An up and down month – I read less, and definitely noticed issues with my concentration, but I also had the spoons to take on a new chore around the house (a big deal!) AND I was writing fiction! Which I haven’t done in…months, at best. Yay for that!

ARCs Received

For the first time in I don’t know HOW long, I had no outstanding arc requests!!! It didn’t last very long, but for maybe an hour, I HAD NO OUTSTANDING REQUESTS!!! Can’t remember the last time that happened! Should probably, you know. Try and attain that status more often! As in, stop requesting so many arcs, Sia!!!

I’m especially excited for Lotus Empire and Teeth of Dawn, both of them finales to incredible trilogies! And I have high hopes for Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales (the last Emily Wilde book!), Home Grown Magic, and Fourth Consort!

Read

18 books read this month – quite a lot less than July’s 30! I was definitely struggling to read for the second half of the month, so here’s hoping that I’ll get more read in September.

I got to read some incredible books this month, though: Deep Black blew me away, as did Uses of Illicit Art, Metal From Heaven (my second time reading it!), and Yield Under Great Persuasion. A Sorceress Comes To Call surprised me by being incredibly moreish (a surprise because I really haven’t enjoyed Kingfisher’s last few trad-pubbed books) and I ended up massively enjoying Out of the Drowning Deep (though that one wasn’t a surprise!)

I can’t not mention The Merciful Crow, which was another reread and remains an all-time fave of mine. Same goes for Bright Steel!

I also read two VERY old (for me!) books in August: The Little Grey Men (published in 1942!) which I thought was a book I was in love with in primary school, but turned out to be the prequel to that book; and Hospital Station (1962) which promised me a space hospital that treats aliens! The former was quite lovely, bar a single back-handed misogynistic moment nobody needed; I had a lot of fun with the latter, too, but I’ve been told the lack of women characters becomes full-on misogyny going forward, so I’m probably not going to read more of the series. Sigh! If anyone knows any modern alien hospital stories, do drop me a rec!

…To the best of my knowledge, none of this month’s books had BIPOC authors. I honestly can’t remember ever hitting zero before… Fucking hells.

Reviewed

I wish I’d managed to review some not-arcs, but I can’t be displeased with NINE reviews! Especially since I was super pleased with what I wrote for Sunforge, Phoenix Keeper, and Asunder.

DNF-ed

I gave up on some long-term reads this month (I started Principle in January, for example) and had little patience for anything that I didn’t want to keep reading. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but eight DNFs sure feels like a lot.

ARCs Outstanding

32 arcs outstanding! I’m a bit anxious, because quite a lot of these are due in the next two months… I must read (and review!) faster!

Unmissable SFF Updates

My Unmissable SFF of 2024 list is always getting updated, what with cover reveals and new books being announced – or discovering books long-since announced, but which I didn’t hear about until just lately! With two new additions, the end of August brings us to a total of 105 Unmissable books!

I’ve also started, when the brain-fog won’t let me do anything productive, working on my Unmissable list for next year! So far 2025 has 40 books I’m deeming must-reads, with lots more marked down as ‘maybes’. I’m sure both categories will only grow…

How did my predictions/anticipated reads for August go? I declared nine books Unmissable for this month, and–

• there were four five star reads (Deep Black, The Sunforge, The Phoenix Keeper, and Asunder)
• one was a four star read (Palace of Eros) although it was complicated to rate
• two were one and a half stars reads (The Dollmakers and Between Dragons and Their Wrath)
• two were DNFs (Mistress of Lies and Time’s Agent) though the latter wasn’t bad, just too depressing for me

5/10! Not bad at all!

Misc

Thing One: I finished my Goodreads challenge this month! Woo! I deliberately set it low because I ended up stressing out about it last year, and had no interest in going though that again. (It was set to 124, if anyone cares, and I’m currently sitting pretty at 140!)

Thing Two: Apparently at least one visitor to the blog this month came to me from some generative ai chatbot, which is mildly disturbing. While I’m a big fan of sentient, sapient AIs in sci fi, I am 500% against the not-intelligent-even-a-little-bit generative ai algorithm fuckwaste thing the jerk-offs are so into, and I will cheer when it dies.

I will also judge you, very hard, for using it. Even using the chatbot things is destroying the environment, so just fucking don’t!

Looking Forward

MANY amazing books to look forward to in September! We have the sequel to Space Opera, of course, and Naomi Novik’s collection of short stories (which promises us a glimpse at the world of her next series!) Alicia Jasinska is back with a new, polyamorous(!) fantasy, and I got to read an early copy of Yield Under Great Persuasion, but I can’t wait to read the finished version! From new-to-me authors we have IMMORTAL DARK, which I am FERAL for; Church of the Mountain of Flesh, which should be wonderfully horrifying; and We Kept Her in the Cellar, a retelling wherein Cinderella is some kind of eldritch monster. And Naming Song, which I’m reading at the moment, is one I can’t wait for other people to get to read!

May we all have a stupendous September!