Summer is well and truly here, and while I’ve never been one for beach reads, the current combination of scorching sun and stellar fiction is rather enjoyable. After two fairly quiet months on the blog, I’m looking forward to diving back in.

TBR

I’ve still got a couple of Star Trek books in my schedule, and I’m fairly confident of wrapping up the A Time To… series this August. I have the Mission Gamma quartet as well, but that will probably have to wait until September.

One series I am hoping to get to this month is Stephen Baxter’s World Engines. This one is just a two-parter, and it’s been long enough since Xeelee that my Baxter batteries are fully recharged, and I’m looking forward to getting back into modern hard SF. There’s a small chance I’ll also read Creation Node (also by Baxter), but I wouldn’t count on it.

Two books I bought on release this year are Christopher Ruocchio’s Disquiet Gods and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Alien Clay. These are two of my favourite modern authors, so I’m not really sure why I’ve been putting them off for so long. Certainly there are some things I’ve heard regarding the Ruocchio book that have me hesitant, but the only way to know for sure is to read it, so I absolutely intend to do get around to it this year.

Anything else I read this month will likely be pulled from my stack of mass market paperbacks, which largely consists of vintage and military SF.

& BEYOND

Most of my posting this month will involve catching up on what I read in July, so you can expect a slew of reviews over the coming weeks. That’s plenty of Star Trek, some Roger MacBride Allen, and a quick look at some Hugo Award winners.

In terms of articles, I’ve got one planned on the commodification of the SF community, and possibly one on how being a book blogger has broken my brain. There’s a chance the latter won’t materialise, or that the two get rolled into one, so we’ll have to see what happens there.

RELEASE SCHEDULE

Just the one book this month, with James S. A. Corey’s new series kicking off on the 6th with The Mercy of Gods. It looks quite different to The Expanse, but my hopes are high.

As always, there’s bound to be something I’ve forgotten or overlooked. If you can think of something I ought to be talking about, you just let me know.