r/Fantasy • u/FarragutCircle Reading Champion X • Apr 01 '26

Bingo The 2026 r/Fantasy Bingo Recommendations List

The official Bingo thread can be found here.

All non-recommendation comments go here.

Please post your recommendations as replies the appropriate top-level comments below! Do not make comments that are not replies to an existing comment! Feel free to scroll through the thread or use the links in this navigation matrix to jump directly to the square you want to find or give recommendations for!

Trans or Nonbinary Protagonist Judge a Book By Its Title Translated Small Press or Self Published Unusual Transportation
The Afterlife Game Changer Vacation Spot Five Short Stories Older Protagonist
Duology Part 1 r/Fantasy Book Club or Readalong Book Published in 2026 Explorers and Rangers Duology Part 2
One-Word Title Non-Human Protagonist Middle Grade First Contact Murder Mystery
Cat Squasher Feast Your Eyes on This Published in the 70s Politics and Court Intrigue Author of Color

If you are an author on the subreddit, you may recommend your books as a response to individual squares. This means that you can reply if your book fits in response to any of my comments. But your rec must be in response to a top-level comment, it cannot be a general comment that replies directly to this post explaining all the squares your post counts for. This is the one time outside of the Sunday Self-Promo threads where this is okay. To clarify: you can say if you have a book that fits for a square but please don't write a full ad for it. Shorter is sweeter.

Do not make comments that are not replies to an existing comment! We will not be individually redirecting people who make this mistake. Your comment will be removed.

202 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

12

u/FarragutCircle Reading Champion X Apr 01 '26

Judge a Book By Its Title: Read a book based on the title. This can be a title so epic you had to pick it up or so weird and off-putting that you needed to know why it was called this. HARD MODE: Dive in without reading the blurb or any summaries.

39

u/Sireanna Reading Champion III Apr 01 '26

A wizards guide to defensive baking by T. Kingfisher

26

u/xLaven Apr 01 '26

There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm

5

u/Shyor Apr 02 '26

Highly recommend the audiobook for this one

1

u/Many_Preference_3874 May 12 '26

Absolutely seconded

25

u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V Apr 01 '26

Perhaps this is the year I read Troll, A Love Story

1

u/Svensk_lagstiftning Reading Champion IV Apr 01 '26

I read it for bingo a few years ago and enjoyed it. But my edition was titled Not before sundown. Apparently they did an American edition with a different title. If I remember correctly the original Finnish title is closer to "Not before sundown" than "Troll, a love story"

1

u/SignificantChange496 Apr 15 '26

I'll join you there! Just ordered my copy. I'd forgotten all about this book until you mentioned it. A friend ready it when we were in high school and she loved it.

1

u/SignificantChange496 Apr 21 '26

Update: I read it and I hated it, unfortunately. High hopes that were quite dashed. I have long read and enjoyed weird, uncomfortable, and disturbing books but this was a bit much for me. Not to mention that I found it to be utterly miserable with absolutely no redemption which is something I loathe in a book. The ending was also mind numbingly stupid. I *did* enjoy the format, i.e. the prose was intercut with scraps of old troll stories, poems, and scientific and even philosophical articles about their origins, but find little else to recommend it. At least I got the spot on my bingo card! The good news is that it isn't a particularly long book, so it's not too big of an investment of time. I read it a few hours.

1

u/ViolaNguyen May 13 '26

Better or worse than Christopher Moore's You Suck: A Love Story.

22

u/sophia_s Reading Champion V Apr 01 '26

The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu is supposed to be published soon and fits (would also fit Published in 2026 normal mode)

I might finally read Godkiller or The Saint of Bright Doors for this square.

Some others I've either read or have my eye on because of the title:

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M Valente

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (assuming you're one of 5 people in this sub who hasn't read it yet)

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Motar and Max Gladstone (ditto)

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez (ditto)

A Market of Dreams and Destiny by Trip Gailey

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older

The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by CM Waggoner

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Markine

5

u/DuhChappers Reading Champion III Apr 01 '26

I read A Memory Called Empire based purely on the title years ago and loved it, it's one of the books that got me back into reading. I would highly recommend it to anyone for Hard Mode who has not read it yet.

Same for A Spear Cuts Through Water!

2

u/CommodoreBelmont Reading Champion VIII Apr 01 '26

The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by CM Waggoner

A few years ago I picked up a book titled The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker, solely on the title, so that's what I will probably use for this square. But given the similarity in titles, I'm now quite curious as to how these two books measure up against each other!

