2023 r/Fantasy Reddit Bingo Recommendations and TBR [CC]

[Music] foreign it's that time of year again people have already been asking me in the comments are you doing the Reddit TBR recommendation video yes here it is this is my TBR and my recommendations for this year's fantasy Reddit Bingo board did I complete last year's mostly I think I don't know I got really slumpy so the last three or four books I had to finish maybe didn't happen and we're gonna move on Clean Slate new Reddit Bingo year and obviously I can't recommend everything for you guys b

ecause some of these are very specific to your reading life and TBR but a lot of these I can provide some recommendations for and tell you what I plan to read which is also obviously a recommendation I make all my recommendations for hard mode but obviously you do not have to do hard mode you can do whatever you want I have the whole goal of the Reddit Bingo is to just push yourself outside your comfort zone and maybe find books you wouldn't have read otherwise and it's a thing that I love it's

actually what got me into the bookish internet that and Goodreads these are the two things that got me into the bookish internet the Reddit fantasy subreddit even though I lurked I do not have the guts to talk at all but I did like the fantasy subreddit Bingo and then Goodreads because it was just kind of fun to like track things I like tracking things all right so we're gonna get into it we're gonna just go through the Bingo board starting with title with a title um hard mode means it can't hav

e a royal title for me me I'm going to be reading Paladin's Grace by taking Fisher because I'm just going to be reading a bunch of T Kingfisher and this one has a title in it so and I've been told Paladin does not count as Royal it's more like Champion so we're going with that um for books that I have read the one that I saw on the Reddit recommendation list that I'm like oh yeah that's the one I want to recommend is the last contesta contista is Storyteller that's the title of Storyteller and t

his is a phenomenal middle grade oh it's so good one of the best books I read last year definitely it made it to my top 10 sci-fi books of 2022 really recommend it even if you are not a middle grade reader see me not really a middle grade reader I don't read more than like a handful of them a year at most this was outstanding a four and a half star in its own right for me like no caveats no it's four and a half stars because it's a middle grade no it was a phenomenal fast-paced anxiety-inducing

wholesome good time I had a blast with it really recommend uh next up we have superheroes I'm going to read Hench I believe I think that's the name of it yeah I don't know a lot about it but I've been really curious about it and so this seemed like the perfect time after years about hearing about this book put on my list I might not love it oh that's a thing for me this year with the red Bingo I'm allowing myself to just dnf and count it as done because I never submit them anyways this is just a

ll for me um so I want to attempt to read Hench see if I would like it see if it would be a new favorite and it counts because it's not DC or Marvel because that's the hard mode for this for you guys we've got onyeka in the Academy of the sun this is a middle grade and it's definitely very X-Men adjacent Vibes we have Renegades this is your young adult by Marissa Meyer I really like this whole trilogy I thought it was pretty fun I think it should have been a duology but it's still a really fun t

ime and then we have vicious by the Schwab this is definitely more leaning into the anti-hero OR villain side of this prompt but there you go I got an adult young adult in middle grade for you guys next up we have bottom of the TBR this is the thing I cannot help you with what did I put down for myself all right I put two and I think the one that's more likely to happen is fledgling by Octavia Butler this has been on my TBR for over a year I really want to get to it I actually only have two thre

e if we include the like new releases that Amazon's put out that I don't even think Octavia Butler had a say in having published sort of thing but I have blood Childs and fledgling and then whatever Amazon released is like some novellas that were previously not published and so fledgling is one that I've been kind of just like it's been over a year and I really should pick it up the other one is signal to Noise by Sylvia Moreno Garcia which has been on my TBR since 2020 as well so and that one I

think recently got new covers so that's the bottom of my TBR I don't know what's the bottom of your TBR that's between you and however you formulate a TBR and now we have magical realism or literary fiction and this is right literary fantasy not fiction my mouse covered up the prompt and the hard mode is they have a list and it just can't be on that list this was really hard for me to pick mine because um I don't know I read a lot I hadn't read a lot on that list and I really wanted to read som

