountain appearing out of nowhere, a mysterious organisation gathering all manner of specialists to try and understand what’s happened (and happening), a dangerous journey full of physical and psychological challenges, all wrapped up in a genre-blending tale told across a series of letters that portray the central character’s slow descent into something akin to madness.
Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – at this rate Track of Words is rapidly turning into a Moreno-Garcia fan site, with this my fourth review of hers in as many months. Her next novel – due out in July – combines Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism, and it’s a real highlight in a catalogue of fantastic novels. Blending historical fiction with all kinds of horror stylings, this is a low-key but utterly gripping story that’s packed full of detail and featuring a brilliant central character pairing. Definitely one to look out for!
Short and Sweet – April 2023 – another three short reviews in my latest roundup, covering a modern fantasy novel that I didn’t enjoy as much as I thought I would, the latest big-ticket Warhammer 40,000 novel from Black Library (which I have mixed feelings about), and my reread of book four in a classic epic fantasy series. Plenty to talk about, despite these being relatively short reviews!
My April
After feeling like I was really in a slump for a lot of March, I was hoping I’d be able to pick myself back up for April and get back into the swing of things, but that just hasn’t really happened. In large part that’s due to having spent the best part of three weeks struggling with an eye-wateringly sore back, which not only caused me a lot of pain but also put the kibosh on my productivity for most of that time. It’s still not right, but at least I’ve felt able to spend a bit of time writing in the last few days, and after a full two weeks off work (which I still can’t quite believe) I’m finally starting to feel a bit more like myself. And the cause of all this pain and discomfort? Getting old, apparently. Non-specific back pain, they call it, which is a spectacularly unhelpful name. Ah well. I certainly don’t remember doing anything to specifically set it off, so getting old it is!
As always, I’ve still managed to do quite a lot of reading. Another 14 books read in April takes me to 50 for the year, so I think it’s safe to say I’ll hit my target of 52! Interestingly too, only two of those 14 books were audiobooks, which is an unusually low number for me. I enjoyed Squid Empire by Danna Staaf (cephalopods are fascinating, and slightly terrifying) and loved The Devil’s Bargain by Stella Rimington (hadn’t read/listened to a proper spy novel for ages), but after that I struggled to pick anything out that I wanted to listen to. Another consequence of not being well I think (the psychological side of things more than the physical), as now that I’m feeling more like myself I’ve finally settled on The Coming Darkness by Greg Mosse – narrated by the wonderful Gareth Armstrong.
Out of the 12 non-audios, I picked up two that I wanted to review – I’ve already published my review of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s brilliant Silver Nitrate (see above), and I’ve made a start on a review for Terror World by Cath Lauria, which is a tremendously entertaining Zombicide novel from Aconyte Books. Hoping to have that ready pretty soon. I did also include The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean, The Lion: Son of the Forest by Mike Brooks and The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan in my Short and Sweet review roundup – so check that out if you’d like to know what I thought about those three. The TL;DR version is that I found them a bit of a mixed bag – something to enjoy in all of them, particularly The Lion and The Shadow Rising, but a few things I wasn’t so keen on too.
The rest of my reading was purely for fun, with a lot of comfort reads including three further Black Library books – The Deacon of Wounds by David Annandale, The Arkanaut’s Oath by Guy Haley and John French’s The Hollow King. All good fun, with French’s book probably being the highlight of them for me. My other highlight from the month’s reading was Saara El-Arifi’s The Final Strife, which I really enjoyed. It’s quite long, and (deliberately, I think) takes its time in the middle, but I loved the setting, the world building, the magic, the central characters…really good. I’ve had a copy of it for a while, but finally picked it up when I bought a ticket to an event with El-Arifi in May discussing book two, which was the perfect motivation! Can’t wait for The Battle Drum now!
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I think I’ll leave it at that, for this month. I haven’t been spending much time on social media or keeping an eye out for interesting goings-on, so don’t really have much of an update on that front. Fingers crossed I can work my way back to both physical and psychological health in May, so we’ll see what happens this time next month! As always though, 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, have a great May and happy reading.
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