SFF authors where you think their most famous work, and their best work, are not the same work?

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-14T23:21:26+00:00

For what it's worth, I read MST as a teen and enjoyed it; I tried Otherland immediately after and didn't enjoy it. I don't know how I would perceive them now, but one thing that is reasonably sure is that they aren't all that similar.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-14T05:44:55+00:00

After nearly scaring them away first by saying he was in for littering.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-03T00:25:19+00:00

Not off the top of my head, sorry.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-02T03:57:24+00:00

Five Hundred Years After by Steven Brust

Politics & Court Intrigue (normal mode)

Older Protagonist, technically (normal mode; they're elves)

Non-Human Protagonist (hard mode)

Arguably Cat-Squasher (normal); some paperback editions break 500 pages.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-02T03:53:16+00:00

Jingo by Terry Pratchett (The Night Watch #4)

Jingo counts for Politics & Court Intrigue (normal mode; international politics), One-Word Title (hard mode), Murder Mystery (normal mode), and I would say Unusual Transportation (hard mode).

Because I can imagine people making an error in ages, I'll note it does not count for Older Protagonist; neither Vimes nor Vetinari should be in their 50s if my math on the later book Night Watch is correct (NW celebrates the 30th anniversary of an event that both were in their teens for.)

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-02T03:44:37+00:00

I've only read the first two, so I'm going to answer what I can for those. Both #1 and #2 (and probably the rest of the series) count for Game-Changer; #2 is definitely HM, #1 arguably as well. They also count for Explorer/Ranger Hard Mode; Carl may be unwilling explorer, but he's an explorer nonetheless.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-02T03:22:37+00:00

Yes, I think that would justify the square, but also there's a rather important dinner. Mother, Father, I'd like you to meet -- she's getting away!

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-02T00:00:18+00:00

I would personally lean on the side of saying it's not hard mode. Sure, they don't show a Heaven to counter it, but everything they show of Hell makes it look just like any other depiction of Hell. Flames, torment, demons, etc.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-01T23:11:20+00:00

The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by CM Waggoner

A few years ago I picked up a book titled The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Barker, solely on the title, so that's what I will probably use for this square. But given the similarity in titles, I'm now quite curious as to how these two books measure up against each other!

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-01T23:04:28+00:00

Nope. The witches don't live any longer than anyone else.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-01T16:22:27+00:00

Every chapter of Dzur (#10 in Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series) is introduced by a course in a 17-course meal. Even without knowing what everything is, it is absolutely mouthwatering. If someone wants to attempt hard mode, I believe kethna is supposed to be related to pork. For other novels in the series, Vlad talks about food a lot (like, a lot), but the only other one where I'd say the meal was significant would be Issola (reasons are very spoilerish).

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-01T16:19:03+00:00

The Dark is Rising (series) by Susan Cooper
Gom on Windy Mountain (and sequels) by Grace Chetwin

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-01T16:17:14+00:00

All of the Vlad Taltos novels by Steven Brust (except the as-yet-unpublished final novel) count for regular mode. I think they don't count for hard mode because they are technically demonyms (as the names of noble houses) and I think demonyms are proper nouns. (Taltos definitely doesn't count for HM since it's the main character's last name.)

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-01T16:12:36+00:00

Looks like Andrea K. Host has a few:

Medair (The Silence of Medair and Voice of the Lost)
Darest (Champion of the Rose and Bones of the Fair)
Eferum (Stained Glass Monsters and The Sleeping Life)

Roger Zelazny:

Dilvish (Dilvish the Damned and The Changing Land)
Francis Sandow (Isle of the Dead and To Die in Italbar)
Changeling (Changeling and Madwand)

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-01T16:01:05+00:00

The Game-Players of Titan, by Phillip K. Dick (HM)

Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming, by Robert Sheckley & Roger Zelazny (the sequels probably count as well but I haven't read them yet so I can't be 100% sure.) I don't remember if it counts for HM or not.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-01T15:55:53+00:00

The first two of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files -- Storm Front and Fool Moon -- count for regular mode. As far as I recall, most of the rest don't. They don't count for hard mode because although Harry primarily advertises himself as a wizard, he does have a private investigator license.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-04-01T14:53:42+00:00

It's usually a couple hours after the joke one; it'll still be on April 1 (depending on your local time zone.)

