I’ve been a little tardy in posting this before now but since I mainly do it for my own records of books I’ve read in any given year, I shall be forgiving.

So these are the physical books that I read in 2022. As in previous years, I thought my reading rate had slowed but in actual fact, seeing everything in one place for the first time, it’s about the same as the last two years. (I haven’t counted because I’m not that bothered about keeping score; I’m just judging from the height of the stack in the photos). At a guess, I probably read the same number again in ebook formats – if you include Asimov’s, Analog and Fantasy & Science Fiction every two months, plus a bunch of others on a less regular schedule, in addition to ‘normal’ ebooks. And roughly 12 audio books a year, since I have a monthly Audible subscription. It’s w-a-y fewer than many folk, but that’s fine. I have a limited amount of time for reading while trying to fit everything else in, though I’m always looking for ways to find more.

My favourites amongst this stack? I absolutely loved Emily St John Mandel’s “The Glass Hotel” which I then followed up with the audiobook of “Sea of Tranquility” which was also just perfect. Although it wasn’t essential to the story, I loved the echoes of the earlier book which appeared throughout. Plotting, characters, setting – everything just fell into place. If you enjoyed her “Station Eleven” I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with these two.

I also lapped up Lucy Worsley’s biography of Agatha Christie. I was given this as a Christmas present so had the luxury (for me) of reading it relatively quickly over the holiday period. I’m itching to go back and re-read some Agatha Christie again now.

The biography of Terry Pratchett was equally engrossing although inevitably left me feeling sad at the great loss of Terry’s passing. Rob Wilkins has done a superb job on this and it feels a fitting memorial to Terry’s work and life.

Finally, I found time to return to a familiar comfort read – the Hyperion saga. Of all the fiction I reread (which is generally very little because there are so many new books demanding my attention) the Hyperion saga is the one I must have read the most. For me, it embodies everything I want out of a science fiction novel and the books still feel fresh every time I read them.

Any of you who are short story writers will be familiar with the agony (and occasional ecstasy) of the submission process. The gap between sending a finished story out into the big wide world and hearing back from an editor can be as short as a day or two (though that’s rare) up to many months or years even (also, thankfully, rare). The longest time I had a piece out on submission before an acceptance was a little over a year.

That’s just a fact of life for short story submissions. Many of the publishing venues are run by enthusiasts who devote a considerable amount of their spare time to publishing their ’zine and it would be churlish of authors to expect fast turn-around times (but all credit to those that do manage it). Even the professional magazines work to busy schedules and have limited budgets and overworked staff which means it can take months to work through the submission slush pile.

Of course, if the submission outcome is an acceptance then the wait, no matter how many weeks, months or years, disappears in the unbridled joy of the moment. An acceptance! Yay! Though sadly, more often than not, the only result of all that waiting is a polite rejection.

So you’ll understand my amazement and disbelief at what happened last week. I began a writing session by sending off a previously completed story to a prime market. That job done, I settled down with my current work-in-progress. About 45 minutes later an email landed in my inbox from the publication I’d just submitted to. Of course, receiving a submission acknowledgement is pretty standard but when I opened it up… My story had been accepted for publication!

This was a pro market, too! (Probably best I don’t say which one at this time as the editor won’t thank me for setting expectations that may be difficult to meet on a regular basis!) The editor wrote me a very nice message saying that he happened to see the story land in the submission queue, read it and felt it clicked immediately and so sent the acceptance.

I’ve been doing this long enough to know just how rare an occurrence this is. From submission to return of a signed contract in less than an hour! This never happens! (And the fact that it’s a pro market that I respect highly is just icing on the cake. Something like this has never happened before and I doubt it will happen again – just a very fortunate set of circumstances. But all the same, I’m very happy that it did.

I’m pleased to report that a story of mine called “Down on the Klondike” has been selected by the wonderful Juliana Rew for the forthcoming Third Flatiron anthology titled “After the Gold Rush.”

I love the Third Flatiron anthologies. They are published a couple of times a year and each anthology has an overall theme which is broad enough to spark a wide range of ideas and styles in the selected material. There’s always a great spread of stories covering different styles and voices which often push the boundaries of science fiction, fantasy and even light horror. Each story is unique in its approach but they are always compelling reads. Readers will be assured of a great mix – very much something for everyone’s tastes – including much needed doses of humour.

