The end of August brings with it another milestone, as we complete the second third of the year. I haven’t spent as much time on the blogging front as planned, but the upside of that is that I’ve spent a lot more time reading. Owing to a minor (and now healed) eye injury that left anything but reading rather difficult, August ended up being my best month of the year in terms of quantity. Quality didn’t always follow, but I did find a few good books to pass the time with.

Reading Stats

• Books Read: 14
• Pages Read: 6616
• Average Star Rating: 3.46
• Book of the Month: Shadow of the Eighth, by Justin D Hill
• Remaining TBR: 15

Book Haul

This was originally a very modest book haul, and financially it still is. However, I have recently learned of a free book exchange that is local to me, and it turns out they have a decent sci fi selection. So free books have thickened my TBR somewhat.

• Phase Space, by Stephen Baxter
• Tangents, by Greg Bear
• Ascension, by Nicholas Binge
• Star Trek: DS9: Avatar: Parts 1&2, by S. D. Perry
• Quarantine, by Greg Egan
• Implacable, by Jack Campbell
• Longshot, by Rob Young

Reviews

I did a lot of wrapping up this month. As well as finishing five separate series, I also brought myself up to date on my chronological Halo readthrough, and made a significant dent in my Star Trek TBR. And while there was only one Warhammer book for me this month, it’s a strong contender for book of the year. I’ve also been spicing things up by listening to a bunch of true crime audiobooks, but there is no science fiction content in those. My SF reading is, as always, listed below.

• Book: The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction, edited by Mike Ashley
• Book Series: The NASA Trilogy, by Stephen Baxter
• Book: Halo: Shadows of Reach, by Troy Denning
• Book: Halo: Divine Wind, by Troy Denning
• Book: Halo: Legacy of Onyx, by Matt Forbeck
• Book: Warhammer 40,000: Shadow of the Eighth, by Justin D Hill
• Book: Star Trek: DS9: Warped, by K. W. Jeter
• Book: Star Trek: DS9: Enigma Tales, by Una McCormack
• Book: Star Trek: Discovery: The Enterprise War, by John Jackson Miller
• Audiobook: Star Trek: DS9: A Stitch in Time, by Andrew J. Robinson
• Book: Children of Memory, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Book: To End in Fire, by David Weber & Eric Flint

Articles

I wrote a pair of articles this month, both of which have been gestating for a long time. The first dealt with an issue that crops up a lot in online book discussion: the question of whether we should read books by authors that do not share our beliefs and philosophies. My answer is yes, of course we should.

The second article was the much discussed start to my Empires of Science Fiction series. It was only a brief introduction, but you can find it by clicking HERE.

Updates

I review every science fiction book I read, and a fair few adjacent properties like music and TV. Since I read a fair few series, it’s very difficult to talk about later volumes without a) giving away spoilers, and b) repeating myself. Something I’ve toyed with this year, and that I’m going to continue, is wrong overall series reviews for series where I read the books in close sequence.