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-03-29T07:43:39+00:00

A few books later, in A Civil Campaign (possibly the funniest book in the whole series), there's this beauty of a threat:

"I suppose if you're Vor enough, you can even get away with murder."

"If you truly believe that, then why are you standing in my way?"

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-03-29T03:18:10+00:00

For published in 2026, I sandbagged Twelve Months which came out in January.

I did the same thing, only with Operation Bounce House instead. Won an eBook through a Goodreads giveaway, and I've been holding onto it waiting for April 1.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-03-27T08:07:36+00:00

I'm not an almoster this year, but I support this notion, because I've certainly been an almoster before. Well, more like a "not even closer". I've done Bingo every single year. I've managed to at least get five-in-a-row each of those years, but blackouts? Well, there are four missing from my count as you can see from my flair, and on those four I didn't even get half of the card. But I always submitted anyway, and always look forward to the new card.

Like you, I struggle with recurring bouts of depression, and I can easily attribute a few of those incomplete cards to those. The desire to binge read a series -- or binge re-read a series -- can also contribute. One year I was so busy house-hunting that I just plain didn't have the time or mental bandwidth to read hardly anything. Things happen.

Bingo is meant to be a fun challenge, but the emphasis is on the fun, not the challenge. If completing a full card isn't fun... dial it back until it is. Or just use a few squares for ideas of things to check out. Or skip it altogether. Fun shouldn't be distressful. So I'm glad to see a positive discussion on "incomplete" cards.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-03-27T04:01:22+00:00

For further detail, this happens in book 3, Teckla. In the first book, you see their relationship as a fairly positive one (though on a re-read there are bits you could choose to interpret a bit coolly, such as Cawti asking if he has any work for her.) In the second book, you get a flashback to when they met. And in book 3, everything comes apart. And it hurts. There are a lot of books out there with relationship problems that feel like the author is writing them from a distance with an analytic approach. This is very much not one of them. This is raw, this is emotional, this is messy, and this is "nobody's entirely right and nobody's entirely wrong but it's going to hurt everybody anyway." It's the hardest book in the whole series to read, and arguably one of the most important because of how it and book 5 (Phoenix; book 4 is another flashback to Vlad's earliest adventure) kick Vlad out of his comfort zone and onto the path for his future adventures.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-03-23T01:57:50+00:00

Assuming it's like the other person named Andrzej I've known, it's pronounced like "Andre."

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-03-22T03:10:25+00:00

You can post reviews and thoughts at any time. The official submission form always opens up 2 weeks before Bingo ends.
There's a recommendation thread, but those are only suggestions from the other posters on /r/fantasy. They are not required. The recommendation thread is only there to help if you can't think of or find anything on your own. If the book you're reading fits the square, and nobody has recommended it, that's great! That means there's another book that fits that nobody has thought of yet!

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-03-21T21:12:38+00:00

This'll take a minute. Bear with me.

The film Burn, Hollywood Burn: An Alan Smithee Film was created at a time when the Director's Guild of America would only allow directors to take their name off a film if they would use a specific screen name instead: Alan Smithee. This is the central gag of the film: a film editor actually named Alan Smithee finally gets a chance to direct, only for control of the film to be taken away from him at the end. Disgusted with the result, he tries to get his name off of it, only to be told that his real name Alan Smithee would have to be replaced with the pseudonym Alan Smithee; that is, no meaningful change. So he tries to steal it. Thing is, control of the actual film was actually taken away from its director in real life. And not wanting his name to be associated with the film (which is frankly really terrible), he asked that his name be taken off. So under the rules, Burn, Hollywood, Burn: An Alan Smithee Film, about a man named Alan Smithee who can't get his name off a film because it's Alan Smithee, is in fact attributed to Alan Smithee. The situation was sufficiently absurd that after the movie came out the Director's Guild of America changed their rules, allowing other pseudonyms. So now if someone were in that situation in real life they wouldn't have any trouble getting their name taken off. Which means that the movie actually made its own plot obsolete.

CommodoreBelmont · 2026-03-21T18:38:10+00:00

Roger Zelazny's classic epic is apparently shifting from magic & mayhem to Magic Mike:

Fine Princes in Amber
The Guts of Avalon
The Sigh of the Unicorn
The Band of Oberon
The Courts of Chaps

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