My Bingo 2025 Reviews

Since starting this reading challenge, I feel like I have read more books in the past two months than I did in almost the whole year in 2024. It's amazing what a reading challenge can do to one's motivation to read more. Mind you, I love my fantasy reading hobby, but reading time has become almost a luxury when dealing with everyday obligations of work and family. Some of you might have seen my last review of the stellar City of Last Chances (Down with the system square) – 1^(st) book on my bingo list and also the first perfect 5/5. I loved it so much in fact, that I feel like I would have to read it again sometime in the future. It is rare for me to feel this way about a book.

So pretty much any book, that I want to reread almost immediately after finishing it, gets 5/5. Very rare in my experience. Over the years, a lot of my 5/5s came from Gene Wolfe and Steven Erikson. A very exclusive club.  So Adrian Tchaikovsky might become my new favourite author. 

Last Book in Series:

4/5s are those which I like a lot, truly exceptional books. For these books the writing style and/or story are more than competent but either one or both are not strong enough to elevate it to the compelling, memorable level. I read them once and do not really feel the desire to go back reread them. In the last 2 months, my 4/5 was definitely World of Trouble (book 3 of Last Policeman Trilogy by Ben Winters). As you might guess, this was my “Last book in series” square. I really liked the whole series and book 3 was my favourite. It really build up well on the characterization from the previous books. It has been a while since I have read a book that made you care so much about the main character. Henry Palace is a very likable character. The ending was not quite what I expected but it made for a great conclusion to Henry’s story. I don’t want to spoil to much about what this story was about but let’s just say it’s about one police detective trying to do his job in a world that is falling apart around him (as in rapidly moving towards apocalypse). That is the only scifi bit in the story while the rest is mostly murder mystery. 

Parents

3/5 books are those that I thought had more good elements than bad ones. I enjoyed them, but not enough. A good indicator of such a book is when at some point in my reading experience, I start to force myself to finish this book. It did not capture my imagination and was a bit of a chore to get through. I still like it for its quality writing or maybe some of the ideas presented. Sometimes it’s a book that I feel like I need to read before getting to better books in the series. Two such books were Barrayar and The Outsider.

Honestly, Barrayar is probably more of a 3.5/5. At first I was really excited about reading it because I love the work of Luis Bujold. But overall I did not find it in the same quality as her later works so by the end I was just reading to get to the later Miles Vorkosigan books which I intend to reread sometime this year. I remember enjoyed that series a lot when I was younger. I never finished it however and at this point don’t really remember many of the plot points. When I started reading it for the first time, I actually skipped Cordelia Neismith prequel books. At the time I did not think that her story would not really interest me that much. And actually reading Shards of Honour and Barrayar has proven me right. It is a perfect story for the “Parents” square since Cordelia is definitely not a mother you want to mess with. And as added bonus, now I can finally understand that “Cordelia going shopping joke” that all the hardcore Vorkosigan Saga fans mention.

Book in Parts (Hard Mode because more than 4 parts) – this book is broken up into neat sections that follow chronologically through the days of the events of this story. 

I have been a Stephen King fan for a long time, but to be honest I have stopped reading him in recent years. After having read many of his older horror classics (It, Pet Cemetery, Salem’s Lot, ect), and the Dark Tower series, I have not really paid much attention to King’s more modern releases. It might have been because a few of them disappointed me (specifically Billy Summers and Fairy Tale). But maybe I should have kept us with his bibliography because there is a whole crime thriller side to King that I only discovered recently, thanks to Bill Hodges trilogy. I enjoyed that series a lot and The Outsider follows the story of one major side character from that trilogy.

In The Outside, King attempts to blend the crime thriller genre with his typical paranormal horror/urban fantasy. And for the most part, the fusion is enjoyable to read. I really liked the procedural crime investigation part from the first half of the book. Probably more so than the latter half where the things started to become a little too weird. And also perhaps a little rushed. I felt like King wanted to wrap up this tale neatly and dipping quite a bit into fantasy was probably the best way to do it. Because of this, I would rate the 1^(st) half as a solid 4/5. It really captured my interest as pages kept turning. Classic King. But then for the last 30% of the book, once you know where the story is heading, it became a struggle to finish. 2.5/5. So overall I would probably rate the whole experience at 3/5. 

Author of Color

2/5 books are those I did not enjoy at all but I guess they were not so bad that I could not finish them. With Dead Cat Tails Assassins I had to force myself through most of the book. It was my book to fill Author of Color square so that was the main motivator to finish it. But if not for the Bingo, I doubt I would have read to the end. Initially I was intrigued by the author’s description of his book as a cross between Dungeons and Dragons and John Wick. I also really liked the setting. Non-Western settings are still rare in fantasy today. And a book that nicely meshes Caribbean, North African and possibly Middle Eastern cultures, is even more rare. The city of Tel Abisi feels like it would be right at home somewhere among the islands of Caribbean. But also it has some strong Thousand and One Night vibes especially with its Clockwork King narrative within the narrative. And even some Venice vibes. Pretty cool.

Anyway, for me it started out strong especially because of the cool setting but then I mostly got turned off from it for several reasons. Mostly the characters and the dialogue. The writing does not make you care about any of the characters. Author seems to be more concerned with describing how elaborately dressed each character is, or making sure that they have a witty one-liner for every line of their dialogue. As opposed to describing believable multi-faceted characters who talk like normal people and not like internet memes or Marvel superheroes. It is possible that I have been spoiled by other character-based fantasy books (which is most modern fantasy). And to be fair (as well as a little ironic) but the main character is technically dead. I just did not expect her to be so dull. Or to call another character an “edgelord”. At that point I felt I would have stopped reading, if not for my Bingo obligation. A solid 2/5 though as I still finished it (and a bonus point for the cool city setting).

Finally for my Impossible Places square I am reading Delicious in Dungeon manga series. The last volume that I finished was number 12. Two more to go! And this will definitely be one series that I will be sad to complete. The group of heroes in this one really grew on me, especially the elf Marcille. The whole series takes place in an ever-changing dungeon (hence Hard Mode), where the heroes slay some monsters and cook up some amazing dishes. Typical D&D stuff you know. So far the series has been a solid 4/5 for me. The art is beautiful and the story is very engaging and unpredictable. 2nd season should be coming to Netflix sometime this year too.