We’re not pausing for breath before we find out what lies beyond the Ghost Gate. Our read-along barrels straight into Ancillary Mercy this week as Breq returns to Athoek Station. Justice is complicated, propriety is teaching your guests to distinguish fish you eat and fish you look at, and everyone is looking for some benefits…
The final week of our read-along so it’s showdowns and consequences time at Athoek, where we find out where everyone’s loyalties really lie. To a point – this is a second book, so there’s plenty of mysteries for us to dive into next week when we start Ancillary Mercy.
I’ve enjoyed the snowy start to the year, in spite because of wading through knee deep snow and skidding over ice on our adventures. A read-along has kept me flexing my out of shape blogging muscles (a little at least), and I’ve set what’s sure to be my maddest goal for the year…
Week three of our Ancillary Sword read-along takes us from Athoek Station to the planet below, as Breq embarks on a formal period of mourning in an attempt to stave off alien reprisal. As you would expect during a quiet retreat, there’s so much going on this week there won’t be room to talk about it all!
Week two of our Ancillary Sword read-along finds us on Athoek Station, coming to understand the nuances of life within the Imperial Radch. Every empire is hegemonic, but few empires completed erase all trace of the cultures they have consumed – which is to say this week features a lot of local world building, and hints at the introduction of an intriguing new angle in the near future…
Before I turn my back on 2025, I’m catching up on all the films I saw in the second half of the year (a stack, thanks to the Inverness Film Festival in November). There’s 3 new favourites, many films I admired, and a few I appreciated rather than enjoyed and am unlikely to watch again. Top pick for your winter watching: Pillion, the unexpectedly sweet if explicit dom-com (thanks Mr Skarsgard).
Having been enthralled by our visit to the Imperial Radch during ScifiMonth, we’re continuing our read-along this year with Ancillary Sword because there’s no way we’re waiting for next November to find out what Breq does next. Expect spoilers from the get-go as this is the first of four discussion posts, not a review.
I didn’t read a lot in 2025, but I did well on selecting books I enjoyed. Part of that was ruthless DNFFN (DNF For Now) if something didn’t catch my fancy, part of it was leaning into rereads. I’ll focus on first time reads for my annual best of, with an honourable mention for some of the rereads at the end.
I knew 2025 would be tough, and it absolutely was. Some of that was work-related and predictable, some was unexpected health challenges, and some was the self-inflicted choice to push my physical boundaries, which had the pleasant side effect of bolstering my mental health. Reading and blogging weren’t priorities for me (you’re shocked, I know), but happily a comfort rather than a chore.
Happy new year! Tis the season for retrospectives: I’m kicking off by laughing at my reading challenge progress in 2025. I suggested I would use my challenges to guide my reading in 2025; instead, I once again forgot all about them, not even checking in on them until December 30th. Less challenge, more serendipity. Given I read fewer books in 2025 than I have done in about 20 years (if not longer), you will be unsurprised that I have not made much of a dent!
This month has been full-on, as evidenced by the near-total lack of blog posts (I had stuff planned, I swear) and limited reading. Instead, I focused on friends, family and work deadlines, which means I finish the year exhausted but with a reasonably clear conscience.
What, you thought ScifiMonth was all done in November? Heck no, we’re not done until the final mission logs. Sometimes life finds a way, sometimes it just gets in the way, so it’s taken a few weeks longer than usual to get to the final wrap posts, but maybe that means we can enjoy them all the more. Grab a cuppa, and let’s revisit the SF love shared in the second half of November.
This month has been so full I’ve already misremembered most of the highlights as having happened earlier in the year! I started the month on a mini-holiday on the Fife coast, before diving into the Inverness Film Festival (reviews coming soon) and finally settling into SF reads for ScifiMonth. I also started new meds to try and settle my migraines back down, so here’s hoping that makes 2026 manageable in spite of what will be an exciting but relentless year at work.
It is the finale of our ScifiMonth read-along of this modern classic. Fair to say we have relished the read and the discussions, as it was an almost unanimous YAY when the question was asked about continuing the trilogy in the new year. Consequently this isn’t the last week of the Radch read-along – just the last for now…
Today is the tenth anniversary of me becoming a book blogger and launching There’s Always Room For One More. TEN YEARS. There’s a lot of Grosse Point Blank vibes today, without the assassinations. I copied across a lot of older reviews from LiveJournal and LibraryThing, but this is the big day for this blog. I’m surprised and delighted and proud to still be here, however inconsistently, and hugely grateful to my regular readers and bookfriends who have made this such a rewarding hobby. Big love, friends.
onemore.org 
