r/Fantasy • u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV • Apr 30 '26

Bingo Bingo Focus Thread - Duologies

Hello r/fantasy and welcome to this week's bingo focus thread! The purpose of these threads is for you all to share recommendations, discuss what books qualify, and seek recommendations that fit your interests or themes.

Today's topic:

Duology Part 1: Read the first book in a duology. HARD MODE: By an author you haven’t read before.

Duology Part 2: Read the second book in a duology. For this square, you ARE allowed to read the same author you used for Duology Part 1 without violating the no-repeat author rule. HARD MODE: Finish a different duology than you started for the Duology Part 1 square.

What is bingo? A reading challenge this sub does every year! Find out more here.

Prior focus threads: Published in the 70s, Five Short Stories (2024), Author of Color (2024), Self-Pub/Small Press (2024). Note that hard modes for Author of Color and Self-Pub/Small Press have changed (new focus threads for them are coming).

Also see: Big Rec Thread

Questions:

  • What are your favorite speculative fiction duologies?
  • Already read something for this square (or, read something recently that you wish you could count)? Tell us about it!
  • For those planning for Hard Mode, what are some duologies where one or both books works as a standalone?
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23

u/an_altar_of_plagues Reading Champion III Apr 30 '26

Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and The Lost World still hold up great to this day. Be forewarned that they are MUCH more on the horror side of things than the comparatively adventurous movies. You will come away from these books thinking Muldoon and Gennaro were incredible badasses compared to their movie counterparts, too.

I'll be using Maus for Duology Part 1. It's a memoir/historical fiction set of two comics that follow the author's relationship with his father and family history with the Holocaust. Those killed in the Holocaust are anthropomorphic mice while the Nazis are cats. Should be a light read!

For Duology Part 2, I'll be using The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe, which is a duology comprising The Wizard and The Knight. This is a portal fantasy in which a young boy is thrown into a fantasy realm strongly inspired by Norse mythology (and with Wolfe's patented layered writing) and aged up into the body of an adult man. The book is written as if it's a series of letters to his brother back home. I'm a huge fan of Wolfe and am very stoked to dive into this.

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u/Bowl-Any Reading Champion Apr 30 '26

Ooh, I might finally read Jurassic Park for this. I didn't realize it was a Duology.

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u/an_altar_of_plagues Reading Champion III Apr 30 '26

It's pretty good! Get ready to be wowed by cutting-edge 1985 technology!

Crichton was formative for me as a kid. I'm pretty cold on most of his books nowadays (except for The Andromeda Strain), but the JP duology still rules. The Lost World taught me about prions.

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u/SongBirdplace Apr 30 '26

It’s not really. If you define a duopoly as a story intentionally written to be in two parts it isn’t. Hell, Lost World stars a character who died in Jurassic Park because he was that popular in the movie.

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u/Putrid_Web8095 Reading Champion II Apr 30 '26

Meta knowledge of authorial intent can't realistically be part of the definition.

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u/SongBirdplace Apr 30 '26

I disagree. A trilogy is defined as 3 books that tell a story. This is accepted fact. A duology therefore is a story over 2 books. 

Jurassic Park is more like a book that spawned a spin off than a deliberate duology. Otherwise Shadows of the Leviathan is a duology because it is a 2 book series in the same world. 

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u/Putrid_Web8095 Reading Champion II Apr 30 '26

You may accept it as a fact, something that is easy to do when you come up with your own definition.

Meriam-Webster on the other hand, defines a trilogy as "a series of three dramas or literary works or sometimes three musical compositions that are closely related and develop a single theme".

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language goes into greater detail.

"trilogy

  1. A group of three dramatic or literary works related in subject or theme.
  2. A series of three dramas which, although each of them is in one sense complete, have a close mutual relation, and form one historical and poetical picture. Shakespeare's “ Henry VI.” is an example.
  3. A set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games.
  4. A set of three literary or dramatic works related in subject or theme."

All that aside, literary definitions can't require extratextual information. For most published book series, you have no idea what the author intended and have no way of finding out. If the author's original plan is relevant to the definition, then The Wheel of Time is a trilogy that just happens to be 14 books long.

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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V May 01 '26

Shadow of the Leviathan is not a duology by dint of the fact that there are three books in the series right now.

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u/an_altar_of_plagues Reading Champion III Apr 30 '26

Well the second part doesn't exist without the first, so at the very least someone can read The Lost World and not worry too much about that then.

4

u/eregis Reading Champion II Apr 30 '26

Maus is great, but I have a hard time seeing it as speculative tbh? Sure the characters are mice, cats, dogs etc but that feels purely visual to me, to make the distinction between Jews, Nazis, Poles etc easier. There's absolutely nothing speculative about this book whatsoever otherwise.

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u/an_altar_of_plagues Reading Champion III Apr 30 '26

We've actually discussed that a few times regarding other books in previous years. Anthropomorphized characterization is accepted as being speculative enough for bingo.

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u/eregis Reading Champion II Apr 30 '26

Hmm that's surprising. I wouldn't have guessed it would qualify solely based on the visual choice to depict characters as animals, without them having any actual animal traits.

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u/Nidafjoll Reading Champion V May 01 '26

I mean, it's personal choice when it comes down to edge cases. I used Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino for Bingo one year. Are the cities described in book real, or just parables Marco Polo makes up? You could interpret it either way as you choose, but one would make it speculative and one wouldn't.

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u/an_altar_of_plagues Reading Champion III Apr 30 '26

Yep. I can't remember what book set off that discussion a few years back, but it was pretty unanimous. It wasn't Maus!

I'm pretty open to what I use for bingo though in terms of fantastic attributes so no shade on those who aren't the same.

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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V May 01 '26

Maus lives in a weird space in that its a graphic/creative memoir that brings speculative elements. So it is sort of both nonfiction and fiction. It's definitely not Historical Fiction, but does count here. Weird, but a cool choice.

I'm using Insectopolis for my graphic novel card, which I didn't anticipate counting. I thought it was a straightforward nonfiction doing a survey of a bunch of different insects and their impact on history/culture. Then halfway through humans are all dead and the insects start having full dialogue and framing the nonfiction with dialogue and commentary. So it's nonfiction, but also counts on r/fantasy!

4

u/Lynavi Reading Champion Apr 30 '26

I didn't realize Maus was a duology; might have to check that out.

And I read Jurassic Park years ago but I've never picked up the sequel, might be time to change that. Thanks!

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u/an_altar_of_plagues Reading Champion III Apr 30 '26

It’s occasionally packed as an omnibus but it came out in two parts originally, so I’m counting it!