I’m really into the r/fantasy bingo challenge, and this week the 2019 Bingo statistics went up, so today another user on reddit, u/SeiShonagon threw up a little challenge which I loved. 2019 Bingo Participants, Shill the Books You Read That No One Else Did
I decided to post this up for Wyrd and Wonder, hosted by Imyril, Lisa, and Jorie , because talking about books that more people should read, is my favorite way of celebrating fantasy.
I had 20 uniques over 2 and 3/4 cards, unsurprisingly 6 of those were Romanian books and another 5 were self-published books I’d gotten through TBRindr or other giveaways. I’ll start with the English ones, though there is 1 other person who had a Romanian author on their bingo card, so damn right I’m gonna shill those too. I left out a few that I wasn’t that keen on.
Links go to Goodreads, and my reviews at the end
English books:
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Queens of the Wyrd by Timandra Whitecastle. Though it started as KotW but make it with Viking moms, I really enjoyed this one more. While it also had lots of wit and humor, and also lots of things that were just so fucking cool, I connected a lot better with the characters. The set up is similar to KotW, but the story grows apart pretty soon, and the characters are all its own. I was surprised to see the raw ways she wrote about motherhood, especially the very hard parts that people so often glaze over. And the big battle showdown made me feel like I was there. This Bingo: necromancy, self-pub, maybe epigraphs, but they are really short, made me laugh, feminist. Review
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Realm of Ash (Books of Ambha #2) by Tasha Suri. I loved the thick magical atmosphere and the dark mystery. I was really angry with it to start, because it doesn’t feature the protagonist from book 1, but after I got over that I loved it.This Bingo: ghosts, exploration, maybe climate, book about books, feminist, politics, possibly romantic Review
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Seashells, Spells & Caramels; Mermaid Fins, Winds & Rolling Pins (Spells & Caramels #1 & 3) by Erin Johnson – this is a cozy mystery series about a bakes in a tiny-island magical European kingdom. I got them in exchange for reviews through r/audiobooks and I loved them, the narration is also super sweet and cheerful. They’re pretty short, and there’s a bit more baking than mystery solving. This Bingo: optimistic, self-pub (I think), made me laugh, romantic Review
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Dragon Blood (Hurog #2) by Patricia Briggs – The Hurog duology has two books, Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood. I downloaded both of them to my phone, and started listening to Dragon Blood, and kept thinking to myself, this book is so weird how it just throws you in, doesn’t really set the scene much. But I really liked how the characters all had a history with each other. And then I started Dragon Bones and realized where I’d gone wrong. I liked it though, it’s pretty sword and sorcery, big strong barbarian king, but the damsel is not all that distressed. CW for torture and mentions of rape. This Bingo: politics Review
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Pemberley: Mr. Darcy’s Dragon (Jane Austen’s Dragons #1) by Maria Grace – a Pride and Prejudice variation, but with dragons. Lots of different kinds of dragons. I fucking love dragons. It was a bit weird because I didn’t know what to expect, so adjusting to the actual text of P&P with extra dragons on top, took a bit, but I ended up loving it. Got it in exchange for a review through Audiobook boom This Bingo: self-pub, romantic but would have to read the whole 3 books for the full story, magical pet (H) if we expand to companion Review
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Rip-Off! edited by Gardner Dozois “In Rip-Off!, 13 of today’s best and most honored writers of speculative fiction face a challenge even they would be hard-pressed to conceive: Pick your favorite opening line from a classic piece of fiction (or even non-fiction) – then use it as the first sentence of an entirely original short story.” Like all anthologies, I liked some stories better than others, but it had the original The Lady Astronaut of Mars story, and that is love.This bingo: short stories Review
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A Dragon of a Different Color (Heartstrikers #4) by Rachel Aaron / Rachel Bach – I’d been putting off finishing the Heartrikers series for a few years. TBh the series is worth finishing, but book 4 by itself felt like it ended in the middle of the story. Review
Short stories:
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I read a few stories from Uncanny Magazine Issue 24- Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, the ones I used for bingo were The House on the Moon by William Alexander and An Open Letter to the Family by Jennifer Brozek, I really loved the latter
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The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles by Kij Johnson- the cute story of a Small Cat that ends up on a long journey. Review
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Nine Lives by Karli Rush – also got it through r/audiobooks, about a woman in New Orleans who’s been hexed into a cat. Really cute, and cat-like, wish there was more of it. Review
Romanian books:
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Ciudatul Caz al Umbrelor; Tenebre: Cazul Laura, & Tenere: Labirintul (Tenebre series) by Daniel Timariu – I read two novels and one novella in this series and I loved them. It’s a noir UF mystery series, but mostly I’m in love with the setting and the detailed underworld. There is also an ankle bitting snarky shape-shifting dog companion. This bingo: talking pet, if we expand to companion, necromancy Review
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Când penele rosii vor plange by Lucian Dragos Bogdan- a sci-fi novella from the author’s larger universe (not read yet), I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and the way it explored some ideas. Review
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Ce vad Dragonii by Diana Geacar – a middle-grade novel that could be summed up as Alice in Videogame land. I felt it was trying to do too much. Review
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Omul-fluture (Omul-fluture #1) by Lucian Dragos Bogdan & Teodora Matei – a classic dystopian cyberpunk that firmly put me off the genre forever. It might work for people who are into more grimdark books though. I also didn’t like that it was much more idea-focussed than plot or character, but the ideas were pretty interesting. Review
Check out some of my other Wyrd & Wonder posts: