This year I posted almost 200 reviews, articles, and interviews. That brought me up to the grand total of over 1000 posts since I started this blog. I also passed 100,000 views in a single year for the first time. All these achievements are the result of a lot of time and effort. Any blogger will tell you that these things don’t write themselves.

Yet when we bloggers talk about the rewards of blogging, we mention the friends we’ve made, the books we’ve read, and other intangible benefits. Views and visitors aren’t everything, but they are a useful metric for how far our communities are spreading. Talking about numbers is something of a taboo subject, it seems. Low numbers feel self-pitying, but high numbers can be construed as boastful.

Well, I’m here to break that taboo. Here are the ten most viewed reviews and articles for 2024, along with the numbers behind them. Those numbers might be a little different by the end of today, but this should give you an idea of how things look from my side of the screen.

Top Ten Reviews

• Fractal Noise, by Christopher Paolini: 4103 views
• Avenging Son, by Guy Haley: 2673 views
• The Redemption of Time, by Baoshu: 2178 views
• Blindness, by Jose Saramago: 1234 views
• Paul of Dune, by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson: 949 views
• The Fall of Cadia, by Robert Rath: 915 views
• Sandworms of Dune, by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson: 902 views
• God Emperor of Dune, by Frank Herbert: 891 views
• Hunters of Dune, by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson: 882 views
• Uncompromising Honor, by David Weber: 845 views

What lessons can we learn here? First, that Dune will always be popular. Especially with films and TV series in the works. Warhammer has some popularity too. The odd one out if Fractal Noise, which exploded over night, then did precisely nothing for the rest of the year. Paolini’s novel, by the way, is the only 2024 review on this list. The rest are older reviews that have gained traction.

Top Ten Articles

(excluding index pages)

• The Wishlist: Black Library 2023 Releases: 1707 views
• A Troublesome Trope: My Issue with Found Families: 1610 views
• The Best of British Science Fiction: 1336 views
• The Best of Black Library: 1237 views
• On Reading ‘Problematic’ Authors: 1102 views
• The Lost Art of Audio Dramas: Warhammer 40K Retrospective: 820 views
• Where to Start with Black Library?: 676 views
• Your Science Fiction Questions Answered: 565 views
• Grimdark: What Is It and Who Is It For?: 481 views
• Theory Time: What Will the Warhammer 40,000 TV Series Be About? 443 views

Once again we can see some trends. Black Library is immensely popular, with even an out of date release schedule performing well. Half this list is either Black Library of general Warhammer nonsense. We can also see that ‘Best of’ lists will always garner attention. Both the ones on this list were published this year, and have done rather well for themselves.

if you’re looking for conclusions, you won’t find any here. Hopefully this will break the taboo around sharing numbers. If I can do it, anyone can.