I spent a year filling out two cards for my favorite reading challenge: r/Fantasy Bingo. I posted my first themed card, “Not-So-Hard,” way back in November. With the end of the Bingo year fast approaching, I decided to hold my second post until the 2025 challenge was released, so that I could share how my 2024 books could be used to fill a 2025 card.
The problem, unfortunately, lies in actually writing up the post. Long story short, we’re almost two months deep in the Bingo year and I’m just posting now. But better late than never!
One note on the 2025 card: one of the squares is “Recycle a Square,” allowing you to choose a book from any of the previous ten years of Bingo cards. You can find an old square for basically any book you choose, so I’m not including those in the list. It’s understood. Apart from that, keep in mind that I read some of these books a full year ago, and I may not remember some details. It’s very likely I’ve missed some squares.
Otherwise, let’s take a look at the card. This one had some really extreme highlights, led by Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory, Scott Alexander Howard’s The Other Valley, and Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi. And there are three more books I nominated for Hugos that didn’t hit the top three–it’s a great card! For most squares, links go to full reviews; for the Five Short Stories, they go to full copies of the stories.
First in a Series: On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle
- 2025 Squares: Epistolary (HM), Impossible Places (HM).
- Mini-review: If you’re looking for a literary, meditative Groundhog Day-style time loop story, this delivers. But it doesn’t stand alone, and I’m not sure it whets the appetite for a seven-book saga.
- Rating: 13/20.
Alliterative Title: Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker
- 2025 Squares: arguably Cozy, your mileage may vary.
- Mini-review: Wonderful concept (real estate meets haunted house reality show) and tremendous character work, but doesn’t build the atmosphere Pinsker usually brings and sags a touch in the middle.
- Rating: 15/20.
Under the Surface: Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- 2025 Squares: Down with the System, Book in Parts (HM), Book Club.
- Mini-review: A dark, anti-capitalist satire in which a robotic butler seeks employment in a post-apocalyptic world without much in the way of dinner parties. Often funny, thematically interesting, also sags a bit in the middle.
- Rating: 16/20.
Criminals: Norylska Groans by Michael R. Fletcher and Clayton W. Snyder
- 2025 Squares: Self-Published.
- Mini-review: An extremely grim, violent story featuring mobs and memory implants in an alternate universe Siberian city. Fantastic use of the memory conceit, could stand to build a little more slowly.
- Rating: 15/20.
Dreams: I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle
- 2025 Squares: If you find classic adventure fantasy Cozy, maybe that one?
- Mini-review: A whimsical tale that feels like a winking throwback to the classic fantasy adventure. A fun read, but a bit forgettable afterwards.
- Rating: 14/20.
Entitled Animals: Time of the Cat by Tansy Rayner Roberts
- 2025 Squares: Self-Published (HM), Hidden Gem, LGBTQIA Protagonist.
- Mini-review: A zany time travel story that doesn’t take itself seriously for a single instant and feels like a love letter to fandom—specifically fandom of UK-based television dramas. This one is lots of fun.
- Rating: 15/20.
Bards: The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry
- 2025 Squares: Hidden Gem, Down with the System.
- Mini-review: A post-apocalyptic tale featuring suppressed history and fascinating naming magic. A slow build leads into a fast-paced, thriller-like finish.
- Rating: 15/20.
Prologues/Epilogues: The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan
- 2025 Squares: A Book in Parts, Parent Protagonist, Epistolary, Author of Color, Stranger in a Strange Land.
- Mini-review: A two-timeline story in which an average contemporary Gothic tale is vastly improved by the tremendous period drama taking place in the flashbacks.
- Rating: 15/20.
Self-Published: On Impulse by Heather Texle
- 2025 Squares: Self-Published (HM), Hidden Gem, Down With the System (HM), Biopunk.
- Mini-review: A fun space thriller with plenty of secrets, villainous villains, and excellent banter, albeit with a few decisions—both by protagonist and antagonist—that probably shouldn’t be scrutinized too closely.
- Rating: 14/20.
Romantasy: A Swift and Sudden Exit by Nico Vincenty
- 2025 Squares: Self-Published (HM), Hidden Gem, LGBTQIA Protagonist.
- Mini-review: An endearing time travel romance undercut somewhat by a thriller plot that isn’t built with the same care as the relationship.
- Rating: 12/20.
Dark Academia: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
- 2025 Squares: Epistolary (HM), Impossible Places (HM), A Book in Parts (HM), Book Club.
- Mini-review: My one reread for this card, what more is there to say? What a tremendous novel. Beautiful yet eminently readable, with an endearing protagonist, a gorgeous setting, and enough secrets to make for an interesting plot.