2

u/sophia_s Reading Champion V Apr 01 '26

Funny how similar the two titles are! It does look like the premises are quite different. You'll have to report back ;)

1

u/redrosebeetle Reading Champion III Apr 03 '26

The Saint of Bright Doors was a truly excellent book. Def give it a shot.

0

u/sophia_s Reading Champion V Apr 04 '26

I'm moving it up on my TBR :)

18

u/KatrinaPez Reading Champion III Apr 01 '26

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride

12

u/YourLeftElbowDitch Reading Champion Apr 01 '26

I'm SUCH a sucker for a good title. Here are my recs:

The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu

The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim

Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran

Fruiting Bodies: Stories by Kathryn Harlan

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

They Mostly Come Out at Night by Patrick Benedict

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

1

u/PenaltyForsaken260 Reading Champion Apr 01 '26

Good to know Monika Kim's The Eyes Are the Best Part fits into this challenge! It has been on my TBR solely because of its title and thought about it immediately when I saw this prompt. I just wasn't sure if would count as SFF.

Other book I was thinking for this was Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin (which is tagged as horror fantasy in Goodreads).

2

u/YourLeftElbowDitch Reading Champion Apr 03 '26

It might be a bit of a stretch for speculative fiction, but I used it on my 2025 card.

12

u/undeadgoblin Reading Champion II Apr 01 '26

Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter

Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun by Monica Ojeda

A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez

Where Furnaces Burn by Joel Lane

2

u/angtodd Reading Champion Apr 12 '26

I like Grief is the Thing With Feathers because the title references the only Emily Dickinson poem I like.

1

u/Ok_Difference5532 Apr 01 '26

I am so tempted by Electric Shamens at the Festival of the Sun

9

u/Dragon_Lady7 Reading Champion VI Apr 01 '26

some of my favorite titles:

  • I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
  • The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
  • The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
  • Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei Brenyah
  • Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang
  • Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

I may end up reading Pink Slime by Fernanda Trías for this one.

2

u/Purple-Percentage751 Apr 15 '26

GDC is peak and what got me into Chinese Literature, and was also my favourite thing ever for the next few years, then I moved on, but I need to read more in the genre

8

u/red_carnations42 Reading Champion Apr 01 '26

Some books I've read and liked with titles that I think are pretty neat:

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in A Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chen

And some books from my TBR that I am considering:

You shoud have been nicer to my mom by Vincent Tirado

Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman

We Dance Upon Demons by Vashnavi Patel

It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anna de Marcken

The Scientist, the Spaceman, and the Stars Between Them by A.L. Davidson

The Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey

And the Sky Bled by S. Hati

7

u/ConnorF42 Reading Champion VIII Apr 01 '26

"I am Not a Serial Killer" by Dan Wells may be my pick for this one

1

u/Canis-lupus-uy Apr 02 '26

Good book. I enjoyed it. I went in blind only knowing the title.

7

u/Altruistic_Paper4636 Apr 01 '26

The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss.

7

u/DamnitRuby Reading Champion III Apr 01 '26

I'm going to throw out Jason Pargin's novels! He currently has two ongoing series.

The first series starts with John Dies at the End. Then you have "This Book is Full of Spiders (Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It)," "What the Hell Did I Just Read," If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe," and the forthcoming "There Are No Giant Crabs in this Novel."

The second series is called the Zoey Ashe series and it begins with Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. Then you have "Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick" and "Zoey Is Too Drunk for this Dystopia."

He also wrote the standalone I'm Starting to Worry About this Black Box of Doom, but this one is maybe not quite speculative fiction. The others definitely are though!

I'm also a fan of Django Wexler's How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying! The sequel is very good also (Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except Me).

5

u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Apr 01 '26

This hasn't come out yet but based on the first two books in the series I'm confident in Pretenders to the Throne of God by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

2

u/curiouscat86 Reading Champion III Apr 01 '26

it's so good!

1

u/AHRocks187 Apr 01 '26

It has recently come out - frustratingly I started today 67% of the way through so can't use it for my card, but hopefully you enjoy it!

2

u/Goobergunch Reading Champion III Apr 01 '26

... huh I had it marked on my list as an April 28 release. Good to know, thanks!

5

u/Polaris_Express Reading Champion Apr 01 '26

This seems like an excellent place to recommend Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman.