e of it like the house of the Spirits by isabellende I would love to read that but it's on that list um so for Hard Mode it would be really difficult but what wasn't on that list is love Medicine by Louise erdrich so yes I will read Louise erdrich for this of course so am I following the spirit of the Bingo maybe not but I I'm gonna read that and for you guys though I have read quite a few if you want to stick more fantasy like you magical realism we got dark and deepest red love this young adul

t although it reads very similarly to like uprooted spinning silver bear in the Nightingale it's that type of um fantasy so I you know if you think any of those are why a leaning then this is adult leaning it's kind of that sort of thing inheritance of Arcadia Davina really great book um ones that are more literary like if you wanted something that's less fantasy and more literary we've got exit West really like this one I don't know if it even really counts as magical realism but I always like

shouting out this book it is so good um I actually do think it's very close to magical realism because it's speculative element is really it's magical realism can be a Vibe and this feels like that and then I have folklorn which is a Korean historical magical realism literary fantasy that I read a few years ago following the scientists from Antarctica and her weird relationship with her family as she goes home and things like that and then there's this ghost kind of like this girl with this red

ribbon and following her around and yeah that if you want something more haunting and literary folklore and is actually really good I don't know a lot of people who've read it so I at least have recommendations for that one I do not have many for myself that I'm like excited about uh the next one is young adult this is just something that needed to be released in the last five years um there are so many right but I guess the one I'm just gonna shout because it's the one I always shout there'll b

e two each of us a desert yes probably could also work for Magical realism maybe I I always call it fantasy dystopia futurism like it's more like that but I love it and then of course catfishing on catnip fantastic highly recommend um so both of those are within the five-year period I love them so if you are like me and not someone who reads a lot of young adult but think you have similar young adult taste to mine you should try those out the next prompt are mundane jobs and I think the hard mod

e is just not on Earth um for you guys my recommendation would be Legends and lattes we're just running a coffee shop it's great another one is Phoenix extravagant um jebby's just a painter um and I don't think that's our world it's inspired a lot by our world but it's not I just realized I put a book down for this that I think I already have for another slot so this one might be open for me I did see some books that I potentially could like but feel free to recommend me books for this slot I wi

ll fix this on my spreadsheet because right now I have the duplicate and that doesn't work um but I'll talk about the other book later because I definitely want to use the book I had for this for a different slot I just didn't catch that I duplicated it by accident uh the next one is published in the OTS or the O's or I think we call it the odds I don't know when we decided what we were calling 2000 to 2009 but anyways that range is when the book needs to be published and it can't be in like the

top 30 of the fantasy thing like fantasy books list on Reddit or something like that um for you guys I got strange beasts of China and Vita Nostra I love both of these um strange piece of china I did a whole book discussion with Tammy and Tammy tries to read so you can see that I love that might also work for Magical realism some people compare to that I think of it more as like Noir like short Story collection Noir Slice of Life I don't know I don't get the magical realism as much but again it

's more of a Vibe sometimes like it has I feel bad magical realism has a long history and really important context and Roots but I feel like as a community we use the word very flippantly and I don't know how to use it to help people find the book that they want in that category regardless the next one is Vida Nostra and this is this is a time this is confusing do not read it if you want answers if you want answers you will not find answers here and if you want a truly good dark Academia I love

it it's my favorite dark Academia granted I'm not like a big prolific reader in that sub-genre but oof I love it so those are the two I'd recommend for myself what did I put down for myself that I'm really excited about I think it's because she'll start that's the one I'm most likely to read I have a couple others like Ida and perrito Street Station but because Shield's Dart is the one that like it's on my series to start this year and it's one of the older older it's not even that old but it's

one of the backless fantasy titles that I haven't gotten to yet that I really want to try out we're now going into Angels and Demons this was so hard for me because the obvious answer for Hard Mode because the character has to be an angel or a demon the protagonist is good Omens so there you go if you haven't read good Omens this is the obvious recommendation it is very fun if you like Terry pratchett's voice you will like this story because it's definitely more his voice than gaiman's voice gam

ing provides all the gross ideas if that's my theory all the gross ideas because there is some imagery in here that I'm like oh that's not Pratchett I don't think granted I've only read a handful of Pratchett and a handful of gay men didn't realize I think I've actually read an equal number by both authors but that's what I'll recommend to you guys for me so I am going with the angels left the old country this was recommended in my Discord I don't know a lot about it I think it's indigenous I kn