- Rating: 19/20.
Multi-POV: Mechanize My Hands to War by Erin K. Wagner
- 2025 Squares: Hidden Gem, A Book in Parts (HM).
- Mini-review: An extremely grounded, multi-POV, near-future sci-fi featuring a rebellion by disaffected blue collar workers who blame android labor for their struggles. Fascinating non-linear structure in a book that humanizes everyone, including the androids.
- Rating: 17/20.
Published in 2024: The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed
- 2025 Squares: Impossible Places (HM), Parent Protagonist, Book Club, Author of Color.
- Mini-review: A quest novella through a dark forest full of faelike creatures, elevating above the typical quest tale by sumptuous prose, excellent character depth, and atmosphere for days.
- Rating: 18/20.
Disability: It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken
- 2025 Squares: Small Press, LGBTQIA Protagonist.
- Mini-review: A vibes-over-plot novella about grief in a zombie apocalypse. Sometimes hard to catch the shape of an overarching story, but some of the most hard-hitting imagery I read all year.
- Rating: 18/20.
Published in the 90s: Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman
- 2025 Squares: A Book in Parts
- Mini-review: The opening to a 90s epic fantasy trilogy is well-written, prompts some intriguing moral questions, and provides a satisfying ending, but it is also long.
- Rating: 13/20.
Orcs, Trolls, and Goblins: Desdemona and the Deep by C.S.E. Cooney
- 2025 Squares: LGBT Protagonist, Hidden Gem (HM),
- Mini-review: Another quest novella with quality prose, but doesn’t breathe new life into the quest structure like The Butcher of the Forest does.
- Rating: 13/20.
Space Opera: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
- 2025 Squares: Down with the System, Book Club.
- Mini-review: The space opera that took the genre world by storm in 2013 may not feel quite as innovative twelve years later but is still a quality read.
- Rating: 16/20.
POC Author: Grievers by adrienne maree brown
- 2025 Squares: POC Author, Small Press (HM), LGBTQIA Protagonist.
- Mini-review: A meditative story about grief offers compelling themes but dangles mysteries that it isn’t interested in following up.
- Rating: 15/20.
Survival: The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
- 2025 Squares: POC Author (HM), A Book in Parts (HM)
- Mini-review: Imagine Octavia Butler’s Kindred, but with ghosts and Jim Crow instead of time travel and slavery. And yes, that is just as high of a compliment as it sounds. This book is just about perfect.
- Rating: 20/20.
Judge a Book by its Cover: The City in Glass by Nghi Vo
- 2025 Squares: Author of Color, Gods and Pantheons.
- Mini-review: A long time-scale story about a demon mourning the loss of her beloved city by trying to build it again. Beautiful, but not especially plot-heavy, with an enemies-to-lovers romantic subplot that didn’t compel.
- Rating: 15/20.
Set in a Small Town: The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard
- 2025 Squares: Impossible Places (HM), A Book in Parts.
- Mini-review: Set aside the worldbuilding and just imagine the philosophical quandaries that arise when a town is bordered only by its past and future selves—along with the terrible psychological effects on a character who inadvertently glimpses future tragedy. Fantastic speculative literary fiction with just enough plot progression to make it feel like there’s a true destination.
- Rating: 19/20.
Five Short Stories: Never Eaten Vegetables by H.H. Pak, Our Echoes Drifting Through the Marsh by Marie Croke, The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead by E.M. Linden, Something Rich and Strange by L.S. Johnson, Numismatic Archetypes in the Year of Five Regents by Louis Inglis Hall
- 2025 Squares: Five Short Stories
- Mini-review: I just cherry-picked my five favorite 2025-published stories at the time of Bingo submission. These are all excellent.
- Rating: 18/20.
Eldritch Creatures: A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
- 2025 Squares: Biopunk, Published in 2025, LGBTQIA Protagonist, Stranger in a Strange Land, A Book in Parts (HM).
- Mini-review: The sequel to The Tainted Cup delivers more of what fans loved in the first, with an excellent mystery in a fantastically weird world.
- Rating: 17/20.
Reference Materials: Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed
- 2025 Squares: POC Author, LGBTQIA Protagonist, A Book in Parts.
- Mini-review: An enthralling graphic novel with three perspectives loosely tied together, all centering around what various characters would do with one wish from a genie guaranteed not to play tricks.
- Rating: 17/20.
Book Club: The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan
- 2025 Squares: Book Club.
- Mini-review: An investigation story in a European fantasy world that provides a satisfying intermediate ending while kicking off an epic plot. This is one for the plot, and it’s a gripping one.
- Rating: 16/20.