Whether you like it or not, we are now in the festive season. Hopefully that means stacks of books under the tree in a few weeks time, but it also means cold weather and long nights in which there’s nothing better than snuggling in and reading those books. So without further ado, here is my final TBR & Beyond of the year.

TBR

My reading plans are very simple for the rest of the year. I’ve got a few more 2024 releases to finish, and then it’s Star Trek through to the new year.

I’ve got a trio of 202 release left. Daemonhammer, by Darius Hinks, Disquiet Gods, by Christopher Ruocchio, and Service Model, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I’ve started with the last of these, as I’m jumping into a buddy read courtesy of some members of the Instagram community. It’s good going so far, and a lot funnier than I expected.

There’s a good chance these newer books will be joined by Noah van Nguyen’s Elemental Council, but I’m unlikely to get to that before Christmas unless I get through Disquiet Gods faster than anticipated.

The Star Trek corner of my TBR has been accumulating for a while now, but the books are fairly short, so there’s an opportunity to smash through it before the end of the month. Most of it is Peter David’s New Frontier series, but I’ve also got the second half of the Mission Gamma quartet, and a trio of random Treks I’ve picked up in used bookshops in the past few months.

In terms of audiobooks, I’m still working through some older releases. There might e a roundup of those later on, but a couple will also get solo reviews. The most notable book in that area is Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, which I’m very much looking forward to.

& BEYOND

Naturally, there’ll be a lot of reviewing going on, but the Trek novels will be reviewed as series, or I’ll end up repeating myself too much. I’ve also got the backlog from the end of last month to get posted.

As regular readers will know, the 11th will see the annual Boundy Awards, hence my focus on newer books these past few weeks. It’s currently wide-open in the standalone section, but most of the other categories have clear winners already. Jot down 11/12/24 in your calendars for all the results.

Then, like every other blogger and their mother, I’ve got my annual roundup posts. The advantage of keeping extensive spreadsheets is that I can pull out a lot of interesting data. This year I’m splitting my blogging and reading into two posts. The blogging post will include something I’ve not done before, and will include full viewing figures. Blogging can seem impenetrable sometimes, but I’m happy to be transparent.

As well as the raw data side of things, I’ll be looking back at the successes and failures of the past twelve months in terms of my goals for this blog, and take an overall look at the books and authors I meant to read this year. Capping it all off will be my annual look forward at all the SF I’m aware of that’s releasing in 2025.

RELEASE SCHEDULE

8th – Warhammer 40,000: Elemental Council, by Noah van Nguyen – Xenos novels are few and far between, but van Nguyen’s 40K debut looks set to be packed to the rafters with t’au and their associates. There’s a chance other Black Library releases will join it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re now done for the year.