ow the main character's supposed to be I don't actually even know Angela demon I truly was just like I need a book for this someone give it to me I also have been asking some friends for like some romances because I know I have to believe there are some romances out there with angels and demons and I have a list of that in case I want to go that route but this is my current like standing because I like making a TBR just to like have a stand-in I fully expect to do other things as I discover stuf

f in book that work that I just didn't know about all right next up there are five short stories okay I do a short story video every year those are my recommendations but I guess if you needed me to tell you right now Angela what short story should I read my favorite from last year was the paper Menagerie like that short Story collection so there you go my favorite anthology of last year was the terraformers I think that's what it was called our terraforms I don't know those are my two just off

the top of my head recommendations but if you want more I'll link the most recent video down below which should have links to the other videos every year I do that video every year it doesn't perform well but regardless they exist for your viewing pleasure and for me I don't know I mean right now I'm in the middle of a short story collection Universal love so it's probably gonna be that because that'll be the first short Story collection I finished since starting this challenge I read about like

eight to ten a year so this is not a hard prompt for me normally next up is horror and so for me I'm going to read Jawbone this is on my latinworks TBR as well so this works well for me here and then for you guys I'm just going to list the ones that I've read recently that I really like lone woman and house with good bones I'd also recommend build your house around my body I really like that one and of course sorrowland by river Solomon you know those are all because I think the hard mode for t

his was just not HP Lovecraft or Stephen King which funnily enough I think those are my least read in the horror genre so even have a lot of recommendations for the easy mode per se and now we get into self-published or Indie publisher they do have a really good list of all their Indie Publishers that have amas for the hard mode I'm going to be picking from neon Hemlock I don't know specifically which one they have this speculative short story anthology by Irish authors that I'm actually really

interested in um they have a bunch of novellas that always interest me so maybe something from neon hemlock for me for you guys um there was one from an indie publisher Driftwood by Marie Brennan I don't know if you know I love this book but this one would count this would count and then for Indie like self-published the sword in the street I was so sad that it still has less than 100 ratings but it counts I really liked this story and I really liked once stolen although one stolen is at 99 rati

ngs as of me filming this so this one might not count by the time you're seeing that so those are some of my recommendations for that since that's always a hard square but I like that it's there as the challenge you know to make you look for things that are not always shoved in your face by traditional publishing I think it's really good our next one is set in the Middle East so recommendations obviously must include city of brass because that's kind of one of our standard ones in the fantasy Co

mmunity but I would also like to push the dreamblood duology by n.k jemisin which is heavily inspired by Egypt so yeah I recommend that for me I think mine is going to be the start of thief because I still have it on my shelf I still need to try it out the sequel comes out this year again this is kind of like an earlier pick where it's like if I'm not liking it though I'm going to count a dnf as it working for this Square I'm going to do it published in 2023 is the next one and this is usually t

he hard mode is a debut author so for me I'm gonna put the sun in the void and that's also going to be my recommendation to you to try out because it's a debut author and so yeah here we go 2023 release debut I also I'm just really bad at keeping up with who's a debut author and who's not I'm just not good at it all right and then Multiverse or alternate realities I've actually already read this book secret project number two counts for this I am only calling you that because I cannot remember t

he name of this book but it works so I've already read it we're good because I think the Hard Road is is literally do not walk through doors thank through doors so we're good there for you guys The Space Between Worlds by Michaela Johnson oh my goodness I love this book I love it so much it's always behind me on the Shelf you know I love it because it's always it's always in frame you need to read this you need to read this book it's so good I have a review for it in the channel so if you want t

o know more of my thoughts like it was back when I had energy to like film four times a week which I never I'd how did past Angela do that I'll never know so we're now into person of color author and this one's prompt is needs to be set in a future sci-fi world so I have so many recommendations for this I actually think I have an entire recommendation video with stuff like this but you want xenogenesis by Octavia Butler Nettie coreforest Novella Noir works really well nine Fox Gambit by Yoon Hol

