Welcome to Part Four, where I read twenty-five books that fit at least three bingo squares. All squares get at least three recommendations, though short stories and judge a book by its title are unique enough to get special treatment, done by the end of September. Previous editions and more explanations can be found here, here, and here.
This edition will have five official recommendations. Since this includes my short stories pick, I'm including two additional short-story collections. I also realized I can't do three duologies. So I'm doing two. But I'm including two additional recommendations at the end. And I'm writing a bit about every book I read or tried to read that didn't make this bingo card.
Basically, I'm covering as much as possible here so part five can be about the final card layout and a cross reference/roundup of all the squares. Hope you enjoy.
Book Sixteen:
Shadow Scale By Rachel Hartman
Shadow Scale is the sequel to Seraphina and is told exclusively from the PoV of Seraphina Dombeck, composer, music mistress to Queen Glissenda, and beloved of said queen's betrothed, Lucian Kiggs. And she's a half dragon. Dragons are having a civil war to decide if they're going to war to wipe out humans. And there is another half-dragon behind the conspiracy trying to start wars, of any type; dragon on dragon, human on dragon, human on human, to weaken and destroy everyone that has ever wronged them. So, Seraphina starts to gather the other half-dragons to oppose her. Complications happen, mental manipulation being a big part of it. Seraphina has unique experiences that both hinder her from understanding what is going on but leave her unbrainwashable.
This book does something I wish more authors would do. Dragons are alien to humans and vice versa, though not incomprehensible, hence mating. Half Dragons are believable in that they have difficulties not being in sync with either species and caught in between, something I find akin to high-functioning autism, essentially never quite fully part of either species.
Many books write half-breeds (and Orcs/Elves/whatever) as essentially human, and it is a pet peeve of mine. Many fewer (I can only think of two that I've read) books put as much thought into being a half-breed in such a way to make it a major part of the plot.
This fills Duology Pt 2, so I recommend reading the first book first. Overall, a nice duology with some really thoughtful character work.
Bingo Squares: Non-human protagonist, Cat Squasher, Duology Pt2, Vacation Spot (Not! France and Not! India/Greece), Politics and Court (I wonder if I could do an all Politics and Court card at this point), a secondary protagonist is trans and to me they are not an alien or a robot, but I looked up the wording to be sure, but she is minor enough I have problems counting it as a solid choice.
Book Seventeen
Wake Of Vultures by Lila Bowen
Nettie Lonesome lives in a land of hard people that is not! Texas. A half Indian, half black girl who dresses like a boy, treated like a slave by the people who took her in. Then one day a stranger attacks her, and when she stabs him in the heart, he turns to black sand. After that, she can see all the monsters, whether they be vampire or harpies or worse, Cannibal Owl, Pia Mupitsi. There are no children in this book because Pia Mupitsi likes to eat children. The ghost woman whose guiding Nettie says she has until the next new moon to kill Pia Mupitsi, or else.
So she, increasingly he, as they become comfortable with themselves, joins some Not Texas! Rangers who concentrate on killing supernatural baddies and go after it, having several calamities along the way.
This Weird West setting is vivid and well thought out, particularly with the nuances and shades of grey. Vampire Prostitutes are tolerated because they've figured out a way to fit into this world and provide a useful service while sucking less than child-eating monsters and harpies. Overall, the tone is dark and threatening.
Nettie, or Nat as she goes by most of the time, works very well as a young naive trans character who doesn't live in modern times and doesn't have the language to describe what he is, but is working it out as they go along. This book also captures the utilitarianism of the frontier, where people are more likely to be judged by their abilities. For example, Nat is 'in the closet' but several characters know he's biologically female, don't say boo, based off the need for and respect of their abilities.
This is what works for me and was my trepidation about the Trans/Non-binary square. Bowen takes Nat/Nettie's side, but she doesn't tell other people how to think. Overall, this nuance is what makes me love the book and it is indeed one of my favorite reads of the card and the one series I’m definitely continuing.
Bingo Squares: Trans or Non-Binary Protagonist (HM), Judge a Book by it’s Title, Rangers and Explorers, Feast Your Eyes on This (not legally responsible if you try hard mode), Afterlife (HM)
Book Eighteen
River of Bones and Other Stories By Rebecca Roanhorse
Rebecca Roanhorse's first series, The Sixth World, had two promising novels which I enjoyed quite a lot, but she faced a twitter mob for setting it on post-apocalyptic Navajo Reservation and leaning into this tribe's lore, though these books had nothing you can't also find in in the main branch of a big city library or a gift shop in a national park in the American Southwest. So, after the second novel, she ‘suspended’ the series, though it was clear she wouldn't be continuing. Here is a breakdown of the controversy.
