Friday Five – Things I’m Looking Forward To

I think Friday is the perfect time to reflect on the last week but also, with the weekend ahead, to think about all the things that I am looking forward to. It is easy to remember what you are looking forward to in the short term but how often do we get excited about really cool things that are a bit further into the future? So with a mix of my book geek ways and a few more insights into my life, here are the top five things I am looking forward to right now!

Meeting Becky Chambers

Next week I desperately hope to be able to go to Sheffield Waterstones for the Record of a Spaceborn Few event. I absolutely LOVE the Wayfarers series. Ironically it is why there aren’t two reviews on my blog yet as they require extra special love and attention. If you haven’t read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet or A Closed and Common Orbit I 1,000,000% recommend picking them up. Here is the blurb for book one:

“As she woke up in the pod she remembered three things. First, she was travelling through open space. Second, she was about to start a new job, one she could not screw up. Third, she had bribed a government official into giving her a new identity file. None of this information was new, but it wasn’t pleasant to wake up to.

When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn’t expecting much.

The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that’s seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past. But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer.

The crew is a mishmash of species and personalities, from Sissix, the friendly reptilian pilot, to Kizzy and Jenks, the constantly sparring engineers who keep the ship running. Life on board is chaotic, but more or less peaceful – exactly what Rosemary wants.

Until the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet. They’ll earn enough money to live comfortably for years…if they survive the long trip through war-torn interstellar space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful.

But Rosemary isn’t the only person on board with secrets to hide, and the crew will soon discover that space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed.”

They fall into the Space Opera genre and are super-friendly to people who are not big sci-fi fans. They are very much about the characters and their personal journeys. I have had Record of a Spaceborn Few pre-ordered since before they officially announced it. As I have said hundreds of times, it is my most anticipated release of this year. Although I have a million questions to ask Becky Chambers, I may be too much of a fangirling wreck to ask any of them… I haven’t booked tickets for Friday yet because my health has been so bad recently #spoonielife. Fingers-crossed that I am up to the trip because it would be amazing to meet one of my favourite authors.

The King Killer Chronicles Book Three

This definitely counts as ‘in the future’ as there is currently no indication of when book three will be finished. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is one of, if not my favourite book of all time. Again, the lack of review proves my love (I’m on it, I promise). It is a stunning fantasy book about a young man named Kvothe. I like the Goodreads blurb:

“Told in Kvothe’s own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen. 

The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature.”

Honestly, it has everything a fantasy fan could wish for. It is beautifully written. I know that people are intimidated with it being a chunky book but it is so accessible. One piece of advice is that it has a framed narrative so you need to read past the first couple of chapters to jump into the true adventure. Well, that’s how I feel about book one so you may now understand why book three is on this list!

Mammoth Publication

Anyone who follows me on twitter will have already seen how in love I am with Mammoth by Jill Baguchinsky. You can read my full review here. I received an ARC and although I really want to do a giveaway to share the awesomeness I honestly can’t bear to part with it just yet! I am hoping for an author interview (pretty please) closer to its release date. I can’t wait for it to be officially published, which should be 8th November this year according to Goodreads. I desperately want to be able to talk about it with other people and I need a hardback copy for my shelves!

Gaming Releases

As well as being a book enthusiast I have always been a gamer girl. My love started with Mario 64 and continued to grow exponentially. This peaked when I started to play World of Warcraft a few years ago. I wrote about my experiences of playing WoW here. I haven’t played for a while but there is a new expansion, Battle for Azeroth, being released on August 13th and I really want to play again! It is a really nice way to take a bit of down time, as is a game of Hearthstone. Blizzard have obviously been very busy as they are also releasing a Hearthstone expansion August 7th. I have reached legendary previously on Hearthstone, which equates to the top 0.5% of players in the world. I have definitely earned my geeky gamer title!

YALC 2019

I was so excited for YALC this year but then my Dad’s 60th birthday party was booked for the same Saturday and my plans fell apart. I am looking forward to seeing everyone’s posts on the day and huge hauls afterwards! It is over a year away but I am still very much  looking forward to the time when I get to attend YALC myself. I think it will be a wonderful experience. There are so many lovely people in the book blogger community who I would love to get to know better, authors I would love to meet and panels that I would geek out over. I can’t wait.

That’s my five for Friday! What things are you looking forward to?