Aspects of Me

Tag: wrapup

  • March 2025

    Another month, another wrap-up! Still being written essentially one-handed as my left arm is still in a cast so, again, apologies for any typos you might find! In good (?) news, I had my wrist surgery and although it apparently presented the surgery team with some difficulties, everything is holding in the right position. If all goes well, I should be out of the cast by mid-April and then it’ll be time to start building up that book holding strength again.

    This month I joined in with the Keymark March Mavericks 5-book readathon and was on Andy Peloquin‘s team: Tome Slayers. This was good fun and provided a perfect distraction to my wrist situation. Everyone involved was lovely and encouraging – I probably wouldn’t have read as many books as I did without the readathon.

    Graphic showing 5 book covers over a background with a fire breathing dragon. Title at the top reads March Mavericks 5-book readathon. The five book covers are of: From Cold Ashes Risen The Ice Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon Star Forge Long Live the Emperor
    My five reads for March Mavericks 2025

    Reading

    This month’s reads were:

    As you will have seen above, all except Future’s Edge contributed to my March Mavericks reads. Technically, I started Future’s Edge in February so it couldn’t count. Here are the prompts I fulfilled with my reads (in order):

    • Maverick – an independently published book
    • Disruptor – a weapon on the cover (includes dragons & spaceships)
    • Chaos – includes magic as part of the story
    • Shadow – includes and animal companion
    • Renegades – includes a motley crew

    Writing

    As you might imagine, March hasn’t been the most productive of months for writing thought I’ve had plenty of ideas to explore once my arm heals up. In the meantime, I had one review go up on GdM in March.

    Upcoming

    While, strictly speaking, a couple of things have already gone out via GdM’s site and in issue #42 of the magazine proper, they also fall in April as they released 01/04/2025. Nevertheless, turn your eyeballs their way to find more reviews from me and an essay entitled ‘Ellen Ripley, Action Hero’, which I am super chuffed about.

    To come will be further reviews of The Bound and the Broken series by Ryan Cahill, and I’ll be diving into book four, Of Empires and Dust, shortly. I’ve got quite a few exciting books to catch up on so watch this space.

    That’s it for now! I hope you’ve found some enjoyment from my little update. I’m over on Bluesky (@magpiepages.bsky.social) and have dusted off my Ko-fi page as well.

    Take care, and see you next month!

  • February 2025

    When I decided to put out a newsletter at the end of each month, I completely forgot I was away on holiday at the end of February. What I wasn’t expecting to compound the delay was an altercation with some Belgian pavement to result in multiple fractures in my wrist and a slow wait for surgery to screw it back together again (still waiting at time of writing). So, as I’m typing one-handed, please bear with me and my apologies for any typos or mistakes!

    Besides breaking my wrist, Gent (in Belgium) was an absolutely lovely city and I would really like to go back to see more of it. We arrived just in time to see the start of the Women’s Elite for Omloop (a single-day cycling race), which was a great bonus and quite the spectacle. We spent a few hours wandering around S.M.A.K. – the city’s modern art gallery – that I thoroughly enjoyed. Food was brill, cycling infrastructure is off the charts, lots of greenery, history and culture. Thoroughly recommend it, and if you’re in the UK the Eurostar is a good option. It took us about the same time to get from Birmingham to Brussels as it takes to get from Brum to Edinburgh… and Belgium was cheaper to get to.

    On to the bookishness!

    Reading

    February’s reading was a little slower than January, but here’s what it included.

    Writing

    I had five reviews go up on GdM this month:

    I also published an article over on Medium about Dis-, Mis- and Malicious Information. 

    Upcoming

    Apologies for skipping Recommendations this month but the one-handedness isn’t leaving me a lot of headspace for it.

    Instead, I hope to still be able to write reviews and I’m currently reading Future’s Edge by Gareth L Powell. There’s a few others up my sleeve for GdM, so keep an eye out.

    I’m also happy to say an essay pitch to Speculative Insight was accepted, which will be publishing 2026, so I will be working on that too.

    That’s it for now! I hope you’ve found some enjoyment from my little update. I’m over on Bluesky (@magpiepages.bsky.social) and have dusted off my Ko-fi page as well.

    Take care, and see you next month!