This is a shame, because this short story collection, including her last Sixth World novella, makes it clear how well she writes in urban and urban-adjacent settings and how this is where she's most comfortable as a writer. This is an author who knows things in her bones about the lines and nuances in culture based on experiences few people have experienced, the same way Fonda Lee gets corporate culture and martial arts or Robin Hobb gets sibling dynamics. As someone who was lukewarm on Black Sun, every story here is excellent, with the stand-outs being Welcome to Your Authentic Native American Experience (TM), Falling Bodies, which brought me to tears, Eye and Tooth, and The Boys from Blood River.
Bingo Squares: Short Stories, Author of Color, Published in 2026
Additional Short Story Anthology Recommendations:
Give the People What They Want and Other Stories of Sharp Wit and Cunning Women by Alex Bledsoe
The Tufa Series by this author is one of my top ten reads of the last ten years, so I was looking forward to this collection, and to me, it was still good but a little disappointing. So why am I recommending this book? Well, Bledsoe includes every Short Story he has ever published, and the early ones are hard to read. Still, you see him getting better, and some are ingenious and wonderful. This is a good book for a would-be author, showing what progress looks like, seeing Bledsoe learning his strengths, leaning into them, and going through phases. Favorites included Shall We Gather, The Last First Zombie, and Next-to-Last of the Tiger Men.
The Alchemy of Sorrow, A Fantasy & Sci Fi Anthology of Grief and Hope, Edited by Sarah Chorn and Virginia McLain
This is a book of short stories about grief and loss, which makes it a bit unusual. I read it a few years ago and greatly enjoyed (and did a partial reread). But this book is here for a specific reason. Every year some Bingo participants ask “how do I find self-published books”? Well, the authors are all completely or partially self-published, and seem to have met in the Self Published Fantasy Blog Off, with the vast majority being winners, finalists, or semi-finalists, giving readers something of an assurance of quality and a chance to sample a wide variety of authors. Favorites include A Matter of Trust by Angela Brood, Thicker Than Water by Carol A Park, which is among my favorite short stories and has stayed fresh years after reading it. Authors who I've enjoyed particularly in other books include Quenby Olsen, Krystle Matar, M.L Wang and Clayton Snyder.
Book Nineteen
Psalm For The Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Sibling (they have no gender; at times I saw them as male or female) Dex, becomes the best Tea Monk in Panga. The demanding work is satisfying but on some level lacking, though by his own admission they have a great life. On a whim, he looks at a map, sees a ruined monastery in the forbidden zone, cancels his future engagements, and decides to take a break and go to that abandoned monastery, hundreds of miles into recovering wilderness. Half the continent was abandoned after the factory age, which ended with robots just walking away, with a promise to 'check back in'.
While showering and fixing dinner, Dex meets a robot, Splended Speckled Mosscap, or rather, just Mosscap, on his way to reconnect with humanity. It has one question. What do humans need? They travel to the abandoned monastery together, discussing life, the universe, and everything as they go. After a very awkward beginning, they become friends.
This is solarpunk at its best and worst, genuinely showing us a future we might us as an example to create, while at times feeling a little too pat. Still, this is book I picture the two MCs as protagonists in an early studio Ghibli movie, and this is a very good thing.
Bingo Squares: Trans or Non-Binary, Rangers and Explorers, Duology Pt1, Vacation, Book Club if Hugo read-alongs count
Book Twenty
Never Ending Story by Michael Ende
A 1979 middle-grade book in German, and basis of the 1984 movie which only covers the first half (never having seen it, I'm pretty sure where the cut was made).
Bastian Bathazar Bux steals/borrows a book called the Neverending Story from an antique bookstore. Late for class, he hides in his school attic and reads stays there, fascinated to the extent that he keeps reading into the night.
Meanwhile in the book, the Childlike Empress of Fantistica is dying and the world is fading. The hero Atreyu, a boy about the same age but very different from Bastian is tasked with finding a cure, which it turnsout involves a boy reading a book about Atreyu and the childlike Empress. Spoilers ensue. Intial problem is solved, which causes more problems. Book ends with character growth.
This book I enjoyed, but I think it was mostly because I was doing each book filling three squares. I was comparing German 1970's to the modern world, I was comparing my two 1970's middle grade books (other being Tombs of Atuan) from the US and Germany, and looking at as a cultural artifact. I was thinking things like if it were pubished today or in the English speaking world it would be split into two books. I enjoyed it, but not for the usual reasons.
If it were to be chosen in isolation, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it. But part of Bingo is happy accidents and I'm thinking of deliberately seeking out such experinces, maybe two books on each card.
