Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

A place to plan out how you are going to achieve your BINGO goals. Also handy to get ideas from other people to fill in some of those more difficult spots.

B1: SF/F Novel Adapted for TV/Movie - The Iliad
B2: Genre Blender - Barnabas Tew and The Case of The Hellenic Abduction
B3: Military SF/F - The Guns of Empire
B4: SF/F First Published in 2021 - Ariadne
B5: SF/F With Non-Human Protagonist - Fifteen Dogs

I1: Protagonist who is a Ruler - The Odyssey
I2: SF/F Translated into English - The Aeneid
I3: SF/F Book with 900+ Pages - Dante Valentine: The Complete Series
I4: SF/F Alternate Form - The Wake (Graphic Novel)
I5: Steampunk/Gaslight SF/F - Whitechapel Gods

N1: SF/F Novel by Author of Colour - The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps
N2: Apocalyptic SF/F - Riders
N3: SF/F Book that was Free - Northworld Trilogy
N4: SF/F Featuring a Religion - Paradise Lost
N5: SF/F Anthology - Demons: Encounters with the Devil and His Minions, Fallen Angels, and the Possessed

G1: SF/F Book with a Purple Cover - Demigods Magicians: Percy and Annabeth Meet the Kanes
G2: Non-Fiction Book About SF/F - The Egyptian Myths: A Guide to the Ancient Gods and Legends
G3: Standalone SF/F Novel - A Thousand Ships
G4: SF/F Based on Mythology/Folkore - Circe
G5: SF/F Humour - Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

O1: Award Winning SF/F - The Song of Achilles
O2: New to you Author - Scar Night
O3: SF/F Published pre-1950 - The Divine Comedy
O4: SF/F Book with a Beautiful Cover - Legends of the Ring
O5: SF/F for Middle-Grade/Children - Loki's Wolves

B1: SF/F Novel Adapted for TV/Movie - Dune
B2: Genre Blender - Midnight Riot
B3: Military SF/F - Old Man's War
B4: SF/F First Published in 2021 - Gearbreakers
B5: SF/F With Non-Human Protagonist - Network Effect

I1: Protagonist who is a Ruler - How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse
I2: SF/F Translated into English - Night Watch
I3: SF/F Book with 900+ Pages - The Stand
I4: SF/F Alternate Form - Mouse Guard: Fall of 1152
I5: Steampunk/Gaslight SF/F - Perdido Street Station

N1: SF/F Novel by Author of Colour - The City We Became
N2: Apocalyptic SF/F - Knife of Never Letting Go
N3: SF/F Book that was Free - Vicious
N4: SF/F Featuring a Religion - Alif the Unseen
N5: SF/F Anthology - The Djinn Falls in Love

G1: SF/F Book with a Purple Cover - Bone Witch
G2: Non-Fiction Book About SF/F - The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
G3: Standalone SF/F Novel - The Space Between Worlds
G4: SF/F Based on Mythology/Folkore - Deathless
G5: SF/F Humour - Snuff

O1: Award Winning SF/F - Ancillary Justice
O2: New to you Author - The Angel of the Crows
O3: SF/F Published pre-1950 - At the Mountains of Madness
O4: SF/F Book with a Beautiful Cover - Black Sun
O5: SF/F for Middle-Grade/Children - Tunnel of Bones

I'm attempting a loose elves/fairies theme. We'll see how well I stick to it.