ly informocracy by malka older I could go on there are so many like I said basically if you look at any of my favorites lists you will find stuff that work for this especially sci-fi I've got like three or four sci-fi recommendation videos and you'll definitely find something one of those if any of these are not like your cup of tea and within this list like we got aliens we got future Tech we've got Space Opera we've got government systems being weird so like you know I think there's some good

variety in those four that I just shouted out but if you need more there's definitely more on this channel for you to find out about um the next one's book club a read-along book again this is more to your discretion they have links and things like that Novella that is not published by tor.com and what can we offer you tonight neon Hemlock phenomenal I love this Novella it won the nebula the year it came out and I agree I agree that it should have won for me I think I will be reading let's see w

hat did I put down it's actually probably maybe something else oh no I think this is still coming out this year and so I'm going to read it this is Rose house by our Katie Martine this is from Subterranean press and I mean I love the text colon duology and this is not set in that world but I've been itching to read more about our Katie Martinez so it's happening it's happening but there are other things specifically neon Hemlock has a lot of novellas that are on my radar that I would love to rea

d all right and now mythical beasts I think the hard mode is just not dragon or Dragon adjacent so my recommendation specifically actually I have to flip my page but bone Shard daughter yeah I think that works really well um if you want something that has like mermaids in it the deep but I would definitely go with bone Shard daughter that definitely that definitely counts for me what did I put down for me oh I just put down the author Ilona Andrews because I think that though those creatures exi

st in our books that are not dragons and I wanted to start one of her a long ongoing series maybe like a Kate Daniels I think Kate Daniels is the one that everyone loves right like I know the first book is rough or whatever like basically every time people recommend urban fantasy series like you gotta get through the first book I know very few and it's very much like TV right like when you show someone one of these long-running TV shows that you love it's like oh the first season's a little roug

h like it's I kind of like that um I'm not gonna lie very familiar to me all right and now Elemental Magic so this is where I messed up where I had the daughters of isdahar for a different slot I had it because there's a bookkeep Bookshop Keeper in this book so that's like a mundane job but it's going here because it has Elemental Magic and I needed something with Elemental Magic because I don't know many other books I want to read right now with Elemental Magic and this has it um but for Elemen

tal Magic for you guys the sword of kaiken if you've somehow not read it off my recommendation yet here it is yes and then of course uh the queen of blood and any of the books in the queens of renthia series is also very tied to Elemental Magic so all of those are winners we now have what is it myths and retellings and the hard mode is not Greek I think I don't I think Norse is a lot yeah not Greek or Roman I'm going to recommend kaiikei I really like this book from last year I have a review for

it I would probably read kaiake for this slot if I hadn't already read it as it stands though I have a bunch of books that I might read if anyone has any experience with any of these feel free to chime in I've got the witch's heart which I might read I think this is Norse I have the crane husband which I don't remember what country in Asia but I think it's Asian mythology and then there's um a Catherine M Valente called deathless which I think is Eastern European mythology and I don't know whic

h one of those I'll read I don't know which one might work for me leaning towards the Catherine M Valente because I've been wanting to read more of her stuff but I do know this one's a little controversial like people are kind of just controversial about Catherine and valente's writing style all around so we'll see all right we're getting near the end we have queer Norm settings so for both you guys and me we're just doing the same thing it's the rook and the rose it's the rook and the rose if y

ou haven't read the rook and the rose yet you should pick it up I'm going to be reading the third book in that Series this year I'm excited there's a lot of tension there's a lot of stakes there's a lot of prejudice in this book but none of it has to do with your sexual orientation or your gender identity that's all fine it's great so very queer Norm just extremely normalized and really fun series I cannot wait for the third book I'm already starting to like think about my reread this summer it'

s gonna be so good I only wish like it would take longer right but I think of it as such a winter series like I kind of wish the third book was coming out in like December even though that would take longer so I could reread in the winter because that's just how I think about it but I'm not actually that much of a seasonal reader so it'll be fine all right Coastal or Island setting and seafaring needs to be a major part of it oh did I even get did I get hard mode for another one okay yeah the Br

