Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus a croeso i At Boundary’s Edge. If you know, then you know. But for everyone else, here’s what my TBR and beyond are looking like for March 2022.

TBR

A lack of book buying in February means I’m well on track for March. I didn’t wholly stick to my plans last time around, but this month plans are a little more concrete. And the main reason for that is WarhamMarch.

WarhamMarch (Warhammer + March) is something I did in 2021 as a way of burning through a large stack of 40k fiction that had landed on my TBR. This month I’m doing it again, and there’ll hopefully be a little more to it than just the reviews. I’ve got ideas for articles too this year. But reviews are still the glue holding everything together, and I’ve got a lot of material to feed them.

First up is The Magister and the Martyr, the second half of the Urdesh series from Mathew Farrer. After that, I’ll be sticking with the Sabbat Worlds long enough to tackle Nick Kyme’s Volpone Glory. I’ve had Phil Kelly’s Farsight novels on the TBR for a little while now, so they’re a sure thing too. Then there’s Nate Crowley’s Reign, the second half of The Twice Dead King. All of that will bring me up to speed with, or in some cases complete, ongoing Warhammer series. I’m planning to get to Justin D Hill’s The Bookkeeper’s Skull and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Day of Ascension too, as both are fairly short. That accounts for all the 40k on my TBR at present, but there is a load of books still to come on that front, and I hope to squeeze in some new releases too.

Even I would struggle to read nothing but Black Library releases for an entire month however, and I’m planning to add in a few standalones to break up the grim darkness. Sticking with a Warhammer theme, I have Dan Abnett’s original science fiction novel Embedded high up my list. J T Nicholas’ The Stolen Earth is a Christmas gift I really should get around too, and David Wellington’s The Last Astronaut rounds out the books I have scheduled. Obviously I’ll read more if time permits, but I don’t want to overexert myself.

That gives me a provisional TBR that looks a little like this:

• Urdesh: The Magister and the Martyr
• Volpone Glory
• The Twice-Dead King: Reign
• Farsight: Crisis of Faith
• Farsight: Empire of Lies
• The Bookkeeper’s Skull
• Day of Ascension
• Embedded
• The Stolen Earth
• The Last Astronaut

AND BEYOND

March is a busy month, so let’s stop wasting time and dive straight into that release schedule.

1st: Stars and Bones, by Gareth L. Powell: A Battlestar Galactica-esque tale from the author of Embers of War? This sounds so interesting that not even the rumours of a talking cat can put me off.

4th: Star Trek: Picard: Season 2 (Amazon UK) It’s been a while since the first season, but I’m looking forward to seeing more of one of Trek’s most endearing characters. And yes, I’m talking about Q just as much as I am about Picard. The first three episodes of Picard release on the same day as the last three episodes of Discovery‘s fourth season.

15th: Memory’s Legion, by James S. A. Corey: The Expanse may be over, but here we have an epilogue in the form of a collection of all the short fiction released over the years, plus an original story that serves as a coda to the series.

15th: Ogres, by Adrian Tchaikovsky: I’m not 100% sure this is a science fiction release, but all of Tchaikovsky’s novellas are worth reading, and I know I’ll be picking it up at some point.

15th: Gazhghkull Thrakka: Prophet of the Waaagh!, by Nate Crowley: Previously available only as a limited edition, I’m looking forward to this one now that Mike Brook’s has demolished my resistance to anything orkish.

22nd: Kingdoms of Death, by Christopher Ruocchio: This is one of my most anticipated releases of the whole year. Anyone who will let me talk knows how much I adore the Sun Eater series, and my only real issue is whether or not I can hold this one back long enough to do a reread of the first three.

29th: Catachan Devil, by Justin Woolley: Another new tale of the Astra Militarum, this one centred on the Catachan jungle fighters. I haven’t read anything by Woolley before, but I’m always open to new Warhammer authors.

Unknown: Assassinorum: Kingmaker, by Robert Rath: Assassins in the grimdark future? It sounds like a winning competition, and one I look forward to reading.