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?