B1: SFF Adapted to Movie/TV
The Fellowship of the Ring (reread)
B2: SFF Genre-Blender
Detective Strongoak and the Case of the Dead Elf, reading
B3: Military SFF
Ender's Game, 1/4/2021
B4: SFF First Published in 2021
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, 09/11/2021
B5: SFF w/Non-Human Protagonist
The Two Towers (reread)

I1: Protagonist Who is a Ruler
The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, 01/15/2021
I2: SFF Translated into English
Blood of Elves, reading
I3: SFF w/900+ Pages
The Way of Kings
I4: SFF Alternate Form
Beowulf, 01/06/2021
I5: Steampunk or Gaslamp
Clockwork Boys
Goblins and Snowflakes

N1: SFF by Author of Color
Ring Shout, 1/5/2021
N2: Apocalyptic SFF
Faerie Apocalypse
N3: SFF Book that was Free
Unfallen Dead
N4: SFF Featuring a Religion
TBD
N5: SFF Anthology
Welcome to Bordertown

G1: SFF with a Purple Cover
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 09/19/2021
G2: Non-Fiction Book About SFF
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
G3: Stand-Alone SFF Novel
The Stolen Child
G4: SFF Based on Myth or Folklore
A Midsummer Night's Dream
G5: SFF Humor
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (reading)

O1: Award Winning SFF
Artificial Condition, 09/19/2021
O2: New-to-You Author
The Cruel Prince
O3: SFF Published pre-1950
The King of Elfland's Daughter
O4: SFF with Beautiful Cover
The Fall of Gondolin
O5: Children’s/Middle Grade SFF
A Wrinkle in Time, 06/16/2021

In a quick perusal of my TBR shelves, I have noticed several books of over 800 pages but I will need to do a more thorough search for one of 900+ pages.

Angie wrote: "I'm attempting a loose elves/fairies theme. We'll see how well I stick to it."

Before I went with Gods/Angels/Demons I had thought of Fairies and all related "humanoid" fantasy creatures regardless if they were Norse, Celtic or something else. But discovered other than the giant Shannara series, I apparently didn't have all that many in my house :o) Mind you...Shannara could probably fill an entire years worth of reading anyway...

Detective Strongoak and the Case of the Dead Elf sounds like a lot of fun! I found a free book on Amazon where Zeus hires a detective so I also have a silly detective tale this year (usually I go for a romance so I can roll my eyes at all the heaving chests and bulging muscles) Also seems we may both be working our way through the Norse myths.

And haha, I was regretting having read The Fall of Gondolin this year since it had such a beautiful cover...btw if you read the rest of the LotR you can use it for your non-human protagonist since they are hobbits!

Tony wrote: "In a quick perusal of my TBR shelves, I have noticed several books of over 800 pages but I will need to do a more thorough search for one of 900+ pages."

I had to "cheat" with an omnibus, but the omnibus is a single entry in GR so it counts. Don't know how I'll read it though, it weighs a ton. This would be a good year for another A Song of Ice and Fire book to come out :)

The Pre-1950 (or 1940 as it was for 2020) is always pretty easy for me - there are a number of my favourite authors who wrote in that period - Wells, Burroughs, 'Doc' Smith. Browsing gutenberg.org will usually find something of interest from the period. I've also downloaded a few issues of The Shadow pulp magazine.

Cixin Lu's Three-Body Problem trilogy has been in my Kindle list for a while, so I'm thinking that might be my translated entry - or I may use that as Author of Colour and go with the Dwarves or Elves series from Markus Heitz for the Translated slot. Of course, anything by Verne fills both the Pre-1950 and Translated slots :)

Andrea wrote: "Also seems we may both be working our way through the Norse myths."

That's awesome! I've always loved that branch of mythology, and I've wanted to delve more deeply into it. I read The Saga of the Volsungs: The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer a while back, and I read Gaiman's Norse Mythology when it first came out. Hopefully I can make a dent this year.

I love that you're tackling some Egyptian mythology. I know very little about that (other than what I learned via Stargate: SG-1, lol.)

Andrea wrote: "And haha, I was regretting having read The Fall of Gondolin this year since it had such a beautiful cover...btw if you read the rest of the LotR you can use it for your non-human protagonist since they are hobbits!"

Great idea, thanks! I'm trying to do a big Tolkien study this year, so I'm trying to stick a bunch of his books into challenges. I was supposed to read The Fall of Gondolin this year, but I'm pleased now that I didn't.