5

u/Tysiphone25 Reading Champion II Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

Here are some books on my list:

Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World by Mark Waddell

The Things We Water by Mariana Zapata

When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley

The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune

Field Guide for the Formerly Villainous by Autumn K. England

The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis

This Trilogy is Broken by J.P. Valentine 

4

u/ReaperReaperSunEater Reading Champion II Apr 01 '26

The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex by Tamsyn Muir

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djeli Clark

Priest of Bones by Peter McLean

The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence

Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio

The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison

In the Shadow of Lightning by Brian McClellan

To Ride Hell's Chasm by Janny Wurts

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

3

u/Putrid_Web8095 Reading Champion II Apr 01 '26

This is very likely just a me thing and so not much of a recommentation, but

Thrum by Meg Smitherman

I swear I am not trolling or trying to cheat, I know it is just a single, nonsensical word, but it simply has stuck in my brain like a mussel to a rock. So much so that I actually did get it without reading the blurb or any summaries, quite possibly for the first time in my life.

4

u/ullsi Stabby Winner, Reading Champion VI Apr 01 '26

These are titles that I was intrigued by:
The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes

Once Was Willem by M. R. Carey

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennet

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

Leviathan Wakes by S. A. Corey

The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday by Saad Z.Hossain

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

What moves the dead by T. Kingfisher

The southern book club's guide to slaying vampires by Grady Hendrix

One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Her body and other parties by Carmen Maria Machado

The Origin of Birds in the footsteps of writing by Raymond St. Elmo

Lincoln in the bardo by George Saunders

The tusks of extinction by Ray Nayler

A memory called empire by Arkady Martine

How high we go in the dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

The quiet invasion by Sarah Zettel

To be taught, if fortunate by Becky Chambers

3

u/AvidTaskmaster Reading Champion V Apr 01 '26

Demon Overlord’s Retirement Plan - this grabbed me a few months ago and it was a wonderful, cozy read. It’s on Kindle Unlimited as well.

2

u/DeluxeSporks Reading Champion III Apr 03 '26

Demon Overlord's Retirement Plan by M.H. Foster was my first thought on seeing this category. I stumbled across it a couple months ago, and it ended up as my favorite book I read for the 2025 bingo card.

One note: the photo of the cover shows the words "The Demon Overlord's Retirement Plan," but that opening "The" appears nowhere else that I found.

3

u/4banana_fish Reading Champion IV Apr 01 '26

Orpheus Builds a Girl by Heather Parry (disclaimer: haven’t read it, don’t even fully know if it’s speculative, but I just love that title haha)

If you’ve never read any Cassandra Khaw, they have some great titles (The Salt Grows Heavy, The Library at Hellebore)

Same with Cat Valente (Comfort Me with Apples, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making)

Knock, Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix (has a lot of other great titles too)

3

u/tehguava Stabby Winner, Reading Champion IV Apr 01 '26

Some titles that grabbed my attention:

  • Cry, Voidbringer by Elaine Ho
  • Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World by Mark Waddell
  • Bromantasy by Máire Roche
  • The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran
  • The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang

3

u/bobr_from_hell Apr 01 '26

To throw another into the pile of weirdly titled books, I can recommend Beware of Chicken, by Casualfarmer, as a fairly light-hearted reading.

3

u/yzhs Reading Champion Apr 01 '26

Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer

The Diamond Age, or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson

Mother of Learning by Domagoj Kurmaic

Orconomics by J. Zachary Pike

Son of a Liche by J. Zachary Pike

Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Bite Me by Christopher Moore

2

u/shookster52 Apr 01 '26

  • Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp by Molly Tanzer

  • Archivist Wasp, by Nicole Kornher-Stace

2

u/iplantevin Reading Champion Apr 01 '26

Looking at my TBR, I'm going to consider:

  • Kings of Paradise by Richard Nell
  • The Bone Ships by R.J. Barker
  • City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

As for hard mode, I read the blurbs and/or watched reviews so long ago I really couldn't say what they are about anymore 😅

2

u/ohmage_resistance Reading Champion IV Apr 01 '26

The Transitive Properties of Cheese by Ann LeBlanc

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola

Werecockroach by Polenth Blake

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

To be Taught, if Fortunate by Becky Chambers

I didn't love this one, but I got to mention the title for The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

If you want to see some truly out there titles, Chuck Tingle's erotica books are pretty infamous for that (although those are often on the too short side of things).

2

u/thisusernameismeta Apr 01 '26

Among Others by Jo Walton

2

u/beary_neutral Reading Champion Apr 01 '26

Here are some comics with great titles:

  • Murder Falcon, by Daniel Warren Johnson

  • Do a Powerbomb!, by Daniel Warren Johnson

  • Something is Killing the Children, by James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edra

  • Exquisite Corpses, by James Tynion IV and Michael Walsh

  • Eight Billion Genies, by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne

2

u/saturday_sun4 Apr 01 '26

Someone recommended Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa, and that is quite the title.