oken Road just works for Hard Mode I think the hard mode is just not a futuristic setting takes place in a Time akin to ours in the past or in a fantasy world that has no science fiction elements so we good for that one um but Coastal or Island setting needs to have seafaring so my recommendation for you all is the liveship trader series because I love it um I love it always I think about it a lot every time people are reading it I am just reminded of my time reading it the good the bad the ugly

um I just really like that series um so yeah that one definitely works I think to some extent the bone Shard daughter might work um even though I don't think there's as much seafaring like you're on boats but maybe not as often as you would maybe want to be for the hard mode for this prompt it's to your discretion and then for me I'm going to read um the new Shannon chakraborty which is Amina Al sarafi The Adventures of it's a long title anytime a title is over three like three words I struggle

I struggle a lot but this one this one that's the one I'm going to be reading for this um the next prompt was really hard this is Druids and it I think the hard mode is like not the iron Drew in Chronicles or something like so the specific book and the prompt does say it can be a traditional Druid like in Celtic mythology and stuff like that or it could be someone who uses nature magic so for that reason my recommendation is the Jasmine Throne by Tasha sorry because nature magic is a huge part

of this for one of our characters and a whole sect of people and I love this book so it's pretty easy to recommend so that's my recommendation for me I'm reading well potentially reading dreamers pool which is by an author that I've been meaning to read from for a long time anyways and I saw it on the recommendation thread I don't know a lot about it but this author I think it's Juliette marillier if I'm saying that right watch it be a completely different author but that's who I thought wrote t

his book and people love her and I haven't read anything by her yet so it's another one of those like backlist authors that I'm just like filling in my internal knowledge gaps um and now we're on to the last two featuring robots I don't have a lot of good recommendations for this for the hard mode where the protagonist is a robot like I tried to think of something and the one I could think of is murderbot which is the obvious one but murderbot and it's one I could read for myself too but I tried

not to I tried to put something else so I might still read a murderbot because I haven't continued that series but I also someone mentioned a closed and common orbit by Becky Chambers would count um which I thought would be more AI than robot but maybe it's like a blending of the two because I actually don't know where the ai's construct is I can't remember it's been so many years since I've read um a long way to a far angry Planet see that title's that long they're just hard for me to like hol

d on to and I mean I've never been against reading it's it's companion sequel but I just haven't so maybe this would be the prompt to push me to do that um because I just haven't um but I guess let me know if it would count for this prompt because if it doesn't I'll just read a murderbot because I truly like I've been struggling to find one unless you personally are like Angela you would really like this book but remember it has to have a robot as the protagonist and then the last one is just SQ

L and the hard mode is be book three or higher so obviously this is more to your personal reading life I don't know what series you're in the middle of but if you're looking to start a series that has you know more than three books in it uh let me give you a course of dragons because it's phenomenal because it's so good and I haven't gushed about it on this list yet so yeah for me um I don't know I I'm gonna read so many things and that are books three or four or five I'll probably put anything

maybe if I was saying the first one that'll probably be done is the bone Shard War probably um that might be the first book three plus that I get to but that said I just started the varcos again Saga and um the chances of me reading most of that this year are pretty high if I keep having as good a time with that as I did the first book so we'll see I just read a lot of series though I don't I mean I'm about to read the seventh book in a milazzin series soon like something will go here it'll be f

ine but that is the recommendation list slash my tentative TBR feel free to leave any other recommendations down below or come to my Discord where we have a book recommendations list if you wanted to start this yourself this is your first time hearing about it I do have links to the Reddit threads that I find useful like where I use my spreadsheet and their recommendation Reddit list and then also just their announcement post um so feel free to look at that and there is a high probability that m

aybe I didn't say any of these prompts perfectly that definitely happened last year so just just know that I consider this all just a fun challenge so I might not be perfect about it but if you would like Perfection for yourself feel free to go check out the threads and yeah if you want to leave an emoji um leave something that makes you think of a bingo board like you know numbers or I don't know I don't ever know what emojis there are or you could just leave like um balloons because I just lik

e balloons yeah so balloons are something that makes you think of Bingo and otherwise like if you liked it subscribe if you want to and I'll see you in the next one bye [Music] thank you