Tony wrote: "In a quick perusal of my TBR shelves, I have noticed several books of over 800 pages but I will need to do a more thorough search for one of 900+ pages."

I'm kind of glad I've put The Way of Kings off for so long. It clocks in at just over 1,000 pages.

I am trying this one again....lets see how I do this year!

Hello, it's the first time I join the bingo, I want to read more sci-fi this year, I usually end up reading more fantasy and other genres.

So far, I have this plan:

Adapted for TV/Movie - Arrival
B2: Genre Blender - ???
B3: Military SF/F - Old Man's War
B4: SF/F First Published in 2021 - ????
B5: SF/F With Non-Human Protagonist - All Systems Red

I1: Protagonist who is a Ruler - ???
I2: SF/F Translated into English - We (Adapting it to not in English or Spanish, since I am a Spanish speaker and I am used to reading in English)
I3: SF/F Book with 900+ Pages - ???
I4: SF/F Alternate Form - ???
I5: Steampunk/Gaslight SF/F - The Earl of Brass

N1: SF/F Novel by Author of Colour - Kindred (reading with a book club)
N2: Apocalyptic SF/F - ???
N3: SF/F Book that was Free - On Basilik Station - David Weber
N4: SF/F Featuring a Religion - ???
N5: SF/F Anthology - Africanfuturism: An Anthology

G1: SF/F Book with a Purple Cover - ???
G2: Non-Fiction Book About SF/F - ???
G3: Standalone SF/F Novel - Stars Are my Destination
G4: SF/F Based on Mythology/Folkore - ???
G5: SF/F Humour - ???

O1: Award Winning SF/F - Foundation
O2: New to you Author - Infomocracy
O3: SF/F Published pre-1950 - The Machine Stops
O4: SF/F Book with a Beautiful Cover - Autonomous
O5: SF/F for Middle-Grade/Children - ???

I also have at home/available: Fledging, Hyperion, Semiosis, A Memory Called Empire, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, Illuminae, The Three Body Problem, The Icarus Hunt, Momentary Stasis, All Our Wrong Todays, The Remnant Keeper, The Birthday of the World and Other Stories, Station Eleven, Killing Gravity, Quietus, Exhalation, Doomsday Book, China Mountain Zhang, Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, The Just City, The Left Hand of Darkness, Aurora Rising, Wild Seed, Parable of the Sower, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Skyward,

I don't know if any of those books fits a square, I am self-isolated, trying to save, so I prefer to read the books I already have. Any suggestion is welcome

Gabriela wrote: "Hello, it's the first time I join the bingo, I want to read more sci-fi this year, I usually end up reading more fantasy and other genres."

I also try to resist buying more books, I have so many already. And while I've borrowed a few books from the library during the pandemic (if I saw it sat on the shelves for a long time so wasn't "contaminated") I also avoided going out to get more books that way, so I totally understand!

I've only read one of the books in your available list and it is " The Left Hand of Darkness" which doesn't fit any of your leftover slots unfortunately. It is a good book though.

A couple things I found handy if you can read books on your computer or can download them to a tablet or ereader, is Project Gutenberg (the books are free to keep) or OpenLibrary (where you can only borrow, I *believe* it is international, at least I had no issues as a Canadian).

Baen also has a small Free Library - the Mythology/Folklore one is a little hard to fill in with a Science Fiction option but this one is based on Norse mythology and is a free download, it's on my to-read list this year because of that - https://www.baen.com/categories/free-... (Zelazny also has a few like Creatures of Light and Darkness, or Lords of Light)

And finally, you can pick how many books you want as a goal, don't have to complete the whole card, but hopefully with the vaccine finally out we'll be able to stop isolating...maybe by summer? Or even fall, but we've got all year to fill the BINGO :)

Thanks, Andrea. I love Project Gutenberg, their e-books are in much better quality than other websites.

I knew about the Baen Free Library, but I hadn't heard about that series, I will add it.

The latest calculations is that we won't have the vaccine BEFORE 2022, so self-isolation will continue

I will try to complete the whole bingo, but I won't stress if I don't make it.

