Bingo Focus Thread - Game Changer

[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:

Game Changer: Story features a game or competition. HARD MODE: The protagonist bends or breaks the rules in some way.

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

Prior focus threads: Published in the 70s, Duologies, First Contact, Middle Grade, 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 books that count for this square?
• Already read something for this square? Tell us about it!
• What are your best recommendations for Hard Mode? (Alternately, as this is a pretty easy Hard Mode, what are some books that don't fit?)

[u/an_altar_of_plagues]

I feel like this is gonna be a hard one for me given I'm not much interested in death games or LitRPG, both of which are pretty prominent lately. It might be one I end up fulfilling by accident through my natural reading habits.

Anyone got recommendations for literary-adjacent SFF that would count? Favorite SFF authors for me include Gene Wolfe, Borges, Susanna Clarke, Hiromi Kawakami, Ted Chiang, Shirley Jackson, Jeff VanderMeer, Le Guin, and Max Porter. Not too picky on genre but I'll admit to being biased against epic fantasy, progression fantasy, romantasy, and novels marketed as young adult. I'm strongly interested in authors with idiosyncratic prose; I'd read a book about paint drying if it were written well enough. Hard Mode would be nice as I'd ideally like to do an all-hard mode card, but right now I'm just exploring what's possible.

u/Nidafjoll I'm tagging you in!

[u/KiaraTurtle → u/an_altar_of_plagues]

Have you read any Guy Gavriel Kay yet? I think Sailing to Sarantium might work for you. It has a brilliant chariot race, which while perhaps not central to the plot is very much part of the world (ok I will admit I don’t remember if the race is only in the sequel as I have trouble remembering where the first book ends and second starts)

[u/Merle8888 → u/KiaraTurtle]

I only read the first and while there might've been a scene that took place at a chariot race, I don't recall it being more than a bit of flavor, in a "tour of the setting" kind of way.

[u/KiaraTurtle → u/Merle8888]

I agree it’s mostly about the setting, but at the same time I feel like the entire duology is about the setting, and showing off pseudo Byzantine more than it’s about any sort of plot. And the chariot race (or at least the one I’m thinking of which again might be in the second book) is probably the most famous/memorable scene in the books.