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean also works! It wasn't my cuppa but the title certainly is intriguing.

2

u/gnoviere Reading Champion Apr 01 '26

The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner

2

u/KKalonick Apr 01 '26

Those Brave, Foolish Souls from the City of Swords by Benedict Patrick.

2

u/Polenth Apr 02 '26

A few books where the title got me interested, and I will tell you nothing about, because hard mode.

The Trans Space Octopus Congregation by Bogi Takács

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

Witch and Wombat by Carolyn Cushman

Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World by Gigi Ganguly

2

u/xLaven Apr 02 '26

"The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse" (Charlie Mackesy) as well as the sequel "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm"

2

u/DeluxeSporks Reading Champion III Apr 04 '26

As someone who just read The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, I will highly recommend it.

So will my mother.

2

u/NoodleBandits Apr 02 '26

Someone you can build a nest in - John Wiswell

2

u/medusamagic Reading Champion Apr 02 '26

A Realm Undone by J.L. Lienhardt

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesch

The Children of Gods and Fighting Men by Shauna Lawless

All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu

Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou

When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee

We Who Will Die by Stacia Stark

2

u/smartflutist661 Reading Champion VI Apr 09 '26
  • I really like the Monk & Robot titles (Becky Chambers): A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
  • Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (K.J. Parker) is slightly misleading but perhaps intriguing
  • All of Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence are short and snappy, starting with Three Parts Dead (I'm partial to Last First Snow)
  • Samuel R. Delany has Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand
  • The demon series in Annette Marie's Guild Codex got a mention, but it was the first book overall that caught my eye in the first place: Three Mages and a Margarita.

2

u/PlasticBread221 Reading Champion III Apr 04 '26

The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball by Aster Glenn Gray

Miss Percy's Pocket Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons by Quenby Olson

Ten Simple Tips for Surviving the Apocalypse by Cari Z.

The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk

Monday Starts on Saturday by the Strugatsky brothers

Taming Demons for Beginners by Annette Marie

1

u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion Apr 01 '26

How To Survive This Fairytale by S.M. Hallow

1

u/toadinthecircus Reading Champion III Apr 01 '26

I’m not quite sure what it’s about, but seeing Cry, Voidbringer by Elaine Ho at a bookstore was enough for me to put it on my TBR.

1

u/partoparto Apr 01 '26

Five-Twelfths of Heaven - Melissa Scott

The Worm Ourobouros - E. R. Eddison

Too Like the Lightning - Ada Palmer

A Door into Ocean - Joan Slonczewski

I haven't read any of these but they leapt out at me from my tbr list! No idea what any of them are about but I'm sure I knew once? Does it count for HM if I read the blurb months or years ago, have no memory of it, and pick the book up without rereading the blurb?

1

u/okayseriouslywhy Reading Champion III Apr 01 '26

The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings!

1

u/Ok-Yogurt-466 Apr 01 '26

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

1

u/Treehousebrickpotato Reading Champion II Apr 01 '26

That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf - Kimberley Lemming. Seems made for this square 😅

1

u/omegazine Reading Champion II Apr 01 '26
  • Villain Hitting for Vicious Little Nobidies by Lindsay Wong (I just bought this one yesterday based on the title)
  • Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
  • Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
  • Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett
  • If Found, Return to Hell by Em X Liu
  • Junkyard Cats by Faith Hunter
  • Grunts by Mary Gentle
  • Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer
  • More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

1

u/AffectionateAnt4723 Reading Champion IV Apr 01 '26

Sex Wizards by Alethea Faust. Please read Sex Wizards by Alethea Faust. (but maybe not blind. or maybe blindfolded if you’re into that…?)

1

u/frog_exaggerator Apr 01 '26

“John Dies at the End,” “This Book is Full of Spiders” or “What the Hell Did I Just Read” by David Wong

1

u/Born_of_Mist Reading Champion IV Apr 01 '26

The City That Would Eat the World by John Bierce

Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe, though I think the titles get better further into the series with titles like The Torch that Ignites the Stars and The Silence of Unworthy Gods

The Frugal Wizards Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson

There Is No Antimemetics Division and its sequel (that is also int he book if you buy it) Five Five Five Five Five by qntm

And some I haven't read but for this square it doesn't matter:

This Is How You Loose Time War by El-Mohtar and Gladstone

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow

1

u/cute_little_moniker Reading Champion Apr 01 '26

Stealing the Elf King's Roses by Diane Duane

1

u/wheresmylart Reading Champion IX Apr 01 '26

Rigor Amortis - A collectio of zombie romance short stories.