I’m lucky enough to be making my fourth appearance in a Third Flatiron anthology, alongside a host of very talented writers. You can check out my previous stories “Sweet Release”, “All Fuzzed Out and Fractal” and “Ephemeralities” – the details are on the Short Fiction page of my website.

I think the anthology will hit the stores round about mid July but I’ll update and post links once I have the details.

This week’s story up at Metaphorosis is my “In the House of Geometers.” If you’d like to read it, it’s available to read for free here or you can support this excellent magazine by purchasing the issue or a subscription here.

I owe a debt of gratitude to editor B Morris Allen who worked with me on several editorial iterations of the story. I’ve always been amazed by how much time and effort he invests with each and every author. His editorial eye for detail and sense of what makes a good story is second to none, and I think it shows in the quality of the magazine.

To put icing on the cake, there are audio narrations (podcasts) of each story which are published on the magazine’s website alongside the text. You can listen to the narrated version of “In the House of Geometers” here.

Matt Gomez is the podcast host and narrator and he’s done a terrific job, absolutely bringing the story to life. He nails the voicing of the different characters and the podcast’s production values are second to none. I couldn’t be happier! 

It’s a slightly strange (but delightful!) feeling, hearing someone voice a story that one has lived and breathed so intimately during its creation. 

So the results are in and these are all the physical books I read during 2021.

Anyway, I’m really not that fussed about the number of books. I don’t feel I’m in a competition to see who can read the most. Which is just as well as I’m never going to win something like that. But I’m interested to look back and see the mix of books in the stack. Strangely, it doesn’t feel representative of what I actually consumed during the year but that’s mostly because a large part of my fiction reading is consumed electronically. It has to be that way because the SF magazines I read are mostly online reads (e.g. Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, Cossmass Infinities, Metaphorosis, Clarkesworld, Galaxy’s Edge – and plenty more besides). As you can see, I dallied with hard copies of Asimov’s and Analog for a few issues during the year because I miss the feel of those magazines in my hands, but it takes months for the issues to reach the UK and they’re five times the price of the e-versions.

For 2022, I’ll probably try to track what I read in e-format, and also what Audible books I listen to. (Stand out Audible book for last year was Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary” – loved, loved, loved that book and the narration.) I think it might be interesting to look back at the end of 2022 and see the full spread of things I’ve read. I’m also hoping that I’ll get the opportunity to read a bit more than I have the last couple of years, but things still look as busy as ever.

For comparison, this was the books-read stack for 2020:

It’s great news that the the deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope continues to go without a hitch. Such a remarkable feat of science and engineering.

Slightly closer to home, there has been another telescope deployment, used in anger for the first time two nights ago (which was the first time since Christmas that we’ve had clear skies in these parts). The DBGS (Dave’s Back Garden ‘Scope) is a magnificent 114mm Newtonian Reflector from Sky-Watcher. It cost roughly one hundred million times less than JWST but admittedly it won’t deliver results quite so impressive. That said, the crescent Moon, Jupiter and the Jovian satellites were a magnificent sight through it, as was the Andromeda Galaxy – although I need to get a bit better at knowing exactly where to point it to find the dimmer objects.

I have a long list of objects to visit next time we have clear skies, although the local light pollution is going to limit what’s possible I think.

It seems a little bizarre – even to me – that one of the things I am most looking forward to this Christmas is a successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. It’s been a long time coming. Early mission plans scheduled the launch for 2007 and its cost has ballooned by a factor of ten from original estimates. But now, in literally just a few hours from now, everything reaches a culmination of that huge investment in time and money.

I’ve followed the progress of JWST off and on for a long time. There’s no doubt that its successful launch and deployment will usher in a new era of astronomical and cosmological discovery. But it’s the sheer engineering challenge that I find equally fascinating. The much-reported 334 individual single-points-of-failure in the launch, deployment and commissioning phases underline just how daring a mission this is. (This is about three times greater than the single-points-of-failure for the recent US Mars lander programme.) The space agencies involved could have chosen to build several much lower risk missions, probably for a lower combined budget. And though they would have been worthy instruments in their own right, they wouldn’t have the breadth, power or reach that JWST will have if all goes well.

There’s undoubtedly a lot at stake today and over the next few months as JWST is gently coaxed into life. Things may not go to plan (though I fervently hope they do) but the sheer audacity of the vision and ambition of the JWST is a shining example of what humanity can achieve. Here’s hoping we give ourselves a wonderful Christmas present that in the coming years will reveal incredible new insights into the universe.