If you've been following me at all, anywhere, ever, you might have noticed I love r/fantasy book bingo and all the glorious spreadsheeting it entails.

A few stats

I had a few personal goals starting out, I'll be listing Total (hard card/normal card/ leftover card) for all categories that I tracked. All in all I read 69 cards that fit bingo, one hard mode card, one and 3/4  normal mode cards. I've got 49/69 squares in hard mode, and all of them reviewed, though a couple reviews are still in my drafts  folder waiting to be posted.

• Self-published: goal 25%, achieved 30% 21 books (5/9/7)
• Books by women: goal 50%, achieved 58% 40 books (13/14/13)
• Romanian books: goal 5%, achieved 7% 5 books (3/2/0)
• Older than 20 years: goal 10%, achieved 6% 4 books (3/1/0)
• Audiobooks: 54% 37 books (13/11/13)
• Ebooks: 19% 13 books (7/4/2)
• Paperback: 19% 13 books (5/7/1)
• Hard mode books: 71% 49 books (25/15/9)

Clicking the images will take you to the review on my site. The links for the book titles below lead to Goodreads. GR means number of goodreads ratings, I added these into my spreadsheet early on, so they're not up to date. I've added a line about each book and a little mini review for books with under 2500 GR, these also have their titles in bold.

I'll be doing a second post for my normal mode cards after the new cards gets announced, so I can include the new squares info.

Oh and if you’re interested in underrated books, I’ve also got this post for you with mini-reviews of bingo books from last year that have under 2500ish ratings on Goodreads and how they fit this year’s squares.

First Row Across:

• Slice of Life / Small Scale Fantasy – The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, (GR 22,425) review – amazing book with the most likeable, kind protagonist learning how to rule an empire, not action focused at all

• A SFF Novel Featuring a Character With a Disability – The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (GR 22,180) If you haven’t already, drop everything and read this book. Fun, well written, clever space adventure with smart manic protagonist

• SFF Novella – Când penele roșii vor plânge by Lucian Dragoş Bogdan, (GR 13) review, I found this one interesting and it left me wanting to explore more of the world. The story deals with the morality and struggles of trying to resurrect an extinct species, in hopes it will once again protect the galaxy against a powerful foe. I liked the different species, such as a birdlike person who does a lot of meditation through dancing.

• Self-Published SFF Novel – Mid-Lich Crisis by Steve Thomas (GR 50, but I read it when it had 11) review A fun comedy about an undead necromancer lord trying to prove to the world that he'd not the e-word. I really loved the main character, the narrator's snark and all the different little pokes at genre tropes.

• SFF Novel Featuring Twins –  The Mage-Born Anthology by Kayleigh Nicol,( GR19) review short stories with each of the siblings in the Mage-Born series. I really enjoyed it, and I read it with no prior knowledge of the series. I liked how different all the stories felt, despite tackling the same theme in the same universe. I loved the characters, especially bookish Reina.

Second Row Across:

• Novel Featuring Vampires – Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw (GR 7,716), review,  read for book club, interesting on urban fantasy, the main character is a doctor for supernatural people

• Format: Audiobook – the behemoth that was Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian: The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus (GR 116), review , Classic sword and sorcery, a lot of fun adventures, wouldn't recommend reading the entire collection in one go. It got repetitive, a lot of the stories are written to a formula, and the dated aspects got grating.

• SFF Novel by a Local to You Author – Tenebre Cazul Laura by Daniel Timariu (GR 11), review, Dresden Files set in my city, loved reading something in my city. I liked how there's an entire supernatural underworld. The cool thing is that their character names are based on who was in charge of the city when the sup. species arrived here, so there are old Dacian names, Hungarian names, Romanian names, etc.

• SFF Novel Featuring an Ocean Setting The Bone Ships by RJ Barker (GR 803), review. The Bone Ships is the only book I read last year that I've already reread (well, relistened, the narration is excellent). It follows the former captain of a ship of the dead, crewed by condemned criminals, on a nautical aventure. The worldbuilding is detailed and dark, but the overall tone of the book is positive. It's got a lot of slice-of-sailor-life moments, but also very cool ship-to-ship battles.

