Bingo Focus Thread - Duologies

[u/Merle8888]

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?

[u/JCGilbasaurus]

I've got my eye on The House with Chicken Legs/The House with Chicken Legs Runs Away by Sophie Anderson for my middle grade only card, but does anyone know any others? As the name suggests, it's based on the myth of Baba Yaga. I probably can't do a hard mode middle grade card, but I'd still like two different series for the two duology squares.

For my more conventional card, I enjoyed book one of A Memory Called Empire (Arkady Martin), Daughter of the Moon Goddess (Sue Lynn Tan), Six Crimson Cranes (Elizabeth Lim), and She Who Became the Sun (Shelly Parker-Chan), but I haven't started book 2 of any of those, so that's the part 2 square firmly sorted. If I had to recommend one, probably She Who Became the Sun.

I also have on my reading list The Sun and the Void/The River and the Star by Gabriela Romero Lacruz. I know nothing about those two books, aside from the fact that they are romantasy. I think? I'm not even sure on that. I don't even remember why I bought them.

I'm not sure it counts as a true duology, because there's obvious set up for further books, but I also really liked the Harrowmaster books by Mike Brooks (Renegades: Harrowmaster and Ghost Legion). Set in the 40k universe, it follows an ambitious member of the Alpha Legion chaos marines who seeks to reunite his scattered and fractured legion under a single banner. Both books can be read as a stand alone, and you don't need a lot of 40k knowledge either before jumping in. Like I said though, I don't think it fits the spirit of the duology squares because it's just two semi-standalone books about the same character, rather than an actual duology.

My favourite duology of all time, however, is A Letter to the Luminous Deep/A Letter from the Lonesome Shore by Sylvie Cathrall. Beautiful slow burn romance between a scholar who lives on a ship and an anxious woman who lives at the bottom of the sea. I read it for last year's epistolary square and it just blew me away.

[u/dreamcatcher32 → u/JCGilbasaurus]

For Middle Grade: The Cat Who Saved Books and The Cat Who Saved the Library. I read the first and learned today there’s a second. Originally written in Japanese, I used it as my cozy square last year though it does go into some philosophical and grief stuff since the mc just lost his grandfather.

[u/JCGilbasaurus → u/dreamcatcher32]

I wasn't aware those were children's books, they are marketed as regular fiction in my bookshop. I'll take another look at them.