OpenLibrary has a great selection but they aren't native ebooks, they are scans of physical books, so you either have to read the PDF's which are images, or they used software to convert the images to text epubs so the typos abound. But you will find things that are unavailable anywhere else, and of course free and accessible from home.

Zelazny's Lord of Light is available, it's a Hindu themed SF (though one could argue it's fantasy, but as per that other discussion thread I call it SF because it takes place on another planet, and the creatures they come up against are really aliens, their magic is powered by tech, etc) - https://openlibrary.org/works/OL13992...

One downside of Baen is that they are generally books that weren't all that great to start with (not always, but in general) so I don't know if Northworld Trilogy will be any good :) Zelazny on the other hand is generally excellent.

Great tip, Andrea! Many thanks!

Gabriela wrote: "I also have at home/available: Fledging, Hyperion, Semiosis, A Memory Called Empire, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, Illuminae, The Three Body Problem, The Icarus Hunt, Momentary Stasis, All Our Wrong Todays, The Remnant Keeper, The Birthday of the World and Other Stories, Station Eleven, Killing Gravity, Quietus, Exhalation, Doomsday Book, China Mountain Zhang, Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, The Just City, The Left Hand of Darkness, Aurora Rising, Wild Seed, Parable of the Sower, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Skyward,

I don't know if any of those books fits a square, I am self-isolated, trying to save, so I prefer to read the books I already have. Any suggestion is welcome"

Station Eleven is tagged Apocalyptic, so you could use it for that.

Illuminae might be able to work for SFF Alternate Form because it's a series of interviews and memos and things.

Hyperion would be perfect for SFF Featuring Religion

Hope that helps!

Thanks, Angie. I joined this groups only a few days ago and everyone has been si kind :)

There are a couple of free online services - Book Bub and Book Barbarian (I'm sure there are others) - that send daily emails of ebooks that are either free or 99 cents, although 99 cents in the US doesn't always mean 99 cents everywhere else. There is also at least one discussion list in this group where a list of free sci-fi ebooks for that day is listed - again, free in the US, not necessarily elsewhere. These are good ways of building your library without straining the budget.

I find a lot of these books are series starters, in the hope that you will buy the rest of the series at full price. But there are also a number of times where I have found a complete series (sometimes even as many as 9 books) for a total of 99 cents. This generally occurs when the series has been finished for a while, and the author is hoping to generate some extra sales on old product.

Thank you, Tony. I already use Bookbub that gives info of deals that are also available in my country, I will check Book Barbarian

Going to try and use this to motivate myself to get through some things on my physical TBR. Here's my tentative list. The only one I really need to figure out is non-fiction, since I don't own any non-fiction that fits the prompt.

B1: SF/F Novel Adapted for TV/Movie - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
B2: Genre Blender - All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
B3: Military SF/F - Valor's Trial by Tanya Huff
B4: SF/F First Published in 2021 - A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine
B5: SF/F With Non-Human Protagonist - The Bellmaker by Brian Jacques

I1: Protagonist who is a Ruler - Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn
I2: SF/F Translated into English - How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom by Dojyomaru
I3: SF/F Book with 900+ Pages - The Griffin Mage Trilogy by Rachel Neumeier
I4: SF/F Alternate Form - Locke & Key, volume 1 by Joe Hill
I5: Steampunk/Gaslight SF/F - Dreadnought by Cherie Priest

N1: SF/F Novel by Author of Colour - Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz
N2: Apocalyptic SF/F - Ark by Stephen Baxter
N3: SF/F Book that was Free - Fields of Wrath by Mickey Zucker Reichart
N4: SF/F Featuring a Religion - Priestess of the White by Trudi Canavan?
N5: SF/F Anthology - The Book of Swords, edited by Gardner Dozois

