Back in January I set out some blogging goals for the year Now that the next January is less than a week away, I think it’s time to revisit those ambitions and see how things transpired.

Articles

Partial Success. Starting off with the bad news, my Empires of Science Fiction series of articles well and truly bit the dirt. It was a time consuming prospect, and I completely lost steam. I’m not saying never, but it’s unlikely to resurface for some time. On the positive side, I did write plenty of other articles, some of which gained a fair bit of traction. I think standalone pieces are clearly the way ahead.

Audiobooks

Success. Last year I dabbled in audiobooks thanks to Black Library and Sar wars. This year I fell headlong into the Audible Plus catalogue. As well as exposing me to some proto-SF classics, it’s been a chance to revisit some old favourites through a new lens. I still prefer the physical format, but consider me an audio convert.

Community

Partial Failure. It turns out that creating a Discord community is way harder tan I expected. There were some fun moments along the way, but this endeavour has fallen flat on its face. I’m not really sure what to do with it now that it exists, but it has definitely fallen by the wayside. The slightly better news is that I’ve become more active elsewhere, most notably Bluesky and Instagram, the latter of which has already allowed me to forge some great connections with other sci fi readers.

Diverse Books

Success. I have read more authors from more publishers than almost every year since |I’ve been keeping track. Not all have been great, but reading widely has opened my eyes to a few authors I’ve never heard of before. A lot of my reading still comes from space opera, military SF, and hard SF, but within those spheres I’m still finding surprises.

Interviews

Success. I managed to score two interviews this year, so my batting average remains strong. Rising star Victoria Hayward was the latest Black Library author to stop by and chat, and I was also fortunate enough to speak with titan of Star Trek fiction David Mack. Long may my lucky streak continue.

Logo

Failure. I never really pursued getting a proper logo for the site, though I did replace my creaking bookshelf with a somewhat slicker text-based icon. A logo would still be nice, but its fallen down the priority list.

New Authors

Failure. Outside of Warhammer, I didn’t read a single debut novel published this year. Cost of new books remains a factor, but there’s also the unfortunate fact that a lot of new science fiction doesn’t appeal to me all that much, aside from new books by the same group of established authors. I don’t really see a remedy for this situation, unfortunately, other than to wait until something grabs my attention.

Older Books

Success. Cost-saving measures across the bookish world have paid off for me. though I’ve probably bought more books this year than any other, I’ve done so at a fraction of the cost. Fully a third of my new acquisitions have come from eBay bundles, while a solid seven out of every nine overall have been bought second hand. Audiobooks have been a surprise drain on my budget, but it’s ultimately not all that expensive compared to buying new books, especially hardbacks.

WarhamMarch

Success. Saving up all my Warhammer reviews for March worked out a charm, especially since I was too distracted during the month to work on many new posts. My analytics-driven Best of Black Library post also worked out rather well, but I do find myself wondering what I’ll do next year to keep things fresh.

Conclusions

Six goals out of nine achieved in some form or another is pretty good going, and the ones that remain can easily be carried over to next year. I hope you were all able to meet some of your goals this year. Until next time, keep reading.