Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

I'm still chipping away at this year's BINGO but it is December, time to get some ideas for next year!

As usual, I'll just recreate these for those that have a specific challenge they want to meet:

Historian Challenge
Graphic Novel Challenge
Subgenre Focus Challenge
Standalone Challenge
Explorer Challenge
Awards Challenge
Female Author Challenge
Short Story Challenge
Series Completist Challenge

Here's this year's card, to remind you what we've just done:



Here are the slots we keep year after year since they already provide a good basic stretch across things we should all try to do when reading:
Alternate form
Anthology
Award Winner
New-To-You Author
Published before ??? (I'll pick some date)
Published in 2025
Book that was Free (since that's just the center square)
Translated from another language


And our list of existing suggestions, new ones always welcome

Genres:
High Fantasy
Hard Sci-Fi
Speculative
Space Opera
Epic Fantasy
Young Adult
Middle Grade
Urban Fantasy
Humour
Romance
Mystery
Apocalyptic / Dystopian
Optimistic / Utopian
Non-fiction SFF
Fantasy of Manners
Arthurian
Weird West
Romantasy

Authors:
Female Author
Male Author
LGBTQ Author
Author of Color
By a favorite author
Indigenous
With a disability
Non-English author (kind of same as "Translated")
Indie Author

Features:
Female/Male/etc protagonist
Non-human protagonist
Some kind of fantasy creature (dragon, unicorn, demon, god)
Features some SF creature (alien, AI)
Features some kind of job (librarian, doctor, ruler, cop/detective)
Immortality
Time Travel
Distant Future/Past
Parallel/Portal Worlds
Alternate Timelines
Non-Western Country or Culture
Set in a real, non-English-speaking country
Military SF
Near Future
Social SF
Religion
Mythology
Fairytale / folklore
Colony
School
Lost civilization
Generation ship
Features a character with wings/tail/other unusual feature
Tech/Magic run amok
Bio/Nano-tech
Talking animals
Virtual Reality
A holiday (Christmas, Halloween, something specific to the world)
A station or an inn
Telepathy/Psychic
Invasion
Clone/Doppleganger
Takes place in a certain location (continent, underground, etc)

"Punks":
Steampunk/Gaslight
Cyberpunk
Silkpunk
Solarpunk / Clifi
Biopunk
Decopunk
Atompunk
Dieselpunk
Elfpunk
Dreampunk
Gunpowder/Flintlock Fantasy (not really punk but goes with the rest)
A punk character :D You know the kind with spiky green hair and piercings and probably in a band and stuff


"Metadata":
Number of pages
Short story/novella/novelette
Beautiful cover
Cover that is -some colour-
Debut novel
Standalone novel
Last book in a series
Omnibus
SF/F Translated from other than English
Made into a TV show or movie
Media Tie-in
Based on a game
Shared World (multi-author series)
Pre-20th Century SF/F
SF/F Graphic Novel
Complete a duology/trilogy
E-book / Audiobook
A special letter or word in the book title
Published in a certain month of the year
Prequel / Sequel

Thank you, Andrea, for putting your energy into this. I really enjoyed my first bingo game this year and look forward to a new one in 2026.

I'm feeling unusually ambivalent about next year's Bingo so far - I'm sure that won't last 😆But I will put in an early request for Reread category.

This was (I think) my 4th year to do the Bingo, and I repeat, this is my favorite challenge. I have completed all 4. I plan to participate again, even if you pick a category I dislike! Thank you for doing this for us! Planning the books for the year is fun for me and I look forward to doing it NYD! After the Rose Bowl parade. heh heh

I just read that January is International Gothic Reading Month. Maybe a gothic fantasy category?

Any more suggestions? I'm not putting the card together just yet so still have some time. If there was a series you needed motivation to keep reading, can suggest a BINGO slot that fits for that one.

