Hard as it is to believe, I’ve been running this blog for six years now. In that time I’ve read and reviewed more books than I can count. Typed up essays and interviews. Ranted about everything from edgelords to found families. I’ve played around with every corner of the genre from space opera to steampunk, dabbled with musicals and literary criticism, devoured over two centuries of scientific fiction, and generally blabbered on about anything that crosses my mind. The blog itself has gone through some major changes. From a splurge of words to the handsome and trim beast you see today, through the addition of a search function and my ongoing war with image formatting, it’s all been leading to this.

You see, this is no regular update. This is my one thousandth post here At Boundary’s Edge. I debated for a long time how to celebrate this milestone. Did I dare do a top ten? No, those are still annoying. An interview with myself? No, I’m not that much of a narcissist. There’s still another month until we reach the 2024 Boundy Awards, so anything celebrating the past year seems premature. I didn’t want to be too self-centred and pick my favourite posts, or highlight the best performers. There’s a very good chance I pass 100,000 annual views this year, so I figure stats and analysis can wait until the end of the year. Then I’ll celebrate the raw numbers.

I took a bit of a blogging break in October, and the free time gave me time to think. My approach to blogging has shifted over the past six years. Not hugely, but to me it is noticeable. When you do something for this long, and this intensely, you start to notice patterns evolve. Ways of doing things get set in stone, yes, but sometimes new trends emerge. With that in mind, I started thinking about the code by which I blog.

Now, these are not as rigid as Asimov’s Three Laws. They’re not even as pithy as Sturgeon’s Law. However, I do think I’ve uncovered a set of principles by which I run this blog. Principles that I don’t see in other bloggers – not that others should follow me. Six years is a long time, but I still see myself as a scrappy underdog in the blogging world. Other people have their way of doing things and it is working remarkably well for them. This, however, is my pet project, and I do things my own way. So here we go. Let’s take a look at the guiding principles behind this blog.

1 – Science Fiction is an Open House

There are some books I consider ‘proper’ science fiction. The works of greats like Isaac Asimov, Stephen Baxter, and Alastair Reynolds, for example. In spite of this, I have a very broad interpretation of science fiction. Got a spaceship? That’s sci-fi. Alien planet? That’s sci-fi. Alternate history? Believe it or not, that’s sci fi too. of course Star Wars is science fiction. The musical gibberish of Gloryhammer? Sure, why wouldn’t you be sci-fi? I mean, come on, there’s lasers and jetpacks involved. A book might be a YA dystopia or it might be an essay disguised as a novel. It can still be science fiction. Genres don’t exist to shut things out. They exist to bring stories into the fold.

2 – Focus on the Good

There are some people who delight in tearing books apart. I am not one of them. The rise of social media has taught us the unfortunate fact that people can make money out of peddling anger. For myself, I’d rather celebrate things. I might dislike individual books, or even authors, but I will always champion science fiction as a whole. For a genre that’s been around in some form or another for more than a century, it’s got a phenomenal track record. If I ever fall out of love with science fiction, this blog comes to an end. I don’t think that will ever happen. They could stop printing books tomorrow, and there’d be enough already in existence to keep me going for a few more decades.

3 – Acknowledge the Bad

However much I enjoy it, science fiction is not perfect. I read intensely and broadly enough that I’m always running into books I don’t like. It might just be that a story doesn’t work for me, or it might be that it is genuinely bad. It’s often hard to tell, and both reactions are valid. There are a lot of bloggers out there who won’t talk about the books they didn’t enjoy, but I think that is unhelpful. If I dislike a book, I will say as much. I’ll also say why. The thing that annoys me might be appealing to another reader, while my warnings might stop someone reading something they’ll hate. It’s win-win.

4-Don’t Worry About Falling Behind

I think all bloggers feel the pressure to stay relevant. To read the latest releases, to keep up with the latest trends, to stay on the hype train as it hurtles from book to book. I know I do. My three most-viewed reviews were all written soon after the book’s release, and all were high-profile releases. That being said, only buying new books is financially unsustainable, especially for bloggers who multiple books per month. One option is ARCs (Advanced Review Copies), but these come with deadlines, and some publishers won’t offer ARCs to bloggers who don’t already have a large following. Thankfully, there is a solution. Reading the backlist. There are tens of thousands of books out there just waiting to be picked up for a matter of pennies.

5 – It’s Okay to be Old-Fashioned

I probably read more 20th century science fiction than I do books from the past twenty-four years. Some of this is due to cost, some of it down to availability. Those aren’t the only reasons, though. I noticed very early on that science fiction books being reviewed online fell into one of two categories. Classics that everyone knows about, and brand-new releases. The overwhelming majority of the genre has been broadly overlooked. It’s in the gaps that I found my niche. I have uncovered dozens of books and authors that I’d never heard of before starting this blog. Some have been brilliant, others terrible, but almost all of them have been interesting. It can be infuriating to fall in love with a book and find nobody else who’s read it, but I like to think I’m doing my part in keeping these obscure gems in the public eye. After all, if I don’t talk about them, who will?

6 – Context is for Kings

One thing I try very hard to do is not to learn about an author’s worldview. I want books to speak for themselves. However, historical context is important. So much of the Golden Age was heavily influenced by the end of the Second World War and the threat of nuclear warfare. The New Wave is difficult to separate from the counter-culture of the nineteen-sixties. The War on Terror has left an undeniable mark on Military SF. Likewise, an author with a career in academia will have a different approach to an author who has served on the frontline, or one who has spent their entire life living in a cave. This is the context that matters to me. Not a personal outlook, but the environs from which the book is spawned.

7 – A Solo Affair

Blogging can be lonely, so too can reading, but At Boundary’s Edge is ultimately a solo project. During the SPSFC, I worked with a team. The competition would not work with wild solo judges. Aside from that, however, the words you read here are mine. Since I started this blog, I’ve seen numerous bloggers get swallowed up by larger teams. I understand why this happens, but I think it’s a sad state of affairs when solo bloggers, the lifeblood of the community, are subsumed by monolithic entities. It’s not always easy doing this alone, but I do believe it’s worthwhile.

8 – Come One, Come All

We live in an increasingly polarised world, and I absolutely have strong opinions about certain political choices and world events. A science fiction book blog is not the place to voice these opinions. I will happily read books by people from every facet of the political spectrum, because if I only read books by people I agreed with, I would have very few books to read. Likewise, I don’t care who enjoys the same books as me. If you’re a science fiction fan, I consider you good company. Since I have received comments on the same review saying that I am a) too much of a conservative to understand science fiction, and b) too much of a liberal to understand science fiction, I like to think I’m doing a good job of dealing everyone an even hand.

Eight principles manages to feel like a lot and not enough, all at the same time. Regardless, they are a system that works for me. Maybe they’ll shift or bend over time, but I don’t think so. When you read At Boundary’s Edge, be assured that these principles underlie the way I do things.

Is this a satisfying 1000th post? I don’t really know. Maybe anything I could have done would feel lacklustre. Or maybe it’s a number that doesn’t mean all that much. As always, if there’s something you’d rather see me writing about, just let me know in the comments. Maybe I’ll get around to it sometime in the next thousand.