G1: SF/F Book with a Purple Cover - The Spellsong War by L.E. Modesitt
G2: Non-Fiction Book About SF/F - TBD
G3: Standalone SF/F Novel - The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson
G4: SF/F Based on Mythology/Folkore - Hades' Daughter by Sara Douglass
G5: SF/F Humour - The Wild Ways by Tanya Huff

O1: Award Winning SF/F - The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
O2: New to you Author - Sky Without Stars by Jessica Brody
O3: SF/F Published pre-1950 - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
O4: SF/F Book with a Beautiful Cover - Masks and Shadows by Stephanie Burgis
O5: SF/F for Middle-Grade/Children - Tamora Carter: Goblin Queen by Jim Hines

It says at the top that this thread is where we plan out our BINGO goals. Is this also where we should list our completions?

What I do:

I have this list here since it helps with my planning, and also interesting to see what other people put to be inspired by in case there are some slots I don't know what to put in it. Just for my own personal reasons, I put potential books in plain text, and then once I've read it I change it to a link so I can glance through and see what slots still need reading. But people can post here however it works for them

The completion part is taken care of by the challenge itself, just associate the challenge with a shelf and make sure you put the book in question on that shelf. It will track which ones you finish and update your progress.

I also add a comment to my challenge where I say what book I read for what slot, but that really duplicates what I have here so don't need to do both if you don't want.

The Joy of Erudition wrote: "It says at the top that this thread is where we plan out our BINGO goals. Is this also where we should list our completions?"

In past years I've tracked my progress in the comments section of my challenge . (I haven't filled in any squares yet this year :(

I see. I didn't use the shelf-based thing at all for last year, I just put my completions in the thread. I guess I'll try the shelf this time. But for now, I'll just mention I got my first "BINGO" yesterday, filling up the N column.

I don't generally plan more than a couple of books ahead what I'll read next, so there won't be any plan blueprints from me here.

I am using the shelf and I plan to do a sort of "half year update" since some of my choices have change. I already had one squrare filled and I plan to fill one square per month.

Aha, discovered I had The Aeneid, which continues the tale of the Iliad/Odyssey so I can move Iliad to the "Movie" category and use The Aeneid for my "Translated" slot. Going to get really good coverage of my Classics this year...

After finishing Beguilement as my "beautiful cover" last night, I've gotten another BINGO, filling up the O column!

(And I'm using the shelf this time.)

No BINGO's filled in yet, though I'm about a third of a way through, but just discovered the book I had planned to read for the published in 2021 won't be available at least until Jan 2022 so going to have to take a look and see what else came out this year. Maybe due to the success of Song of Achilles and Circe I noticed quite a few recent releases of tales based on Greek Myths.

Somehow, every year, I manage to fill in at least half the board (I've got 12 now, and I do have two others in progress for the 0.5 to be really "halfway") without managing a single BINGO row or column, I don't do it on purpose so that's kind of impressive.

Andrea wrote: "Somehow, every year, I manage to fill in at least half the board (I've got 12 now, and I do have two others in progress for the 0.5 to be really "halfway") without managing a single BINGO row or co..."

Funny how you manage that :)

In my case, so far I manage three squares, two thaks to book clubs and I have three "on hold". I hope I manage to do some more this year, but I am having less time available now.

Up to 14 now with no BINGO, my next one will end that the trend though :)

Nearly August and I have only just finished my first Bingo column - column 4
B4 Purple Cover (Broomsticks & Burials)
I4 Non-fiction (FAB Facts)
N4 Stand Alone (Alien Space Tentacle Porn)
G4 Mythology (Norse Myths)
O4 Humour (Doctor Whom)

I've only finished two rows and no columns

By adding Ariadne and Loki's Wolves I got all the B's

I have 5 left, 2 for sure I'll tackle in October

Newbie here. This looks interesting. So the idea is to fill out the entire BINGO card, right? Do you restart each year with the same BINGO slots, or do you change them up each year? I won't try to join now in October, but I might give it a shot next year. I would probably have to give myself a freebie on the book with 900+ pages. I simply don't have the patience for such long books these days. Dune was one of my favorites as a young adult, but I doubt I could plow through now!