I've got about 17 ideas currently, which includes the standard ones we use every year and the two suggestions above, so there's room for about 8 more :)

Might be fun to have something related to the cover of the book, or something to do with the title? And I usually toss in a genre like urban fantasy, any preferences? Romantasy is a new one and very popular right now, might be interesting to force some hard core SF fan to try something they were avoiding like the plague? XD

I mean trying out new stuff is the whole point of the BINGO, and you can always set the goal to not be the whole card if there's really something you don't want to read ^_^

Always up for Urban Fantasy

Maybe something featuring traditional horror-type villains (like vampires or werewolves)

Maybe a cover scavenger hunt type of thing--building on cover or tree/plant on cover--something like that

a book with a cover that obvously looks like another book and the other book. it happens a lot and reminds me of the movies you'd see in redbox that would try to trick folks.

sword and sorcery

I have a cyberpunk novel that has lingered on my TBR for far too long.
Would Assassins be a viable category? I have several books that would fit.
I always like Arthurian books or apocalyptic or Weird West.

We just did vampire, weird west and urban fantasy in this year's BINGO, and Arthurian was the year before, but we've not done cyberpunk for some time.

Assassin and werewolf would work, as would sword & sorcery maybe make it so you you need a group or duo with at least one with a sword and another a mage, though we already did swordsman this year so might be a bit too similar. Maybe go with Epic Fantasy or High Fantasy.

I'm kind of liking "Tree on the cover", I'll have to look around see how often it comes up to be sure its not too hard...shouldn't be....

Got a first attempt tossed together, inspired by various books I've yanked out to read next year and inspired by the suggestions above. Gonna sit it it a day or two before I make it official so any last minute suggestions could still be incorporated.

The basic challenges are set up, BINGO will be coming soon.

Older challenges are still there, just need to scroll down to find them and update if forgot to add some books to your shelves. Don't know where everyone else is, but I've still go another 7 hours to finish off those 75 pages left in my book!

*drumroll* And the great unveiling of the 2026 BINGO Card!!



The canine slot was inspired by the werewolf suggestion, feel free to go lupine or vulpine to fill it, its hard to fit a lot of text into that little square. At the time I had already tossed in a feline so I figured I covered both types of pet lovers this way.

Also figured that magical sword one could cover Sword & Sorcery as well as Arthurian, as well as what I had in mind (I did mention I was reading the Elric Saga)

The duo is hopefully self explanatory, I was channeling Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser kind of idea.

Featuring memories can cover things like amnesia, or something like Total Recall or other memory manipulations.

Bonus points if you can read the Gothic book in Gothic Reading month in January, here's the official link https://americangothicsociety.com/int... (note you'll have to pick one that is SFF not say an Agatha Christie mystery)

*edit*
I noted a few typos/issues with the card so uploaded a new copy but none of the categories changed, just some wording

I started a number of series last year to fill slots in the Bingo, so 2nd Book will be easy. Actually, I think most of this year's options should be pretty easy - famous last words 😝

Thank you for a fun challenge! Happy New Year! 🎉

Yay! Looks good. Thank you!

LOL, ok I was about to write that I felt the hardest one will be the tree on the cover because its not a normal thing one can Google a list of...but then I thought, ok, let's see if I search for a Goodreads list about trees, and sure enough, a list of books with trees on the cover popped up!

Still need to find an SF/F one that I haven't read but at least the book itself doesn't need to be about trees :)

For me, the Central America square may be the most difficult. Are we counting Mexico as Central America or is it part of North America?

I'm counting it as Central, ultimately its to read something that doesn't take place in the U.S. since so much English language SFF does take place there (if its not in England the rest of the time).

In particular I noted a rise in fantasy and horror that takes place in Mexico recently (not sure of about SF) so I was sort of aiming for that but not wanting to restrict to a single country if someone managed to find something in one of the others (bonus points if you do since those are harder to find!)

Wanda wrote: "For me, the Central America square may be the most difficult. Are we counting Mexico as Central America or is it part of North America?"

Mexico is geographically and politically counted as part of Central America.