Category Archives: Article

The End Is Nigh – Shauna Lawless Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, in which I’m thrilled to welcome back the fantastic Shauna Lawless, author of The Children of Gods and Fighting Men (2022) and The Words of Kings and Prophets (2023), two phenomenal historical fantasy novels that are out now from Head of Zeus (and are amongst my personal highlights of the year). In December 2022 Shauna wrote a brilliant post about historical fantasy as a genre, and now she’s back to talk about something slightly different – the tricky subject of endings in fiction, which seems appropriate given that the third book in her Gael Song trilogy is due out in 2024. But is that the end of the series? Read on, and find out…

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12 Debuts To Look Forward To In 2024 – Genoveva Dimova Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post from Genoveva Dimova – author of the upcoming Slavic folklore-inspired Foul Days, out in June from Tor Books. I’ve been looking forward to reading Foul Days for a while now, so I was delighted when Genoveva agreed to contribute this guest post, in which she’s looking ahead to 2024 and picking out a dozen upcoming fantasy debuts for us all to look forward to! I had a few of these on my radar already (and I’ve actually read one, and can confirm that it’s brilliant), but lots more are new to me, and sound fantastic – so if, like me, you’re always on the lookout for new books to add to your TBR, this is exactly the right place to be! And it’s just the icing on the cake that they’re all debuts, too.

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Best SFF Books of 2023

It’s December 2023, which means it’s time for me to take a look back at all the SFF books I’ve read this year and pick out a few of my favourites. I’m sticking with the same format as I went with for last year’s Best SFF post, so I’ve chosen ten fantastic SFF books that I’ve loved this year and listed them in the order I read them (so don’t think of this as a ‘top 10’). As always with these articles I’ve selected only books that were published this year, so some of my absolute favourites didn’t make the list – but even so, it was tough narrowing things down to just 10 books! What’s interesting this year is that quite a lot of these books are relatively low-key and not-very-fantastical – which I love, as it just goes to show the breadth of SFF as a whole!

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Behind The Scene: Exclusive Excerpt From Sons of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty

Hello and welcome to this Behind the Scene post, in which I’m delighted to present an exclusive excerpt from Sons of Darkness by Gourav Mohanty – out now in the UK, and due out in the US on the 9th January 2024, both from Head of Zeus. If you like the idea of dark (dare I say grimdark) fantasy inspired by the Mahabharata, then this is probably going to be the book for you, and to give you a sense of just what to expect Gourav has very kindly contributed some additional comments to go alongside this excerpt!

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Exploring New Worlds – Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this guest post here on Track of Words, where today I’m thrilled to welcome Esmie Jikiemi-Person, winner of the inaugural Future Worlds Prize and author of the upcoming The Principle of Moments (out on the 18th January from Gollancz)! Esmie has very kindly put together a fantastic post about the value of looking for new authors to read and new worlds to explore, featuring a trio of up and coming SFF writers whose novels she recommends checking out. So if you’re on the lookout for new reads (and let’s face it, who isn’t?) then this is for you – and if you’re keen to know more about The Principle of Moments too, keep reading!

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Writing For Traveller – David Guymer Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words, where today I’m pleased to welcome back the always-excellent David Guymer with a fantastic guest post talking about something of a new venture for him! Chances are you’re familiar with David’s writing from his many Black Library stories, or his great work with Aconyte Books, but now he’s venturing into new SF territory with a series of short stories set in the world of Mongoose Publishing’s Traveller. Whether you’re a long-time Traveller fan or this is the first you’ve heard of it, David’s got you covered with this guest post – so read on to find out how this new venture came to be, and what you can expect from this new short story series, Sindal Sunrise.

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Eight Books I Rate – Eliza Chan Guest Post

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post where today I’m joined by the brilliant Eliza Chan, author of the upcoming Fathomfolk (coming early 2024 from Orbit), who’s here to share her excitement about a whole host of great fantasy books! I’m delighted to have Eliza on the site – I’ve been a fan ever since reading her short story Knowing Your Type (creepy teddy bears…really creepy teddy bears) in 2019, and I’m really looking forward to her debut novel. If you’re on the lookout for some new additions to your TBR, whether recent releases or upcoming titles, you’ve come to the right place. I know I’m going to be picking some of these up based on Eliza’s recommendations!

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Behind The Scene: Exclusive Excerpt from Play of Shadows by Sebastien de Castell

Hello and welcome to this Behind the Scene post, where today I’m delighted to present an exclusive excerpt from Play of Shadows by Sebastien de Castell – the first novel in a new series set in the world of the Greatcoats! I’ve included the publisher’s synopsis at the end of the post, but before then there’s loads to enjoy – first a quick note from Sebastien setting the scene for the start of the novel, and then the excerpt from the (brilliant) first chapter of the book. Play of Shadows is due out from Jo Fletcher Books on the 28th March 2024, so read on to get a taste of what to expect, then get your pre-orders in!

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Track of Words Advent Calendar 2023

Hello and welcome to the Track of Words Advent Calendar 2023! Over the course of the next 25 days I’ll be posting author interviews, articles, guest posts and more celebrating the worlds of science fiction and fantasy, some posts written by me and others contributed by a host of fantastic authors. Make sure you keep checking back each day to see what’s what – there’s loads of great content coming up, some looking back over the last 12 months and some looking ahead to next year and onwards.

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Monthly Roundup – November 2023

Hello, and welcome to my November Monthly Roundup post – I can’t quite believe it’s almost December, and therefore almost the end of 2023, but here we are! It’s been a strange month, as I’ve tried to put together some interesting posts for November while spending a lot of time behind the scenes working on the Track of Words Advent Calendar for December. Hopefully this month’s posts have been fun, and I really hope you enjoy what I’ve got planned for next month! In the meantime, for this article I’ve compiled my usual roundup of recent posts along with a bit of an update on the month’s reading. I haven’t spent a lot of time in November looking at what’s going on in the world of SFF publishing so I’ve skipped my usual news section, which means this is a slightly shorter post than usual.

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