The year seems to be skipping by, I'm not sure how we are in the the fifth month already, so i am going to try and make sense of it all by looking back on April...
My biggest activity in April was Eastercon, the four day British Science Fiction convention over the Easter bank holidays. It is always wonderful to catch up with so many people, but also to meet new friends and acquaintances. It is also of course a great opportunity to meet wonderful authors, check what books are looking good and try to avoid spending all of your money buying said books , and lots of other tempting items, from the dealers tables. Anna Smith Spark gave me one of her brilliant t-shirts with some lovely fan art based on her novels and she seemed to be blown away when I wore it on the Sunday, just in time for her reading. It was wonderful to get a sneak peek at book three and she always reads so expressively. Reading alongside her, or perhaps more accurately, performing alongside her was Andrew Wallace who spoke the words from his new book, Celebrity Werewolf, but without the aid of a physical book, he stood and performed the work as a monologue. I was lucky enough to receive a review copy from NewCon Press, which was brilliant, although a little disconcerting that for sections of the book I can hear the author reading it in my head....
The following week I was having a different out of body experience by taking part in a live role-play event, including camping... in gale force winds. Still it meant I finished reading Celebrity Werewolf while the wind kept me awake at night.
Other books that I acquired; I bought a couple of John Scalzi's, well he was one of the Guests of Honour, which were somehow missing from my collection. I do intend to write a review of his recent Collapsing Empire series but haven't quite got round to it - spoiler, they are very good, you should read them... I also received a review copy of Ian Creasy's The Shape of Strangers, which looks really interesting.
I finally got my review of The True Queen up in April, Zen Cho was at Eastercon, it was really lovely to meet her, the book is brilliant, you can read my review here, I totally failed to get it signed. The book was quite difficult to photograph though as it is black, but slightly reflective with very shiny text.
Allen reviewed A Memory Called Empire, which launched in April. it's interesting as he seems to have a different take on it that some other reviewers, proving that no matter how objective we think we are being, that reviewing is a subjective art...
The Princess and the Fangirl also launched in April, it's a book that really made me smile, a review of which will be forthcoming... if you attend events as a "fan", science fiction, comic cons, star trek or other similar themed events then you really should read this series, they are a little too close to home at some points, but absolutely heartwarming in others.
I am really enjoying playing with photography, I have not taken a huge number of picture... or at least not a huge number that are not duplicates, had the lens cap on, out of focus or otherwise not useable versions... I am adding the best ones to our Instagram site and Facebook page, so do follow one of those if you are interested in seeing how it is going.
I have reviews of The Blue Salt Road by Joanna M Harris, The Raven Tower by AL and The Caged Queen by Kristen Ciccerell which went up on Concatination.org, which is always good. They are sending me something else for the next edition, I will probably post on Instagram when it arrives.
Of course Easter is also a time for spending time with Family and planning the coming terms activities in scouting, so I did a bit of that as well. Members of my family are somewhat involved in a sailing and activities centre in the Norfolk Broads and we have been getting ready for their annual "Go Wild" family event in May.
So, other things to look forward to in May include; Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin, the sequel to the award winning Children of Time is being launched, I have not read it yet, but we have a copy so I plan to get into it soon. I hope to get some reviews up on SFbook.com this month, but will see how that goes. I am taking one of my nieces to see Mamma Mia in London and Games Expo is at the end of May... and of course the usual scouting, preparing for Lavecon etc...
If you are interested in getting any of the books have mentioned, here are the Amazon Affiliate links:
What books did you read in April?
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