For those who may not know, there’s a thing on reddit, the subreddit r/fantasy to be exact, called Fantasy Bingo. It’s basically a bingo card where every square is a different topic/genre/flavor of Fantasy book. They’ve been doing it for 7 years and this year, I’m going for it too.
To be honest, while I’ve read a lot of urban fantasy and contemporary fantasy, I haven’t exactly been a deep diver into all of the fantasy options out there. And now I’m going to dive head first into a vast amount (25. It’s only 25, but it feels like a lot more) of new authors, book types, genres, and even non-fiction on my march to fill up my bingo card by March 2022.
This is this year’s card:
I spent a few hours last night looking for new books that fit into all these categories that I would hopefully be okay to read. You can include a book you were less than 50% through by April 1st, so I’m definitely counting The City & The City, by China Miéville.
Rules
Anyway, for those of you looking to play, the core rules are:
- 2021 Bingo Period lasts from April 1st 2021 – March 31st 2022.
- You will be able to turn in your 2021 card in the Official Turn In Post, which will be posted in mid-March 2022.
- You can’t use the same book more than once on the card. One square = one book.
- You may not repeat an author on the card EXCEPT: you may reuse an author from the short stories square (as long as you’re not using a short story collection from just one author for that square).
- You can only use ONE square for a re-read–all other books must be first-time reads. Except for the Comfort read – that’s an extra re-read this year.
- You may substitute ONE square from the 2021 card with a square from a previous r/Fantasy bingo card.
- They also have HARD and HERO modes, but check out the post for all of the details.
It looks a bit daunting, especially for someone who finds it hard to find new authors that I like and could finish a book for this challenge.
My plan is to read two books a month and write up reviews of them on this blog – most likely starting in May. Because quite frankly, I’ve got so much going on with my pre-sale, revisions, work, and social media promotion that I don’t think I can handle anything else. We’ll see though.
My Bingo Card
| SQUARE | BOOK | AUTHOR |
|---|---|---|
| 5 short stories | Brief Cases | Jim Butcher |
| Set in Asia | The Bone Shard Daughter | Andrea Stewart |
| A Selection from the A-Z Genre Guide | Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams |
| Found Family | The House in the Cerulean Sea | TJ Klune |
| 1st person POV | All Systems Red | Martha Wells |
| Book club | The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry | CM Waggoner |
| New To You Author | A City & A City | China Miéville |
| Gothic Fantasy | The Gormenghast Books | Mervyn Peake |
| Backlist Book | Masques | Patricia Briggs |
| Revenge-Seeking Character | Vicious | VE Schwab |
| Mystery Plot | The Strange Case of the Alchemists Daughter | Theodora Goss |
| Comfort Read (re-read) | TBD when I feel like it | |
| Published in 2021 | Blood Heir | Ilona Andrews |
| Cat Squasher (500+) | Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell | Susanna Clarke |
| SFF-Related NonFiction | The View from the Cheap Seats | Neil Gaiman |
| Latinx Author | Lost in the Never Woods | Aiden Thomas |
| Self-Published | Meanwhile, at the Dernstrum Institute | Catherine Griffin |
| Forest Setting | Silver in the Wood | Emily Tesh |
| Genre Mashup | Gnomon | Nick Harkaway |
| Has Chapter Titles | Etiquette & Espionage | Gail Carriger |
| Title xx of xx | Six of Crows | Leigh Bardugo |
| First Contact | Space Opera | Catherynne M Valente |
| Trans or Nonbinary Character | Every Heart a Doorway | Seanan McGuire |
| Debut Author | Gideon the Ninth | Tamsyn Muir |
| Witches | Equal Rites | Terry Pratchett |
What do you think? Do you see any choices that may not fit here? I may substitute some out and update this post later, but this is my initial run.
Oh, and the good folks on reddit have a lot of great suggestions should you want to dive in to the deep of of Fantasy Bingo with me!
First review to come – The City & The City, by China Miéville, since I just finished it last night.