And so it is that another year draws inexorably to a close. I’m a big fan of the Winter season, not least because a combination of birthday and Christmas leads to a lot of free books. December is also the month where I make plans for the year ahead, and in bookish terms try and tidy the edges of my TBR before the inevitable festive bloat. This December I also have a very exciting trip coming up, which for you readers basically means I’ll be a bit quiet for a little while, but for good reason. I still intend to keep up a fairly steady stream of pre-prepared octant though, so here’s what you can look forward to this month.

TBR

On account of my upcoming trip, I’m keeping my reading schedule a bit lighter than usual. My main plan is to get rid of the two chunky omnibuses currently weighing down my TBR. The Captain’s Table is the last of the pre-owned Star Trek books that I haven’t reviewed for this blog, and contains a whopping six novels. Meanwhile the military SF The Icarus Corps is a bit of a gamble for me, collecting an entire trilogy I’ve heard almost nothing about. I’ll be starting the month with that one while I work through my review backlog from the end of November.

Between Christmas and New Year, I’m going to take a very brief break from science fiction to read some Brandon Sanderson and Brian McClellan. They’re two of the only fantasy authors I’m still keeping up with, and that should leave me refreshed for another year of science fiction in 2023.

Around all of that, I’m going to clear out some of my Warhammer stack, with Da Gobbo’s Demise, Witchbringer, and The Emperor’s Finest all looking fairly short. In the unlikely event I get time, I’ll tackle the Isaac’s Universe anthologies. It’s not that likely, but stranger things have happened.

This gives me a rough schedule that looks something like this:

• The Icarus Corps, by Zachary Brown
• Da Gobbo’s Demise, by Denny Flowers
• Witchbringer, by Stephen B. Fischer
• Inferno! Presents: The Emperor’s Finest, by various authors
• The Captain’s Table, by various authors
• The Lost Metal, by Brandon Sanderson
• In the Shadow of Lightning, by Brian McClellan

AND BEYOND

December 11th will see the fourth annual Boundy Awards, wherein I celebrate the best books of the year. I haven’t actually read a whole lot of new releases in 2022, but there have been some real winners in what I have read.

In addition to that I’ve got my Andor review still to come, hopefully the first of my SPSFC quarterfinalist reviews, and the usual end of year wrap posts. This year I think I might delve into some more analytics, and we’ll see who finds that as interesting as I do.

DECEMBER RELEASES

There’s only one release on my radar for December, but it’s a big one. Ashes of Man is the penultimate Sun Eater novel from Christopher Ruocchio, and will be available from the 6th. I likely won’t get to read it until the start of January, but if you’re not already reading this series, now is definitely the time to correct that oversight.