Category Archives: Article

Gav Thorpe – Coming Up For Air

Hello and welcome to this guest post here on Track of Words where I’m delighted to be joined by veteran Black Library (and Angry Robot) author Gav Thorpe, who’s written a fascinating article looking back at how things have changed over the course of his career, and how he’s approaching writing Warhammer fiction now in order to avoid burning out. For anyone with even a faint interest in Black Library and Warhammer, Gav really needs no introduction, having written so much and been involved from the very beginning! I can’t think of anyone better placed to write about the changing realities of life for a Black Library author over the years, and I think this article is going to be of interest to a lot of BL (and SFF in general) fans, and to other writers too.

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Best SFF Books of 2022

Every year I put together an article talking about the best science fiction and fantasy novels I’ve read over the last twelve months (here’s 2021’s article), and this year is no different – welcome to my Best SFF Books of 2022 article! Over the years I’ve tweaked how I approach this task, and this year I’ve decided to keep it nice and simple. No honourable mentions, no exhaustive top 20, just the 10 books that I’ve enjoyed reading the most in 2022. As usual, I’ve restricted myself in this to books published in 2022, so you won’t find any old classics here (or even books published only a year or two ago) – just great books that were released this year. The only criteria I went by were that they had to be SFF books (or SFF/horror crossover) – whether aimed at adults or a YA audience – and they had to be books that I enjoyed so much I would wholeheartedly recommend them.

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Shauna Lawless – The Rise of Historical Fantasy

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post where I’m delighted to hand the reins over to the fantastic Shauna Lawless – author of The Children of Gods and Fighting Men (Head of Zeus/Ad Astra, 2022) – to talk about historical fantasy, and some of the best recent examples of the genre. Featuring some fascinating insights into what historical fantasy actually is and why it appeals to us as readers, observations on what drew her to the genre as both a reader and a writer, and loads of recommendations for great historical fantasy novels – both recent releases and classics – this is a brilliant primer for a justifiably popular genre.

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Ren Hutchings – Why We Love Ragtag Crews

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where I’m joined by the fantastic author Ren Hutchings to talk about ragtag crews in fiction, and why they’re so popular. Ren’s brilliant novel Under Fortunate Stars is one of my absolute highlights of 2022 (you can read my review of it here), a gripping space opera full of great characters and exploring some really smart ideas, so I was delighted when she agreed to write this guest post. If you too like a good character-driven science fiction (or any fiction, really) novel then read on to explore some of the reasons why these sorts of character groupings are so much fun, check out the list of recommendations at the end for more books to look out for, and make sure you pick up a copy of Under Fortunate Stars!

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John French – New Stories, Old Truths

Hello and welcome to New Stories, Old Truths on Track of Words, where I’m handing the reins over to author John French to tell us a bit about some of the ways he’s using his website to build a new fictional world, and give readers something a little different to look forward to. I’m a huge fan of John’s Black Library fiction, with his Ahriman series being a particular favourite, so when I spotted some new original fiction showing up on John’s website, along with some really insightful articles, I had to find out what was happening! Whether you’re a Black Library fan or just interested in SFF and the craft of writing, I really recommend you check out John’s website to see what he’s up to.

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Amanda Bridgeman – 10 Lessons From 10 Years in Publishing

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, where I’m joined by the excellent Amanda Bridgeman – author of books such as The Subjugate, The Sensation, and Pandemic: Patient Zero – to talk about some of the realities of life as a professional writer. As an avid reader and someone who’s fascinated by the publishing industry, I love hearing authors talk about what their careers are really like and what the challenges are, so I was delighted when Amanda kindly offered to share some of her own insights gathered over many years of experience as an author. Whether you’re a writer yourself or just a keen observer of the industry like me, there’s loads of interesting things to think about in this article!

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Best of Black Library 2022

Every year, as we approach the end of December I look back at the best Black Library books I’ve read over the preceding twelve months, and it’s time now to take a look at 2022’s BL highlights. There are plenty to choose from, but I’ve narrowed it down to just five that I can personally recommend as being genuinely fantastic reads. It was hard to cut things down to five though, so I’ve also added a few honourable mentions that I couldn’t help but include. As always this comes with a few caveats, the first of which being that I can only talk about the books I’ve actually read. Black Library publishes somewhere in the region of 40 novels each year, of which I’ve read 14; that’s slightly more than last year, but still nothing like all of them. I’m sure I’ve missed out loads of great titles simply because I haven’t got around to reading them.

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Kate Dylan – My Top 5 YA Sci-fi Books

Hello and welcome to this Track of Words guest post, kindly contributed by Kate Dylan – author of the fantastic Mindwalker (and, recently announced, the upcoming Mindbreaker – due in September 2023). I read Mindwalker earlier in 2022 and it’s one of my favourite books of the year, a brilliant example of how YA science fiction can be both tremendous fun and incredibly powerful, so when Kate offered to talk a bit about some of the other YA sci-fi novels that have been released recently I thought it was the perfect topic for a guest post! If you haven’t already picked up Mindwalker I would strongly suggest you grab a copy, and Kate’s recommendations below should give you plenty more to look forward to reading too.

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Cath Lauria – Marvels and Monsters

Welcome to Marvels and Monsters on Track of Words, a brilliant guest post written by the fantastic Cath Lauria. With not one but two novels from Aconyte Books coming out in early 2023, each in a different IP, I asked Cath if she would be interested in talking about what it’s like writing stories in multiple universes, and what the similarities and differences are. The resulting article offers a really interesting insight into the life of an SFF author and the experience of writing IP fiction, and a few hints about what to expect from Terror World and Silver Sable: Payback when they arrive in 2023. Cath’s writing is always full of energy and enthusiasm, and that comes through here in a real sense of hope and excitement for next year, which I love!

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Track of Words Advent Calendar 2022

Hello and welcome to the 2022 Track of Words Advent Calendar – 25 days of reviews, interviews, articles, guest posts and more celebrating the worlds of science fiction and fantasy. Each day between the 1st and 25th of December I’ll post something new, some posts written by me and others contributed by a host of fantastic SFF authors, so make sure you check back every day to see what’s new! You can look forward to interviews with both established and upcoming authors, roundups of some of the best SFF books (of various types) of 2022, brilliant original fiction, and loads of fascinating articles – some looking back at 2022 and/or ahead to 2023, and others tackling all sorts of interesting subjects from an author’s perspective. And that’s only scratching the surface!

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