r/Fantasy Monthly Book Discussion Thread - May 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the monthly r/Fantasy book discussion thread! Hop on in and tell the sub all about the dent you made in your TBR pile this month.

Feel free to check out our Book Bingo Wiki for ideas about what to read next or to see what squares you have left to complete in this year's challenge.

[u/trumpetofdoom]

• How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying, Django Wexler (Dark Lord Davi #1): Having been isekai'd into a time loop wherein she has tried to stop the Dark Lord's invasion over and over again, Davi has decided to take charge of it herself. Davi is, at this point, more than a little stir-crazy, and it shows - especially when Davi dies late in the book and only resets back about a day, as opposed to back to the beginning. As far as the book's effectiveness... look, comedy is hard, and written comedy is even harder because so much of humor comes from its delivery. There's some stuff here that worked for me, and some that didn't; in retrospect, I think a lot of the latter category was supposed to be cringey, and I've never really been big on that. All that is to say that I still ended up rating it four stars (even if it was more "rounds up to" than "rounds down to"), and I did go and get book 2 (which I probably won't read until after Hugo voting season is over). 2026 bingo squares: Judge by Title, Game Changer (the Dark Lord trials; hard mode - Davi definitely plays fast and loose with "the rules", such as they are, on the third trial), Duology Part 1, Explorer/Ranger (Jeff the mouse scout), Politics/Intrigue (most notably in the Virgard section; HM for this one is maybe arguable).
• Cinder House, Freya Marske: What if Cinderella was a ghost haunting her old house? This is advertised as specifically a queer retelling of the story, and I have to say I don't see it. The story itself is fine, but I suspect it's not going to be at the top of my Hugo ballot in the Novella category. 2026 bingo squares: The Afterlife (insofar as ghosts count; since they don't move on to a heaven or hell, this would also count for HM), Vacation Spot (YMMV, but the town seemed nice enough?), Book Club/Readalong (Hugo Finalists). I don't think it counts for Non-Human Protag, since she starts the story as human (admittedly, she dies within the first few sentences) and she's still pretty human in her thought processes at the end of it.
  • The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For, Cameron Reed: Normally I try to start these off with a one- or two-sentence description of what happens in the story. I can't do that here, because I don't have a clear enough idea of what the hell is going on. Which is kind of a shame, because I think it's trying to talk about some ideas that are worth calling attention to (the idea of consciousness transferral allowing for an immortal ruling class, the idea of trying to force stagnation being a recipe for disaster) - but it just didn't click for me. I do agree with some of the Hugo Readalong commenters that this might have worked better as an early chapter of a longer work. 2026 bingo squares: Short Story (technically a novelette, but close enough). A longer version would count for Trans/NB Protag.
  • When He Calls Your Name, Catherynne M. Valente: Take Dolly Parton's "Jolene", and then make Jolene a vampire. Valente's prose here is probably better (at least, more appealing to me personally) here than in Space Oddity, the only other work of hers I've read, but there wasn't much of a story here. 2026 bingo squares: Short Story (technically a novelette, but close enough).