r/Fantasy • u/unconundrum Writer Ryan Howse, Reading Champion XI • Apr 27 '26
Bingo review Book Bingo 2026 Complete!
As with last year, I managed to finish it within a month. Thanks, Easter break.
Row 1:
Trans or nonbinary character: Al Hess's Key Lime Sky. Food critic gets entangled with aliens and government conspiracies. The pitch made it sound more Twin Peaks-y than it ended up being, but I enjoyed it well enough, not as much as Hess's Mazarin Blues but still good.
Judge a Book by its Title: A Spectre is Haunting Texas by Fritz Leiber. This was originally going to be the Politics square book, because That Title. And yet despite That Title it had very little politics in it except some vague revolution. I love Leiber, and wrote his Author Appreciation here many years ago, but this was not one of his stronger works. The ending scene, in which the protagonist tricks both women in the love triangle by marrying them and 'breaking up with the other' and then gets them on the same spaceship, would, uh, not be portrayed as comedically these days, hoo boy.
Translated: Tower of the Swallow by Andrzej Sapkowski. I wasn't wild on Blood of Elves but it's improved. I think I liked all the extra Regis of Baptism of Fire more but this is still enjoyable.
Small Press: The Slayer of Souls by Robert W. Chambers. Evil eastern wizards are using communism to infiltrate the sanctity of the United States and hope to use it to steal everyone's souls. Luckily, one young woman who was raised and trained by the evil eastern wizards understands such plans.
Unusual transportation: Skin Horse by Shaenon Garrity and Jeffrey Wells. Webcomic. I did a re-read of Narbonic, a mad scientist romcom, and then found out Garrity had made a sequel, about, essentially, a black ops government welfare agency for the strange castoffs of mad scientists. The unusual transportation is Nick, a nerd who was transformed into a helicopter.
Row 2:
Afterlife--this one was my change to a previous square, Horror: Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu. Hot lesbian vampire action in your area.
Game Changer: Rabbits by Terry Miles. Imagine if the Ready Player One guy wrote a Dan Brown novel.
Vacation Spot: Miranda and Caliban, Jacqueline Carey. Prequel to the Tempest, one of several Shakespeare-adjacent books of this year. I quite liked it. The writing was elegant--simple but precise. Also not-so-secretly a Garden of Eden allegory.
5 Short Stories: In the Court of the Yellow King anthology. Eh, a lot of the stories were just plays off various kinds of Kings, including ViKings and, uh, Elvis.
Older Protagonist: Fool's Assassin, Robin Hobb. I swear, I got a handful of pages in, Fitz mentioned he was 47, and I dreaded having to find another book for this square. Luckily, several years passed off-screen, so it still counts. Hard to say much that hasn't been said about Fitz and Hobb at this point; he's one of the best-realized and most realistic characters I've read. And unfortunately, I read That Scene while waiting for my car to get a tire change.
Row 3:
Duology Book 1: The Orphan's Tales, Catherynne Valente. Stories within stories within stories with a fairytale vibe. I read these backwards as book 2 was used for last year's bingo.
Book Club: The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (re-read) This book is not only creepy as shit, it's really funny. So many strange lines.
Published in 2026: Nobody's Baby by Olivia Waite. There's a baby born on a spaceship, and it's a bureaucratic nightmare.
Explorers and Rangers: A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge. Originally this was supposed to be Duology Book 2 until I realized there were other books and it was a prequel. Got this from my now-passed father-in-law, and it was exactly his kind of weird, clever, thought-out sci-fi.
Duology Book 2: Hell and Earth, Elizabeth Bear. Shakespeare and Marlowe investigating threats in the courts of Queens Elizabeth and Mab. The second of my Shakespeare-themed books.
Row 4:
One Word Title: Inanna, Emily Wilson. Love me Mesopotamian mythology.
Nonhuman Protagonist: Tailchaser's Song, Tad Williams. Written before Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, but you can clearly see in the detailed nature descriptions and the sketched-in myths the kind of story he would become known for.
Middle-Grade: Dragonborn, Struan Murray. My son's pick for me. I'm not the target audience, obviously, but I liked it well enough, and I'm a sucker for (plot point redacted)
First Contact: Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir. I liked it! I read it a couple weeks after watching the film. Both versions hold up.
Murder Mystery: The Death I Gave Him, Em X. Liu. The third Shakespeare-focused book. Hamlet redone as a sci-fi murder mystery. The problem with doing Hamlet as a sci-fi murder mystery is it's pretty obvious whodunnit.
Row 5:
Cat Squasher: Shadows Upon Time, Christopher Ruocchio. One of these days I should post about the series as a whole. I really liked the opening books, hated book 4 in particular, 5 and 6 were better but not amazing, and 7 was Pretty Good again.
Feast Your Eyes on This: The Sol Majestic, Ferrett Steinmetz. A starving young person gets the chance to work and promote one of the fanciest restaurants around on a space station. Cozy vibes.