• Cyberpunk – Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson (GR 15,375) , review . Read for book club. Hacker makes stalking magic program get chased down by government, ends up in Djinn town for a while

Third Row Across:

• 2nd Chance – Red Sister by Mark Lawrence (GR 32,173), I see the appeal, but was a strongly meh book for me, didn't hate it, just didn't like it either. The concept of badass nuns on a dying world is great, I'll give it that

• Afrofuturism – Escaping Exodus by Nicky Drayden (GR 286), review A sci fi story taking place on a living spaceship. A huge, goey, often disgusting, beast flying through space with humans modifying it so they can live inside. A lot of the focus is on the ship itself, all the challenges it poses, and on the divided matriachal society that inhabits it.

• SFF Novel Published in 2019 The Imaginary Corpse by Tyler Hayes (GR 204), review. A noir detective mystery taking place in an imaginary land. A children's story for grown-ups, dealing with all the feelings, from the warm fuzzies to deep trauma. Despite going to some dark places along the way it is extremely uplifting.

• Middle Grade SFF Novel –Ce vad Dragonii by Diana Geacar (GR 4), review, A sort of soft LitRPG (no stats) merging gamelit and Alice in Wonderland. I liked the characters but the tone ended up too preachy for my taste, and some parts a bit awkward.

• A Personal Recommendation from r/Fantasy – Spirits Rising by Krista D Ball (GR 266) -review,  novella series, Tiny-town urban fantasy set in Newfoundland. The theme with Krista's books seems to be great characters, this is no exception I loved Rachel, the main character who can talk to ghosts. I also liked the cosy feel but also dealing with dark shit.

Fourth Row Across:

• Any r/fantasy Book Club Book of the Month OR r/fantasy Read-along Book City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty, (GR 31,112) a hustler from Egypt ends up in Djinn City, which is beautiful

• Media Tie-In Novel – Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond (GR 4,715), review, a Stranger Things prequel, it was ok, but too heartbreaking for me knowing how the characters would end up

• Novel Featuring an AI Character –For We Are Many: Bobiverse, Book 2 by Dennis E. Taylor (GR 28,966), review Geek ends up as AI of space probe has to save humanity

• SFF Novel That Has a Title of Four or More Words Those Brave, Foolish Souls from the City of Swords by Benedict Patrick (GR 237), review . I loved all the Yarnsworld books I read this year. This one is about never meeting your heroes, and its setting is inspired by central or south American about 100 years or so after the Spanish colonization. The gods and creatures in it were very creepy and angry.

• Retelling! – Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett,(GR 86,676) retelling Macbeth and other Shakespear plays. Huge fan of Pratchett and especially the Witches, so a favorite, my one reread for this card

Fifth Row Across:

• SFF Novel by an Australian Author – We Ride the Storm by Devin Madson (GR 324), review An Eastern inspired epic fantasy with a whoresassin and lots of beheadings. I read it before it  was trad-pubbed, but now would no longer count for hard mode. There are 3 pov characters on different sides of a dangerous conflict. I particularly liked how everything came together to form a big picture.

• The Final Book of a Series – Dragon Blood by Patrica Briggs (the Hurog duology)( GR 8,360)  review Sword and sorcery with a big barbarian and dragon magic. I did a derp and read book 2 of the duology thinking it was book 1, still fun.

• #OwnVoices – Adventures in New America, an audiodrama written by Stephen Winter and Tristan Cowen,(not on GR, but fewer than 500 followers on spotify or itunes) review. Weird dystopian tale with vampires from outer space and great voice acting. It’s like a radio show set in the world where the events take place.  The story itself is cool, described as “sci-fi, political satire, Afrofuturistic buddy comedy” and the characters are fun to be around and clever.

• LitRPG – Changing Faces by Sarah Lin (GR 418), review A villain in transposed to the body of a player character and has to figure out his new situation. He's very annoyed by stat boxes which makes for a very fun book. One of the many "necromancer finding himself" books I read last year.

• Five SFF Short Stories – Rip-Off edited by Gardner Dozois (GR 719)- review a short story anthology where each story rips-off the first line of another book. My favorite was by far The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal. As with most anthology, I thought some of them were really interesting and others pretty meh.