January is dead. Long live February! That’s right, we’ve made it through to another month. Winter is almost over and Spring is on the way. The big news for me is that lambing season is looming like a runaway train (and the calves have already started arriving). This means I’m in for some early mornings and some late nights. So in the brief snatches of time when I’m not snatching sleep or shuffling around like an agricultural zombie, my reading will be limited. For that reason, I’ll be focused on keeping February’s reading short and sweet.

My TBR, therefore, starts of with some anthologies and short story collections. I’ve got Brandon Sanderson’s Tailored Realities, his first SF collection. I’ve read or listened to some of the stories in this one, but the rest are new to me. The other big collection is Stephen Baxter’s Coalescent. This is part of his Destiny’s Children/Xeelee universe, so I’ll also be reading Resplendent for the full experience. I considered reading Women of Wonder by Pamela Sergeant, but have decided to hold it back for Women’s month in March, since the title pretty much sums up next month’s TBR plans.

This month’s pick for the Boundary’s Edge is John Scalzi’s Lock In, which will be a reread of what I consider his best novel. I’ve got a few other Scalzies to reread before my spreadsheets are complete, so might add those to the monthly TBR if I have time.

After Vintage SF month brought me through to the end of the sixties, I’ll continue my way through the seventies and eighties, with names like Philip K. Dick, Bob Shaw, and Larry Niven. Skipping ahead to the late nineties, I’ll finally be reading Joe Haldeman’s Forever Free, which I have been holding off on for far too long.

I’m also going to throw in a few newer books. My first book of the month will complete my reread of Jamie Sawyer’s Lazarus War trilogy, and later on I’ll be catching up with Jack McDevitt courtesy of Echo. I’ve also got a review copy of Gareth L. Powell’s Jitterbug, which I really should read before its full release at the start of March.

In the unlikely event I have any free time left over after all of that, it’s high time I caught up with the latest few books from Marko Kloos, and I still have quite the pile of Jack McDevitt to beaver away at.

‘Short & Sweet’ isn’t a theme that immediately suggests any articles to go along with it. I’m toying with a favourite short stories list, but fear it may be too Asimov-focused until I’ve read more anthologies.

Dates for your Diary

14th – Warhammer 40,000: Apostle, by David Annandale – Annandale is one of the few authors who can get me interested in the Chaos aspects of the grim dark future, so I’m interested to see what he does with this new standalone. It’s also a good reminder that I have a lot of Black Library releases from last year to track down.

18th – Star Trek: Voyager: Across the Unknown – I have increasingly little time for computer gaming, but Voyager is always a name that will get me interested. Frankly it might also be nice to play something with a more limited scope than the open worlds I’ve been immersed in for the past year.