As predicted, July has been a slow month here At Boundary’s Edge. Renovations have slowed down my blogging pace, and I took a short break from science fiction at the start of the month to catch up on my review backlog. Nevertheless, I got a fair bit done, so lets recap.

BOOK HAUL

July only saw a small book haul from me, with only a single visit to the bookshop in my schedule for the month. The three new acquisitions were:

• Among Thieves, by M. J. Kuhn (non-SF)
• The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester
• The Rediscovery of Man, by Cordwainer Smith

This small haul was padded out by my discovery of several books as I moved out of my room for the renovations. Since many of them are of a science fiction bent, I’ve added them to my TBR. They are:

• Islands in the Sky, by Arthur C. Clarke
• Star Trek 12, by James Blish & J. A. Lawrence
• Star Trek: Voyager: Cybersong, by S. N. Lewitt
• Star Trek III: Short Stories, by William Rotsler
• Star Trek: Tales from the Captain’s Table, by various authors
• The Fraxilly Fracas, by Douglas Hill

IN TRANSIT

Something I’ve wanted to do for a while now is get into some of the classics of the genre. I consider myself pretty well versed in these things, but there remain plenty of gaps. In a bid to fill said gaps, I’ll soon be taking the plunge into the SF Masterworks series. I’m definitely not going to read them all, but this is where I’ll be heading for my odds and ends reads for the foreseeable future. I’ve ordered four of these yellow-spined beauties. There’s a chance they’ll be here by the time this post goes live, but as I’m typing this a few days earlier than usual, this is where they go for now.

• Helliconia, by Brian Aldiss
• Sideways in Time, by Murray Leinster
• Double Star, by Robert A. Heinlein
• Nova, by Samuel R. Delaney

READING

My planned reading basically went out the window as soon as I moved out of my room. The main casualty was having to put Star trek to one side for the time being, but there was an all-round shuffling of books too. I started as planned with some non-SF:

• The Emperor’s Exile, by Simon Scarrow
• Ogres, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Age of Ash, by Daniel Abraham
• Among Thieves, by M. J. Kuhn

Other than that, I stuck to my plan of focusing on Warhammer 40,000 reads, which exceeded my expectations in both quantity and quality. I managed to squeeze some of my odds and ends into the schedule too.

• The Vincula Insurgency, by Dan Abnett
• The Helwinter Gate, by Chris Wraight
• Catachan Devil, by Justin Woolley
• Silent Hunters, by Edoardo Albert
• The Fuzzy Papers, by H. Beam Piper
• Foundation’s Friends, edited by Martin H. Greenberg
• Stars and Bones, by Gareth L. Powell
• Islands in the Sky, by Arthur C. Clarke

AUDIO

As well as finishing and reviewing Wedge’s Gamble, I listened to another Star Wars Legends novel. You can expect my review of Death Troopers next month.

TV

It’s been a busy month of TV. Having finished off The Boys and Obi-Wan Kenobi, both of which were great, I’ve moved onto the latest series of The Orville, which is both a departure from and expansion of the first two seasons. I’ve also committed to getting AppleTV in order to watch For All Mankind. Only an episode in, but already living up to the hype.

ARTICLES

No articles from me this month, but I do have several in the works. Hopefully next month should see an onslaught of SF articles.

SPSFC

The first SPSFC is over, and we crowned a winner in the form of S.A. Tholin’s Iron Truth. I wasn’t personally a fan of it, but it has gained plaudits from just about everyone else in the contest, so go check it out. My final contribution to the first SPSFC was a wrap-up post that summed up my personal thoughts on how it all went.

WRITING

The less said here the better. Be about your business.

SITE UPDATES

Because I’m writing this so early in the month, it’s hard to give any final impressions on the month. I know that three of my reviews are yet to receive a single view, which is a tad disheartening. But one of the others more than made up for that. I’m still on course to make good numbers for the end of the month, but it does go to show that, ultimately, a blogger has very little say in how well their blog does. Until next time, that’s it from me.