When it comes to reading, I am a goal-oriented person. Regular followers of At Boundary’s Edge will know that I am deep in the middle of Vintage Science Fiction Month, and that is just one of my goals for the year. I know some (much trendier) people than me while set numerical goals for themselves. a book a week, a hundred books a year, three books a month, or something along those lines. that sort of rigidity doesn’t work for me. Not least because I know my reading speed, so there’s little point trying to push my luck in that department. Instead, my goals are built on the sturdy foundations of themed reading months. I have, at the time of writing, about a hundred books on my TBR, so there’s plenty of fodder for every month’s topic.

Once Vintage SF Month is over, I’ll be keeping February ‘Short and Sweet.’ This means books that are under three hundred pages long, or books that aren’t too complex. I’ve already got a bit of John Scalzi lined up (including a Lock-In buddy read, and I’ll likely be continuing to read through my backlog of vintage books, as they tend to be on the shorter end of the scale.

Historically, March has been WarhamMarch here on the blog. I’ll be taking a year of from that for 2026, because I don’t have any Black Library books on my TBR, and thoughts for grimdark articles currently elude me. Instead, and in honour of International Women’s Month, I’ll be using March to take a deep dive into the women of science fiction, which will hopefully culminate in a grand survey of all the women in my library. People (both near and not) have been badgering me about this for a while now, so hopefully this month goes some way to addressing the imbalance in my shelves.

April is going to see the return of the Best of British. I am expecting some major shakeups in my author rankings given the reading I’ve done over the past year, so you’ll want to buckle in for that one. Hopefully I’ll also have time for another article on the history of SF for April, though only time will tell.

After that, my plans get a little hazier. Masterworks May has a certain ring to it, though does rely on me not simply reading all my Masterworks beforehand. I’m also tempted by the idea of some spring cleaning and rereading the last few books currently sitting read but unrated on my spreadsheets. A month dedicated to new releases or thicker books is also a possibility.

Of course, I might also dedicate a month to a single genre. Steampunk September has always been a wish of mine, though I don’t currently have the books to support it. Then there’s Space Opera or Military SF, which I definitely have the books for. Or maybe I’ll play it classy and spend a month reading all the award winners (and nominees) from my TBR.

Moving beyond themed months, I do have some slightly more nebulous goals for 2026. I’d like to read more Robert Heinlein, more Arthur C. Clarke, more Philip K. Dick, and more Clifford Simak. More science fiction from the 1970s. I’d also like to read more debuts from the past five or six years that I skipped when they came out in hardback. I’ve got some Star Trek to catch up on. I want to finish off some series. More than anything, I want to discover new authors instead of just sticking with the same old favourites.

My blogging goals are purposefully vague, because things like views and visitors are largely beyond my control. It would be nice to pass one hundred thousand views again. It would be nice to beat last year’s visitor total, but I’m not terribly fussed by that. I hope to score at least one author interview, but there’s no news on that front just yet. With the rebirth of the Boundary’s Edge Book Club, I’ve got people to nerd out with, and that was always the real goal.

If you’ve got thoughts on my goals, or suggestions for a new themed month, just let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.