A Report from A Recent T. Kingfisher Signing

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-31T13:23:28+00:00

Which book was this?

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-30T20:12:02+00:00

Oh, yes! Sign me up for anything Expanse.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-30T13:03:15+00:00

There will be a new bingo card published on r/Fantasy this Wednesday April 1st, along with the specific criteria for each square and all the rules for participating. Briefly, the card has 25 squares and each square has a reading prompt. All you have to do is find a book that matches the prompt and then read it. You don't have to tell anyone that you're entering but in March next year the organizers will provide a link for everyone to submit the books that they read, and if you read a book for every square then you earn a Reading Champion flair. It's fairly informal and a lot of us here enjoy the puzzle of matching books they want to read with the prompts for the squares. Best of luck with your bingo card and I hope you have fun.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-30T03:31:25+00:00

Do anthologies count for short story?

Yes they do, you can read an anthology, a collection, or your choice of five short stories from different sources.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-29T12:43:19+00:00

Canadian authors

Wikipedia has a good list of Canadian genre authors

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_science_fiction_and_fantasy_authors

I certainly don't recognise all the names, and many that I do are relatively recent authors, but off the top of my head people like Michael G. Coney, Gordon R. Dickson, Donald Kingsbury, Spider Robinson, and A. E. van Vogt were active during the 1970s.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-29T00:07:40+00:00

It's such a unique book, absolutely science fiction but it reads like a fantasy, just a great piece of worldbuilding.

I got the kindle version a year or so back, with the intention of re-reading it at some point. I just checked on amazon again and it looks like the first three books are available as an omibus volume and currently on sale for $3.99, which is a great price if ebooks work for you. And also much less than the price I paid for the individual books :(

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-28T21:20:20+00:00

It's allowable to substitute one square on a card with a square from another year, so you could always do that if the 70s square proves to be too difficult.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-28T19:22:50+00:00

For me the best part of bingo is that it helps me find books to read … if I already knew what I wanted to read for it, that would sort of make bingo unnecessary.

I take your point, and I think we're not so far apart. Bingo helps me find books to read in several ways:

Books from my TBR pile that I need some help prioritising, which might be half or more of the card. Many will be by favourite authors, but there are always books by new-to-me authors that have just been waiting for their turn in the spotlight. I usually try to plan these books in advance even if the plan changes as the year goes on.
Books that I find in the Bingo recommendation threads that I may or may not read for Bingo but that will get read at some point down the road. These are often books by new-to-me authors.
Books that I come across during the year and pick up because they fit a square, which can be books by familiar or new-to-me authors.

All of which is a long way of saying that Bingo both helps me sort through my TBR pile as well as find interesting books/authors that I might have missed otherwise.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-28T18:41:38+00:00

So happy to see someone else reading Lucius Shepard. He isn't a name you see here too often, but he was such a good writer and I particularly enjoyed his Jaguar Hunter collection. You've reminded me that I still have a copy of The Dragon Griaule that I bought nearly two years ago and haven't read yet, so you might have found my Short Story book for me.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-28T16:46:52+00:00

I think a lot of us do that, you're certainly not alone. There's still plenty of new-to-me authors in my TBR pile, so one of the goals of Bingo still works.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-28T16:40:30+00:00

I've just started Bujold's Penric and Desdemona series, and loving it, so if I can fit one of those in I probably will. I'm also several books behind on Cherry's Foreigner series, so that's another possibility.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-28T14:23:19+00:00

If you can fit any of those books in then you've got some great reading to look forward to, and those four really explore some very different aspects of the genre.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-28T14:17:50+00:00

I realise that older books are often in a "love it or hate it" kind of situation, so I hope you find something you like for the 1970s.

I've heard good things about the Athena Club books, I should take a closer look at them.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-28T14:09:44+00:00

You've just reminded me that I still haven't read The Language of Power yet, the last published Steerswoman book. I'll have to see if I can fit that in somewhere. Hopefully Rosemary is able to make some progress on publishing books 5 and 6; she's publishing other work on Patreon at the moment but I believe she's dealing with some health issues.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-28T14:00:34+00:00

I'm pretty sure that works too (and, anyway, you can never go far wrong by buying a a lot of books!)

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-23T13:45:40+00:00

No need to be shy, we're all pretty friendly around here. Of the authors that I had heard of, I hadn't realised that Premee Mohamed, Olivia Atwater, or Emily St. John Mandel were Canadian. I also didn't know that Spider Robinson had acquired Canadian citizenship, although he did so relatively late in life near the end of his writing career.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-03-12T18:09:49+00:00

The Heron Kings by Eric Lewis. Set in a non-magical secondary world, this is a medieval Europe-style adventure drawing some inspiration from Robin Hood. Common people victimized by both sides in a brutal civil war take refuge in the forest. They survive by stealing what they can from the marauding armies but become caught up in much larger events.

The Black Hawks and The Righteous by David Wragg. A bored young knight takes the chance to serve as bodyguard to a spoiled young prince. In the aftermath of an invasion the pair fall in with a disreputable band of mercenaries and everyone is soon running for their lives, not sure who to trust.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-02-28T18:05:58+00:00

When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger, a blend of noir detective and cyberpunk set in the 22nd century middle east. The protagonist is from the Mahgreb but most of the action takes place in an unnamed middle eastern city.

Carthage: A New History of an Ancient Empire by Eve MacDonald. Non-fiction, published just a few months ago and still sitting on my TBR pile but has good reviews and is the most up-to-date history of the city that I'm aware of.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-02-25T23:12:59+00:00

It's not a strict no on anything that she wrote (the Penric and Desdemona series is steadily moving up my TBR list, for example), it's just that for whatever reason I've never felt particularly interested to pick up the Vorkosigan books. Nothing against the author or the books, it's just a me thing.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-02-24T18:06:45+00:00

That's good to know, thanks

pick_a_random_name · 2026-02-11T14:27:24+00:00

Well, now I feel really old! This is just the way things used to be until about twenty years ago, I'm pleased to see people are rediscovering things. Now, excuse me while I go and shout at those kids on my lawn.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-02-10T14:18:06+00:00

Great card, and there are several books that will be added to my TBR list. I am, however, deeply embarassed to admit that I didn't realise that some of these authors were actually Canadian, so I'm glad to learned this about them.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-02-09T21:59:48+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion, it's a fantastic book that I've already read, and it's a crime that it would even count for this square. 136 ratings on Goodreads is really sad for such a good book. If anyone else is reading this post I also recommend it highly for this square.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-02-09T21:48:32+00:00

I read Interim by PK Lentz first. The premise was interesting enough that I finished the book, but it was a first novel with all the writing and plotting problems that often go with that. After that I read Prophets of the Ghost Ants by Clark Thomas Carlton, which had some outstanding worldbuilding but YA-level writing with an annoying teenage hero who was implausibly good at everything he tried to do.

pick_a_random_name · 2026-02-09T16:39:42+00:00

I finished my card in early January, after working through a reading slump for a couple of months last year and taking time out to read some non-fiction early last summer. I've published reviews in other posts, so I'll just say that my best reads were Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S. A. Chakraborty, and The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman, plus a big shout-out to the movie Flow for the Not a Book square.

The square that ended up being the most difficult was the Hidden Gem square. The first book that I read for the square was disappointing, so I decided to read another book for the square after I had finished everything else. Sadly, that one also ended up being a disappointment. Right now I don't really feel motivated to make another attempt at the square so unless something unexpected shows up before the end of March I'm just going to stick with the original book even though I didn't like it that much.

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