Hello and welcome to the first TBR & BEYOND of a new year. I’ve changed the format up a bit for 2022, so be sure to let me know what you think. Hopefully it will be a little easier to read and keep track of. Let’s get right to it.

TBR

That’s a lot of books right there, but most of them are refreshingly recent additions to my TBR. Still a few lingering around from last September, but nothing older than that. Now, I do have a few priority reads, so let’s start with those.

• The Shattered Skies is a review copy from Head of Zeus, with a general publication date of the 11th. I need to get my review up before that date, so I’ll be starting the year of with this. I’ve only just started to receive review copies, so I want to be prompt with the reviews themselves.
• My much-delayed pre-order of David Mack’s Oblivion’s Gate is currently scheduled for the 20th. As soon as I get confirmation that it’s been shipped, I’ll be diving into Moments Asunder and The Ashes of Tomorrow so that I can read the whole Coda trilogy back-to-back. This is the final volume of the Litverse, so I want to wrap it up before going back to earlier instalments.
• Guy Haley’s Avenging Son kicks off a big, multi-author Warhammer 40,000 series. I’ve tended to stay away from this sort of thing until now, but figured it was worth the gamble. That said, the fourth book releases later this year, and I want to get an early start to see if I’ll be following the series.

The big ‘if’ in all of that is the question mark hanging over Oblivion’s Gate. If that doesn’t arrive, I still want make headway with Star Trek books. I don’t want to jump into earlier post-Nemesis books or the Discovery novels just yet, so instead I’ll swap out Coda with a different set of three Original Series Trek books.

• The Shocks of Adversity, by William Leisner
• The Folded World, by Jeff Marriote
• No Time Like the Past, by Greg Cox (This one is actually a crossover with Voyager)

Either way, that should account for around half of this month’s reading. Last year my reading was incredibly scattershot, so in 2022 I want to try reading series back to back rather than breaking them up with other reads. I’ve got a few series in the TBR, including:

• The Farian War, by K.B. Wagers. I read The Indranan War a while back, and this sequel trilogy looks to be in a similar vein. It’s complete, which is tempting, but I think I’ll hold this one back for a bit.
• J.S. Dewes is a 2021 debut I heard a lot about last year, and pretty much all of it was positive. While I’ve been burned by over-hyped books before, this series does look very much like my sort of thing, and there’s likely another book coming out later this year. I want to be ready for that, so this is almost guaranteed for January.
• I’ve been meaning to read Phil Kelly’s Farsight books for a while, but I’ve decided to put them on hold for a bit.
• Though they’re not a direct series, I do have three of Ben Bova’s Grand Tour novels in my TBR tower. He was one of my big surprises last year, and I really want to get into his work a bit more to see if I enjoy it all equally. I’m provisionally planning to read Mars and Return to Mars this month.

Between these books, I’ll be filling in the gaps with some standalones, be they Warhammer books like Volpone Glory and Steel Tread, or true standalones like The Last Astronaut and The Stolen Earth.

I do have a handful of non-SF books on my shelf. The Veiled Throne is one I plan to read in January, but will push back if I find more enticing SF, while Robert Jordan’s Warrior of the Altaii is a shorter read I’ll slot in between bigger books. My long term plan is to use Simon Scarrow’s Eagles of the Empire series to break up my science fiction reading, but I’m still waiting for a delivery of missing books so that I can read that epic series in order.

I’ve also got three books left of my SPSFC allocation, and the reviews will all be done by the January deadline.

AND BEYOND

Now that I’ve finished The Wheel of Time and Discovery, there’s room for more TV in my life. The problem is, there’s too much to keep track of, but here are some programmes I hope to start in the near future.

• On Netflix, there is the Witcher, Titans (one of few superhero shows I watch). On a more strict SF basis, there is single season of Cowboy Bebop and the completed three seasons of Lost in Space.
• On Disney+, we have The Book of Boba Fett, which looks both spectacular and rather fan-servicey.
• On Amazon, there’s The Expanse, which airs its final two episodes this month. I’m keen to see how it all wraps up, and what they’ll cover of the last three books.
• I still haven’t committed to AppleTV, but between Foundation, For All Mankind, and See, it’s only a matter of time.

JANUARY RELEASES

1st: Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks – As the Whittaker/Chibnall era draws to a close with one-off specials, I’m enjoying about 50% of the show. Hopefully this is one of the good ones.

3rd: Manticore Ascendant #4: A Call to Insurrection, by David Weber, Timothy Zahn, and Thomas Pope. I really need to pick up the other Manticore books, but I think I might wait for the mass market release of Weber’s books

4th: Star Wars: The High Republic #3: The Fallen Star, by Claudia Gray. I haver no idea if or when I’ll get into the High Republic, but there’s definitely a lot of material out there now.

20th: The Bookkeeper’s Skull, by Justin D Hill. I’m hoping this one can break my streak of not enjoying the Horror range. Hill is a great author, so the odds are good.

TBA: The Twice Dead King #2: Reign, by Nate Crowley. The sequel to Ruin, and hopefully a conclusion of the story.

TBA: Krieg, by Steve Lyons. This one looks very promising. I’m happy to see Astra Militarum books getting pride of place, and Lyons has good pedigree when it comes to Krieg

TBA: The Triumph of Saint Katherine, by Danie Ware. This is a limited edition release, so it’s doubtful I’ll get a copy. But Ware is one of the strong new voices at Black Library, so it’s sure to be a good book.