We have somehow crossed the midway point of the year. Seems like only yesterday I was stuffing my face with Easter chocolate, now I’m dieting for the summer. But enough about me. Let’s talk about books.

TBR

Having rearranged a lot of my bookshelves last month, I’ve freed up plenty of space for more science fiction. I intend to fill this gap with some fantastic books. Last week I stumbled across an absolute goldmine in an Oxfam shop, and walked away with James Blish’s A Crisis of Conscience, Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise, Clifford D. Simak’s Way Station, and Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin. As well as being very cheap, these books have something notable in common. They’re all Hugo Award winners. Throw in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Barrayar that I picked up in March, and I’ve got some significant reading to do. The fact that there’s some fantasy on the list means I’m not going to read every Hugo winner (Neil Gaiman is very much not my jam), but it has historically been a good place to go for recommendations.

At the other end of the perceived respectability spectrum, I have a bunch of books that will never win major awards. The famous trophies may overlook tie-in fiction, but I never will. To that end, I’ve got a whole lot of Star Trek to read. If I can get on top of my audio backlog, I’ll be making progress with Warhammer 40,000 too. there’s a real mix of storytellers here, but I’m going to prioritise the A Time To… series before moving back along the Trek timeline. In the grim dark future, I am looking forward to reading more Steve Lyons, and Chris Wraight is bound to make an appearance or two as well.

Any time I have left over will likely be spent catching up on series. David Brin’s Uplift has been hanging around since January, and I think now might also be the right time to dive back into the future history of H. Beam Piper.

& BEYOND

As with last month, I’m going to experiment with bundling reviews together. I don’t want to become one of those reviewers who only does wrap-up posts and weekly reviews, but reducing the workload is good for my sanity. For your benefit, finding common ground among my books is also very interesting. I’ve got one post coming up that goes into just what exactly was happening in the 1990s. Spoiler alert: Science fiction was all over the place.

Other than the usual long-gestating projects, I don’t have any specific articles planned for July. I’m tempted to celebrate some American authors for July 4th, but that would be about two-thirds of my library, so we’ll just agree that they’re all great.

RELEASE SCHEDULE

7th – Warhammer 40,000: Morvenn Wahl: Spear of Faith, by Jude Reid – This is for the limited edition, much delayed from it’s initial release date back in February. I’ll be waiting for the regular edition to arrive later in the year, but Reid is definitely an author I’m keeping an eye on. Another Reid novel, Daemonslayer was announced last month, but there’s no set release date for that one just yet.

16th – The Palladium Wars #4: Descent, by Marko Kloos – I am torn on Kloos. I enjoy every book he’s written, usually very much so. Yet there doesn’t seem to be any momentum in the series overall. Hopefully book four changes that trend, but if nothing else it’s virtually guaranteed to deliver some solid action and excitement.

23rd – Star Trek: The Original Series: Lost to Eternity, by Greg Cox – The TOS movie era is not my favourite part of the Trek canon, but Cox is quickly becoming one of my favourite Trek authors, so I’m keeping an ear out for his sequel to The Voyage Home.

As always, if there’s something you think I’ve overlooked, let me know. And don’t forget to share your own July reading plans in the comments.

RELEASE SCHEDULE