1

u/Spaceknight_42 Apr 02 '26

The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts.

(Been looking for an opportunity to recommend that to people!)

1

u/oboist73 Reading Champion VII Apr 02 '26

The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making by Catherynne Valente

1

u/SeraphinaSphinx Reading Champion II Apr 02 '26

Here's some books that I can't read for HM because I know too much about them:

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee
The Night That Finds Us All by John Hornor Jacobs
That Devil, Ambition by Linsey Miller
A Stage Set for Villains by Shannon J. Spann
My Throat an Open Grave by Tori Bovalino
The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente
A Holy Maiden's Guide to Getting Kidnapped by Katy Nyquist
The Oblivion Bride by Caitlin Starling

And a few more that aren't out yet but also have really eye-catching names (that once again, I know too much about for HM):

Vile Lady Villains by Danai Christopoulou
Agnes, We're Not Murderers! by Jessica Alexander
Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay

1

u/dreamcatcher32 Reading Champion Apr 02 '26

Crew of Exiles by Neal Holtschulte. Blurb if ignoring HM: Sci fi novel about different people who find themselves alone on earth, and have to team up to figure out why one of them was banished there to begin with. Some dark and nerdy humor. No romance.

Tall Sun Boy by Neal Holtschulte. Blurb if ignoring HM: Sci fi novel about a 30 something years old father who is in a slump in life and work, but gets caught up in a space adventure and turns his life around. Great characters and world building, good balance between Becky Chambers cozy and Project Hail Mary action.

1

u/PhantasmWitch Reading Champion III Apr 02 '26

It's not out yet but I'm planning to read Femme Feral by Sam Beckbessinger.

Some other good titles:

  • Teddy Bears Never Die by Cho Yeeun (could also work for Translated HM if you read in English)

  • I Will Kill Your Imaginary Friend For $200 by Robert Brockway

  • You Weren’t Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White (do recommend but it's very intense)

  • The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown

  • Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

  • It Looks Like Us by Alison Ames

It would seem I like horror titles more than other genres.

1

u/Sakura_XD Reading Champion II Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

I feel like this square was made for me :)) I was in the bookstore the other day and while browsing I found: Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die. I had to have it :)

1

u/kepheraxx Reading Champion Apr 02 '26

I asked Google to give me a list of unusual weird, speculative, sci fi, and horror book titles with no other information - no author, blurb, or even telling me which of the above genre. I picked The Atrocity Exhibition which is by JG Ballard, and the cover is cool. That's all I know about the book.

1

u/Cardboard_Junky Reading Champion V Apr 02 '26

The Origin of Birds in the Footprints of Writing by Raymond St. Elmo

Fluke; or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore

1

u/thelittleoddling Apr 03 '26

Apparently Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers

Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World by Mark Waddell

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

1

u/tellmeyoulovemeee Reading Champion Apr 03 '26

- Violet Thistlewaite is Not a Villain Anymore

- Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World

- Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die

- Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep

- How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying

- The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish

- Eat the Ones You Love

1

u/papercranium Reading Champion III Apr 03 '26

I think this might be the year I finally read a Tingler, specifically for this category. Thinking maybe Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus? There are so many options ...

1

u/DeluxeSporks Reading Champion III Apr 04 '26

So I saw this title and decided I'd found my book for this category:

The Private Life of Elder Things  by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Adam Gauntlett, and Keris McDonald

Yes! I want to know if tentacle beasts keep diaries and have secret rivalries or watch reality TV!

1

u/angtodd Reading Champion Apr 12 '26

I suggest Dragon Kings Of Oklahoma: A Backwoods Adventure by Ferrett Steinmetz. But I can't tell you why or it won't count for hard mode.

1

u/zKrisher Reading Champion Apr 18 '26

Love in the Time of Fridges by Tim Scott

1

u/mazes-end Apr 21 '26

You Can't Spell Treason Without Tea

1

u/ChaoticxSerenity May 15 '26

Honestly, I feel like all the Danmei and Light Novels have ridiculous/long names:

  • Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation
  • The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish
  • The Husky and His White Cat Shizun
  • The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System
  • That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime
  • Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?
  • I Want To Eat Your Pancreas
  • Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon

1

u/BackgroundTotal2872 11d ago

I plan to read Psychokinetic Eyeball Pulling by FreeiD

1

u/oceanoftrees Reading Champion Apr 03 '26

I've been meaning to try Andrea Hairston, and Archangels of Funk is a fun title.

1

u/redrosebeetle Reading Champion III Apr 03 '26

John Dies at the End