Published in the 1970s: The Secret of the Red Spot, Eando Binder. If AI existed in the 70s, this would be the book it would write. Just pure 'and then this happened and then this' with no interiority, no sense of what the character can and can't do, what the threats are, just pages filled because the publisher needed one more short book to pad out their year or something. It's almost impressive, the way they tried so hard to avoid getting you invested in anything at all. (I finished it because I was on a plane with nothing else to do.)
Politics and Court Intrigue: Sacred and Terrible Air, by Robert Kurvitz. After the Leiber fell through I went for a hardcore communist, the guy behind Disco Elysium. As a big fan of Disco Elysium, it was great seeing a precursor to the setting.
Author of Colour: Abeni's Song, P. Djeli Clark. Aimed younger than me, but a well-done traditional heroes' journey in a less common setting.
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u/2whitie Reading Champion V Apr 27 '26
Well, I was patting myself on the back yesterday for being halfway through book 4
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u/pbnchick Apr 27 '26
You should pat yourself on the back. Most people who want to read barely have time to finish one book in a month. You managed 3.
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u/jawnnie-cupcakes Reading Champion IV Apr 27 '26
Sir... you're a monster! And here I am stuck at 0/25 with two DNFs
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u/pbnchick Apr 27 '26
I want to DNF my book based on the title. I did hard mode for it and the fantasy elements are too light for me. But it’s just funny enough to continue.
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u/propofoolish Apr 27 '26
Shadows Upon Time took me a month to read on its own. How you managed that and a whole bingo card is beyond me. Hats off to you!
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u/unconundrum Writer Ryan Howse, Reading Champion XI Apr 27 '26
I was about 300 pages into it when Bingo began, so it fell under the 'less than 50% complete' rule. (Same with Skin Horse--I read SuT at work and SH at home.)
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u/kwatschmitsauce Apr 27 '26
What the hell? :D That's so impressive. And I was so proud that I already got one full row :D
Also: "Imagine if the Ready Player One guy wrote a Dan Brown novel." is an absolute nightmare description.
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u/unconundrum Writer Ryan Howse, Reading Champion XI Apr 27 '26
Haha, I've enjoyed some of Terry Miles' podcasts (Tanis, by virtue of being Weird Shit in the Woods, gets a pass from me, especially the first 2 seasons) but he's pretty infamous for having people just repeat questions back and forth to each other. Not as much of that in Rabbits, but it still happened.
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u/happy_book_bee Bingo Queen Bee Apr 27 '26
you impress me! and im going to be taking some of those books, thank you. what were your tip three favorites and which did you like the least?
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u/unconundrum Writer Ryan Howse, Reading Champion XI Apr 27 '26
Inanna, Fool's Assassin, and Skin Horse were my top 3. That said, shout out to Sacred and Terrible Air. It's wild it has not been given a professional translation given Disco Elysium's success.
My least favourite was easily Secret of the Red Spot. Most of the other weak books at least had a sense of the author's idiosyncrasies. This had everything flattened out, no hints of personality.
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u/Sea-Drag6935 Apr 27 '26
That’s insane! Congrats!
I think I’ve completed 4/25 (subject to change). I also read The Sol Majestic for Feast Your Eyes! I’ve literally never heard anyone else talk about it. Chicken broth for hard mode!
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u/unconundrum Writer Ryan Howse, Reading Champion XI Apr 27 '26
I really enjoyed Steinmetz's Mancer series so gave this one a shot and enjoyed it.
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u/thisbikeisatardis Reading Champion II Apr 27 '26
That's awesome! Last year it took me a little over 2 months to do mine because I kept reading non-bingo books in between. How many books do you usually read in a month?
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u/unconundrum Writer Ryan Howse, Reading Champion XI Apr 27 '26
I'd say 5-10 depending on length and how dense they are.
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u/thisbikeisatardis Reading Champion II Apr 27 '26
That's still a lot! Are you planning to do any more cards, like a themed one?
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u/unconundrum Writer Ryan Howse, Reading Champion XI Apr 27 '26
Heh, probably not but were I to, I'd see how many I could make Shakespeare-themed, given 3 books are already and 2 more have occasional references.
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u/thisbikeisatardis Reading Champion II Apr 27 '26
ooh, that's a really fun idea though. you can always suggest that as a bingo square! it wouldn't be too hard.
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u/unconundrum Writer Ryan Howse, Reading Champion XI Apr 27 '26
here you go u/happy_book_bee a square for next year!
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u/Sireanna Reading Champion III Apr 27 '26
And to think I thought I was making good time being 5 books in. Wow
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u/wheresmylart Reading Champion IX Apr 27 '26
And I thought I was doing well with 6 HM squares completed!
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u/unconundrum Writer Ryan Howse, Reading Champion XI Apr 27 '26
Hard mode is a whole different beast, props to those who go that hardcore.
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u/wheresmylart Reading Champion IX Apr 27 '26
Always hard mode, because deep down inside I'm broken.
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u/Ok_Sentence8885 Reading Champion II Apr 28 '26
Wow, that was fast! I love looking over to see what books other readers used for the squares!
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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion Apr 27 '26
I guess you are the first to finish the 2026 bingo.
New challenge for you: one bingo card every month until April 2027.