Georgann wrote: "Newbie here. This looks interesting. So the idea is to fill out the entire BINGO card, right?"

I think you can say you completed it if you fill out one row or column, actually, but it can be fun to try to do the whole card.

Hi Georgann, the BINGO challenges don't stay the same each year, although they aren't completely different each year either. Probably around late November or early December, we will start a thread (or use this thread) and ask for suggestions for next year's BINGO. Then, towards the end of the year, the mods - Andrea, Jim and myself - will decide on what the slots will be.

As it is run as a regular GR challenge (like the usually yearly challenge on your main profile page), you can pick how many books you want to read to consider the challenge complete, so like Joy said, you can set a challenge of say just 5. And each slot can be interpreted by you, like I've used the "translated into English" to read an Italian book translated into French since it was an excuse to practice my French :)

OK, thanks!! I'll look forward to the challenge!

I have filled 17 of the 25 slots, but still only have 1 column completed. I expect October will see a few more rows and columns completed. Most of the rest I have some ideas for and hope to complete the whole card.

I decided to use A Thousand Ships for my standalone. You'd think that would have been easy to fill, but most of my standalones went to other slots like published in 2021 or award winners or steampunk.

So that fills a row and a column, with 4 slots left to go.

Filled another column with the Steampunk Whitechapel Gods, with 3 more slots left

I have finished the 1s column:

B1 Adapted for TV - Lovecraft Country
I1 Genre Blender - What the Dead Said
N1 Military - Ironclads
G1 Published in 2021 - The Werewolf of Whitechapel
O1 Non-human Protagonist - Og-Grim-Dog

With only 7 slots left to fill, I expect most books to complete another row or column.

Filling the Free Book slot completed both the N row and the 3s column.

N1 Military - Ironclads
N2 900+ pages - Great North Road
N3 Free book - Toonopolis Gemini
N4 Standalone - Alien Space Tentacle Porn
N5 Pre-1950 - The Beast of Space

B3 Author of Colour - Mages by Chance (Terah Edun)
I3 Apocalyptic - Sand
N3 Free book - Toonopolis Gemini
G3 Religion - Screwtape Letters
O3 Anthology - Rogues

Parliament of Blood finished off my O row, so I now have 2 rows (N, O) and 3 columns (1, 3, 4) completed.

Thought I had only one more slot two go but seems I have two. I can easily fill the New to Me Author but let's see if I can get around to reading the one I originally picked out for that slot.

The religion one is still stumping me, but I'm sure given all the books I have read about demons and fallen angels and Greek/Norse gods I'll find something I can fill it with...saw Tony used Screwtape Letters...maybe I can kick out something else on my To Read pile and read that one, I came across it recently and sounded interesting, and given it was written by Lewis, should be decently religious :)

Or...I could use Paradise Lost, I had it as alternate form (Poem), but maybe I can just fall back on my default alternate of graphic novel and pick one of the many Sandman books I read this year (those have gods AND demons AND angels in them, sometimes all on the same page!)

Pirates of Aireon filled my Author new to me slot and If I Were An Evil Overlord filled the Protagonist is a ruler slot, so I only have the Beautiful cover slot to go.

I'm tempted to change my beautiful cover to this one:

I still have the New to Me Author to go...

Star Compass filled the Beautiful Cover slot, and that completes my Bingo card for this year.

Filled my last slot - New to me Author - with Scar Night. Completed the entire card with 3 weeks left to go.

Met 20 criteria, which resulted in 3 bingos for me.
B1 Six of Crows
B2 Slouch Witch
B3 Sheepfarmer's Daughter
B4 Project Hail Mary
B5 Sinister Magic

B1
I1 Namesake
N1 Legendborn
G1 A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
O1 Rosewater

B1
I2 The Last Wish
N3 The Black Tides of Heaven
G4 War for the Oaks
O5 The Trials of Morrigan Crow