Dear Friends

This is the last week for Staffer’s Book Review. You are probably weeping uncontrollably. I’m not. It’s not because I don’t love my site. I do. But, we’ve come to the point where it has reached its logical conclusion. I have said much of what I wanted to say, and I have found new outlets for the rest. In addition, I have become increasingly burdened with other responsibilities. My career continues to grow. My work at Tor.com is ever expanding (until they get sick of me!). My children need more of me than before. And the truth is I need more time to do those things right. There are also things out there I want to explore and do, and keeping up a blog just isn’t conducive to that.

However, I’m not leaving. Not really. My twitter feed will continue to be about books. My reviews will continue to be on Tor.com (maybe even more of them), my essays will be there too when they’re not so controversial a major corporation is scared of them, and Rocket Talk will forge onward. Even still, I suspect my friends at Pornokitsch, A Dribble of Ink, The Book Smugglers, Radish Reviews, and elsewhere will occasionally host my more edgy content. This is not a good-bye, more like a, let’s be honest with each other.

For a long time, this blog has been more about Justin Landon the writer than it has been a review blog. To that end, this ending of the blog is a refocusing of me as a writer. I want the freedom to explore things without feeling guilty about my responsibilities to this place of, frankly, nostalgia. I’ve been sticking with it because I feel like I owe it something. Without this blog I wouldn’t be an entity in the community  (mind you, I’m only a minor entity on the best of days). Most of you wouldn’t care about me at all without Staffer’s Book Review. So, I think some emotions are warranted. But, if that’s the only reason I’m still posting here, we can all agree something has to be done.

If, like me, you’re feeling a little nostalgic right now, here are my twelve favorite posts from the life of Staffer’s Book Review:

1. The First Post: A Review of James SA Corey’s Leviathan Wakes
2. You Knew This Industry Blogger Wasn’t Going to Keep His Mouth Shut
3. Death, and Death in Science Fiction and Fantasy
4. The Writer as a Meme in SF&F Culture
5. 25 Reasons I’m Not a Writer — My Tribute to NaNoWriMo’ers
6. Can we stop talking about the Hugos now?
7. Mission Statement: The Hugos and Worldcon Aren’t What I Expected, Etc.
8. Breaking Down the Hugos: Careful Like
9. Suvudu Universe: Hai Can I Haz Ur Stuffz?
10. Night Shade Books: What went wrong?
11. The Future of Pyr: Reply Hazy, Try Again
12. The Riftwar Saga: Fifteen Years Later

You’ll notice very few of those are reviews. I guess that says something, eh?

With that, I officially declare this blog adjourned.