Well, well, well. Would you look at that? Another month has come and gone, and we end up a quarter of the way through the year. Time really does fly when you’re having fun. And let me tell you, March has been a whole lot of fun.
Reading Stats
- Books Read: 8
- Pages Read: 2721
- Pages per Day: 87.77
- Average Star Rating: 4
- Book of the Month: Outgunned, by Denny Flowers
Book Haul
Okay, so having cut back on my book buying in the first two months of the year, I indulged a little in March. I figured I’d earned it. Over the course of the past four weeks, I have more than doubled the size of my TBR, and I don’t feel too bad about it. For one thing, an awful lot of these books cost me very little, as it truly has been a great month for charity shop and used bookstore crawling. And the books that I did pay full price for are almost entirely filling in gaps in either series or author collections that I already had ongoing. My plan for the foreseeable future is to forgo book buying until I’ve got this hoard of books under control.
In terms of sources, these books come from all over the UK, from my usual go-to shops Warhammer and Waterstones, to charity shops in London and second-hand stalls at science fiction conventions, and a journey to the homeland of book lovers everywhere, Hay-on-Wye. Everywhere I went, I saw books I wanted to buy. It’s a good thing I’m making an effort to be financially viable in my book buying.
Prepare your eyes, folks. Here is the haul to end all hauls:
- Warhammer 40,000: Sons of Sanguinius, by various authors
- Warhammer 40,000: Renegades of the Long War, by various authors
- Warhammer 40,000: Fabius Bile: The Omnibus, by Josh Reynolds
- Warhammer 40,000: Warboss, by Mike Brooks
- Star Trek: The Brave and the Bold: Book Two, by Keith R. A. DeCandido
- Halo: Primordium, by Greg Bear
- Halo: Silentum, by Greg Bear
- Halo: Silent Storm, by Troy Denning
- Halo: Hunters in the Dark, by Peter David
- Halo: Smoke and Shadow, by Kelly Gay
- Halo: Shadows of Reach, by Troy Denning
- The Great SF Stories: Volume 10: 1948, edited by Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg
- Ultima, by Stephen Baxter
- Voyage, by Stephen Baxter
- Titan, by Stephen Baxter
- Moon Seed, by Stephen Baxter
- Galaxias, by Stephen Baxter
- The Thousand Earths, by Stephen Baxter
- Victims of the Nova, by John Brunner
- The Cuckoo, by Leo Carew
- Earth Awakens, by Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston
- Earth Afire, by Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston
- Redliners, by David Drake
- Chronicles of the Star Kings, by Edmond Hamilton
- The Shattered Stars, by Richard S. McEnroe
- Federation, by H. Beam Piper
- Wasp, by Eric Frank Russell
- Tress of the Emerald Sea, by Brandon Sanderson
- City of Last Chances, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- And Put Away Childish Things, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- The World Set Free, by H. G. Wells
- Ambulance Ship, by James White
- A Call to Insurrection, by David Weber, Timothy Zahn & Thomas Pope
Reviews
I made good headway in the first half of the month, and caught up with all but one of my backlog book reviews. Things slowed down after that, but I did get around to publishing my first five-star review of the year.
- Book: Blindness, by Jose Saramago (backlog)
- Book: Earth Unaware, by Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston (backlog)
- Book: Andromeda’s Fall, by William C. Dietz (backlog)
- Book: Mission to Minerva, by James P. Hogan (backlog)
- Book: The Misfit Soldier, by Michael Mammay (backlog)
- Books: Harrowmaster, by Mike Brooks
- Book: Jump Gate Twist, by Mark L. Van Name
Articles
I had intended to write a lot more articles this month, but events got away from me (see Updates for details). Nevertheless, I did manage to put together a quick summary of all the Black Library books I, for one reason or another, never got round to reviewing.
SPSFC
The SPSFC2 semifinals are underway, and from my perspective have got off to a rocky start. I managed to put together one review, but I am still stalled on the second book, which is better than the first, but incredibly tough going. There are only a couple of weeks left for me to read and review the remaining books, so you can expect a lot of SPSFC content next month.
Updates
I’m going to make an assumption about my audience. There are a fair few of you now, but I reckon you all have one thing in common. I reckon you’ve come to this blog to find out more about science fiction, and not because you find me personally to be an interesting person. That’s perfectly fine by me. More than that, it’s something I encourage. I ascribe to the Michael Schumacher philosophy that ‘Private is private.’ I’m here to talk about science fiction, not my personal life.
That being said, sometimes the two do cross over. If I’m busy at work and it impacts my reading time, I’ll make a note of that. For example, the first half of this month was spent literally up to my elbows in lambing season. That’s over for another year, so I’ll hopefully get back to proper reading soon.
Sometimes, though, the blogging/life crossover takes even me by surprise. When I put myself forward as a judge for the SPSFC, I expected to find books both good and bad. I expected to meet likeminded readers and reviewers. What I did not expect was to become romantically involved with one of my fellow judges.
Rest assured that this will not impact my clinical and emotionless judging, but outside of the SPSFC, don’t be surprised of you see odd books cropping up here and there. Nothing says blogger relationship like passing books back and forth, after all. And since she’s the one who gave me the magnificent A Talent for War, I at least know that she has good taste.
Anyway, private is private and this is all getting a bit personal for my liking, and I’m not entirely sure I had a point here. Keep reading, maybe start blogging, and you never know who you might meet, or where it might take you?
At Boundary's Edge 