February 2025
What do I plan to read which is unique to February?
I have been drafting and re-drafting this post for a while; I kept tripping over my own words and I was not sure what I wanted to accomplish. Until a nice lightbulb moment occurred to me. This is the place where I want to share what I plan to read and a place where I hold myself accountable to finishing the stories that I actually start.
One stark realization for the month was that I am not reading enough from women who wrote epic fantasy. Two years ago I was very careful about researching women who write epic fantasy and making sure I found space for their stories in my TBR; in fact, I was trying to reach the goal of 50/50 gender diversity (yes, my future plan is, once I have women in fantasy regularly appearing in my reading, I will be including non-binary authors and split the wheel in three!) and I never quite accomplished that.
So let’s reframe the year. I will go by authors and track exactly how many belong to one and how many to the other category. And I will then have a solid baseline.
Gender diversity
For January we have an okay balance, not ideal yet. We have 6 male authors and 4 female authors. I have done worst and my February listing looks worst; this is because I am balancing two different needs, one to complete series, the other to keep gender balanced. So, let’s dive into my reading plan for February.
Books
Smaller series for the month
Grave Empire by Richard Swan - and the title just speaks to me. I will wait to have received my special edition from The Broken Binding before starting reading it. Yet, what I know about it is that we have merfolks running (swimming?) around the pages and we get back in the world of the Sovan empire.
I want to start (and maybe finish) The Tawny Man by Robin Hobb. The overall goal for the year is to complete The Realm of the Elderlings; so the more granular approach is to finish one self-contained series per quarter (which should allow me to get to the end by the end of September and, if not, I have one more quarter to get this done!).
Now, to add pressure for myself, I will also want to start re-reading the Library Trilogy by Mark Lawrence, in order to be ready, at the end of April to jump into the third book in the series! Originally, this series spoke to me: first it was written by Mark Lawrence (one of the authors that does sci-fi/fantasy the best these days) and it’s about a library. What is there not to love in the first place! And when I read The book that wouldn’t burn (book one in the series), I was blown away by it. So I am looking forward to getting back in this world and be reading for the epic ending!
On going series - the goal is to make progress and hold myself accountable!
This is the accountability list - the one that will make me want to work harder (and ideally guilt me in finishing stories as soon as possible!).
His dark materials by Philip Pullman: I will finish the series this month; I have two books left, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. I am excited to work my way through this series. I have enjoyed, really enjoyed, The Golden Compass.
Shadowmarch by Tad Williams: this is such an epic story and I love where the plot line takes us. Shadowplay was interesting with the introduction of demigods. I cannot wait to see how this series ends! Once I get going, I cannot put the book down!
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch is an urban fantasy story set in London. While I read most of the main books a couple of years ago, I found myself hyping this book to people on threads. And I hyped it for myself. It was an impulsive choice to start and I am loving everything about this re-read, from Peter Grant to Nightingale, to Molly and the Folly and Toby! Let’s not forget the metric Peter arbitrarily choses to use to track the vestigia residue, yaps! This impulse choice lead me to add another 10-book series to the goals of the year.
Temeraire by Naomi Novik - slow but continuous progress. There is something beautiful about the relationship between Temeraire and Laurence. And I love the direction that Temeraire’s brains and curiosity. He wants to make the change the conditions of dragons - it feels as a commentary to slavery and adjacent version of it, such as indentured servitude. I have a soft goal - when I say soft goal, I just try to be gentle with my brain but I really have a hard goal in mind - aim at finishing the series by the end of March!
Deverry Cycle by Katharine Kerr is another impulsive choice; I started the series a long time ago and I want to return to this world. The reason why this series is on the list is the fact I wanted to make sure I show cased women writing epic fantasy and I felt like resuming this journey and I decided to return to Deverry. And I am already quite impressed with the world building in the first couple of chapters. Truly impressed.
The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson: I made an executive decision in the middle of the month to extend my exposure to this world but also try to minimize the risk of burnout. I have decided that I will go for one chapter a day, irrespective of the book I am on. In other words, when I finished Gardens of the Moon, the following day I started with Deadhouse Gates. And I will continue working through this approach as long as I can. I want to make sure that I do not miss out on this journey. Next to avoiding burn out, or at least an attempt to avoid it, this will also allow me to get into the other series in the world, whether written by the same Erikson or Esslemont.
Discworld by Terry Pratchett, the most comfort read (even when they are new reads!) for me, ever! I have started reading the books in this series and I loved the characters, the world, the mild absurdity of the world and its world building (imaginary dragons?!). So I am looking forward to slowly make my way through this world - this is also a series that I am already looking forward to split in many years. If I keep at about 1 book per month, I will need almost 4 years to get to the end of it. And I want to enjoy it, one step at a time. I might not take this long, but I do not want to run through it either, so I expect to read maximum two books per month!
Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs - and potentially starting to dip my toes in Alpha and Omega! This is an urban story, with werewolves as an essential part of the story; and yet, the story revolves around a woman who does something different: she is a shapeshifter, and she needs to find her place among the werewolf pack she decided to join. And we don’t stop there: we have fae, vampires, bigots, magical objects and so much more. Truly fascinating for me; and I love this series so much more because of the protagonist, Mercedes Thompson and, so far, she is my favorite heroine in urban fantasy!
Non-book related fantasy (or anything else I am excited about) updates
On the MCU front, January gave us the Daredevil Born Again trailer and it felt like going home. And this means that February will be the month focusing on reviewing the first three seasons of Daredevil, Defenders and Punisher. I don’t think I will have time to watch anything else; and yet, I might also watch Jessica Jones (my personal favorite among favorite series!).
February is also the month in which we get Captain America Brave New world - which also required and still requires review of a few movies and the show The Falcon and the Winter Solider. Pretty exciting to be back to full MCU mode; and sure, not every single movie was at the same standard as one might expect but I am just excited to see these heroes, antiheroes, villains and anything on the spectrum portrayed on the big and small screen.
Fantasy explorations
We have an ambitious plan, once again and I want to make sure that I focus on a couple of topics that work nicely for me!
Since the 14th of February is, shocking to nobody but me on the 13th every single year, is Valentine’s day. And for the first time in my life, I realized that I could do something that makes sense: preparing an episode of Fantasy Explorations dedicated to great couples (in my opinion) in fantasy! And I am already kicking myself a bit for focusing on a more traditional male/female couple. I promise that I will keep my eye out for gay couples and I will have an episode dedicated to them!
As for the book that I want to review, I have been wanting to do this ever since I decided to return to Discworld: I wanted to chat about the wonderful story and world of The color of magic!
Solseit posts
I am trying to get all the work in this year, one month at a time. The original plan was to stick to two posts per month: one dedicated to reading (whether it’s about how to be intentional, sharing my fantasy why, and other fun posts like this) and one dedicated to my reading plans of the month (selfishly to hold myself accountable but also using this opportunity to share books and authors!). And this is still true; this month I will venture in fantasy adjacent content, focusing on why I love the Marvel Cinematic Universe!
I also have my posts in relation to Fantasy Explorations.
Yet, I will add one more post per month - and probably starting in February: I want an episode dedicated to women who wrote and are writing epic fantasy. I will probably go for a first post dedicated to a master list - there are MANY of these authors to consider. We will then slowly go through the list and discover and explore authors and see if they write fantasy that works for you!
What are your plans for the month?