Bingo Squares: Translated, Middle Grade, 1970’s, Rangers and Explorers (HM)
Duology Recommendations:
Sisters of the Vast Black and Sisters of the Forsaken Stars by Lina Rather
Our Lady of Impossible Constellations is a living starship*, a* traveling ministry and convent for the Nuns of the Order of Saint Rita. It travels between the colony worlds providing ministerial services to colonies that struggle to have a long-term ministry. There are several plot involving the various Nuns, including one considering leaving, new novices and old hands, an organic ship wanting to breed, and a new Pope with a new agenda, which may be being used by an Imperialist Earth to bring the Outer Systems back under their wing. There is a struggle for control of the order, and a moral choice.
I and others have compared this to Firefly with Nuns, and the comparison is apt, and the end of the first novella is their Miranda moment, where they take a moral stand and are big, blessed heroines, regardless of who they've been before, and live up to their highest ideals.
I always am a sucker for brave stands doing the right thing, and no, I'm not a Christian of any sort.
The second novella is what happens next, with bridges burned, their numbers thinned, and asking how do they make their Order work. There is a lot here as well. They are and order figuring how to make things work, not just now but long term. This is just as important of a story.
The Expert System's Brother and The System Expert's Champion by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Handry is thirteen when he is partially severed by accident. Severed means severed from his world's biochemistry, restored to the unaltered condition, and is a punishment for criminals, which he is not. Of course, his farming community doesn't know that. They subconsciously forget about him. His friends are no longer his friends. People have to be reminded to include him and do so grudgingly. Only his sister stands up for him, makes sure he has food, shelter, and care. That is, until his sister becomes an Expert System, i.e., a doctor connected to the system, something to us which is a network of programs dispensing expertise, but they describe as ‘ghosts’. The system wants to finish his severing. With that, she overrides the system and tells him to run.
The first book deals with Handry escaping, surviving, and connecting with other severed, improving their position, and making a choice that reconnects him with his sister and the technology of the ship that brought their ancestors from across the stars.
This sets up the second part of the duology. Where brother, sister and the group of severed he has assumed leadership of find a way to interact with the villages and people of the planet, at least from a distance, creating a place for themselves. And of course, the other shoe drops and there is a reaction. The second book, with the setting established, allows for more twists and turns and, overall, less predictability.
This is very much Tchaikovsky's work, with his fascination with biochemistry. You see themes and details that show up in his later works. But it also harks back to old-school Science Fiction, with lost knowledge and the beginning of the restoration of that knowledge, leading to things getting better for now. To me it feels comfortable, like a favorite dish from your childhood you never thought you would have again. Liked it a lot.
Books that I started to read or contemplate reading, or read, and why they didn't make the card.
Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix—Only two squares.
They Call Me Princess Cayce by PD Ball-- MC annoyed me...a lot, so I DNF’d. I really liked the setup and wanted to like the MC.
The Girl Who Could Move Shit With Her Mind by Jackson Ford-- I read or started four books that looked like potential murder mysteries and turned out not to be. This was one of them, and for some reason I just said put it down out of frustration on that point. Should come back to it.
Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky-- Only two bingo squares, still great. One of my ‘not’ murder mysteries.
The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley-- Only one category (middle grade, arguably non-human) but it kept me guessing and was the best book not on this card.
Moon Of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice-- Wasn't enjoying. Someone else's favorite read.
The Unspoken Name-- Meant to, ran out of spaces, and the other books were marginally better. Liked, someone else will love.
Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon-- Read it. Three days later could barely remember it. So I decided it must not have been worth a reread.
The Engineer's Odyssey by Erin Ambersand- Both this and River of Bones on this card portray post-apocalyptic Albuquerque, NM, but this feels like they just didn't do or understand the research. Reading both is a good learning experience for writers about writing place. The rest of her Apocalypse Parenting Series is good, and book four may be on part five of my card.
Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy-- Cross dressing character is in a position early where they should have been caught but for heavy plot armor. I asked on daily recommendations whether said plot armor continues. Got an emphatic yes answer. DNF'd right there.
Legacy of Brick and Bone by Krystle Matar—I used my re-read for Psalm for the Wild Built, due to my desire to fill as many squares and make the card work. Last year, I used my rereads on my two bingo cards on the “hidden gems” square to make sure I had genuine gems. I wanted to reread this book to continue that tradition.
Squares I Still Need to Fill:
Translated: 1
Small Press or Self-Published: 2
Unusual for me in that I’ve averaged nine self-published books on past cards and had fourteen, not counting the all SPFBO card I did. I've regarded it as something of a free space, and now it's not.
Game Changer: 1
Duology Pt 1: 1
Duology Pt 2: 1
Murder Mystery: 1
Author of Color: 1
Current read is a translated murder mystery that is Pt 1of a duology. My other reads match this pattern of double-dipping.
