• 13 standalone books, 3 series starters, 3 sequels, and 6 assorted collections including short stories, novellas and plays
• 8 books written before the 21st century vs. 5 published in 2022
• 14 books by new-to-me authors (give or take a short story)
• A lot of these fall between genres, but to give a very rough idea: about one third mainly fantasy, one third mainly horror, one fifth mainly science fiction, and assorted other categories (lightly fantastical literary fiction, ancient Greek tragedy, etc.)

• 3 books about nonhuman beings becoming somewhat human, for better or worse (and 1 about the reverse)
• 3 books about traveling groups of artists in trouble way over their heads
• 3 books with main characters possessing other people’s bodies, sort of, in a sci-fi way
• 3 books with deliberately anachronistic blends of technology and aesthetics, as well as discomfiting sources of fuel that also serve as food
• 2 books about English people exploring strange mansions that can’t be trusted
• 2 books with questionably reliable narrators obsessed with certain types of stories, which they think they see playing out in real life
• 2 books with plot-significant refrigerators not being used for their intended purpose

Reviews

• Featuring: mercenary gangs, the brutality of war, bug-based technology, various severed body parts
• A story of (mostly) violent antiheroes selling their skills in an even more violent world. Although the book is set on a distant planet far in humanity’s future, Hurley kept to a gritty, grounded tone that made me think of the noir genre. The pacing struck me as uneven, not too surprising for a sci-fi debut with some politics and religion to explain. It picked up by the end and set out interesting territory for the rest of the series.

• Featuring: space travel, reprogrammed brains, the strangest romance I read all year (this will carry more weight after you see my “Character name in the title” square)
• Definitely a novel of ideas. The protagonist has two major personality traits for much of the book: 1) occasionally calls people “Sport” and 2) fervidly does not want any other personality traits. And somehow it works! It paints a fascinating picture of unsettling future societies and weird bio-engineering across the solar system. I’m planning to pick up more by Swanwick soon.

• Featuring: ghosts (evil and otherwise), psychic powers, a certain degree of Spiritualist evangelism
• A solid introduction to the origins the occult detective story (19th-early 20th c.), elements of which are still going strong in horror and urban fantasy today. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this anthology over alternatives like finding stories in the public domain, but it was helpful for me as a place to start and an interesting read.

• Featuring: labor rights, angels and demons, Jewish immigrant life, queer self-discovery
• A very sweet young adult novel that I actually enjoyed. (For context: I read The House on the Cerulean Sea with my book club last year and absolutely couldn’t stomach how saccharine it was.) It helped that there is real conflict in this book, rooted in its early 20th century setting, albeit softened for the YA audience.

• Featuring: math-flavored magic, the brutality of war (in space!), clever plots
• I’m continuing to enjoy this series with some reservations. At times the tone just strikes me as too light for the subject matter, a rebellion against violent space imperialism. I liked the new characters developed in this installment, but would preferred more time spent digging into conflict instead of about half the mentions of their hobbies and food preferences. Hopefully things will pick up in the final book.

• Featuring: dangerous fae, Christian theology, strange house rules
• I can understand why this novel is controversial, but I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to see more classic Gothic influences in fantasy, with all that entails. It follows a brother and sister from Victorian England on a foolhardy mission to convert the fae to Christianity. I appreciated the story’s grounding in history and religion, as well as the eerie atmosphere of the fairy manor full of secrets and illusions.

• Featuring: Zone exploration, a creepy doll, light treason, cosmic horrors undergoing marital difficulties
• This is the only square where I really felt constrained by bingo. I tried this graphic novel because I’d enjoyed a few of Westerfeld’s books when I was a teen, and I tend to like a Weird Zone. Pretty disappointing. There were a few cool horrors, but I never bought into the story. It felt off tonally, with a goofy plot that was played mostly straight-faced.

• Featuring: haunting art, unreliable narration, less reliable memories
• I’d recommend this book more as a character study than as fantasy or horror. The protagonist has schizophrenia and struggles to make sense of her past relationships, seeing them through the lenses of fairy tales and ghost stories. A slower-paced, introspective work. I was really impressed by the writing style and how it transformed along with the protagonist’s state of mind.

• Featuring: convoluted crimes, coincidences, gods struggling with modern life
• A fun romp, actually better than I expected after I’d seen it compared unfavorably to the first Dirk Gently mystery. This sequel lands more firmly on the urban fantasy side of things, and I’d say it has a messier plot, especially at the end. But you read Adams for the humor, and that makes a strong showing here.

• Featuring: totalitarian government, plucky rebels, live theater
• An enjoyable 1950s dystopian novel featuring a troupe of actors caught up in a revolution. It started strong for me, with compelling writing and a flawed and interesting protagonist, but by the end I found it a bit hard to stay invested in his drastic, repetitive fluctuations in feeling and motivation. (Actors, am I right?) I’m still planning to check out Moore’s sword and sorcery works.

• Featuring: several layers of metafictional doppelgangers, commitment to the bit, adventurous relations with a haunted typewriter
• I could not, in good conscience, recommend this book to anyone who hasn’t watched Garth Marenghi’s DarkPlace. If you have (and you absolutely should if you like campy horror parodies), then it might be worth picking up. Deliberate so-bad-it’s-good writing is tricky to pull off. It made me laugh, but there were times when the joke got hammered into the ground.

• Featuring: antiheroes, scheming, academics one-upping each other
• As an introduction to Parker’s work, I picked a few novellas (and/or novelettes?) collected in his book Academic Exercises. I liked all three, especially Purple and Black, which used the epistolary format well. By the end, I was a bit tired of the similar first-person narrators — largely cynical, ruthless academics with penchants for dark humor — but I’d read more by Parker when I’m in the mood for that again.

• Featuring: hive minds, identity crises, the horrors of imperialism (and worms)
• A strong debut with elements of weird science fiction, Gothic horror and body horror. The opening really drew me in with an unusual perspective and tense mystery. The focus shifted over the course of the book, and I had some issues with the pacing, but I’m looking forward to whatever Ennes writes next.

• Featuring: post-college malaise, meddling ghosts, vengeful gods
• I read Black Water Sister for a book club and enjoyed it, but it didn’t make a big impact. The Malaysian setting was well-drawn, and I liked the protagonist’s interactions with her family as well as various supernatural beings. I just would have liked to see more depth in some of the relationships and more fallout for some of the story events — the ending especially felt rushed to me.

• Featuring: life in Lagos, queer community, hauntings of many kinds
• This was a powerful book. It’s made up of loosely linked short stories about queer characters in Nigeria (where homosexuality is illegal), told with a mix of tragedy, hope and magical realism. Though various spirits and gods appear, I’d recommend this book more as literary fiction — shading into manifesto — than urban fantasy.

• Featuring: road trips, celestial bureaucracy, outrageous battles
• This was my first time reading a (translated and abridged) version of the Chinese classic Journey to the West, so I don’t have any basis for comparison. I found it a lot of fun, with some social and religious commentary and plenty of humor and adventure. The translation style was engaging, if distractingly British in a couple of places.

• Featuring: folk rock, folk horror, the 1970s
• This novella accomplishes exactly what it promises: an eerie story of young musicians intruding upon old powers in the English countryside. The interview format made it a quick read, and the band’s complex relationship dynamics and feelings toward art felt believable. Recommended if you’re in the mood for understated, ambiguous horror.

• Featuring: troubled relationships, complicated families, a touch of the surreal
• I was impressed by Ling Ma’s debut novel, Severance, a few years ago, so I made sure to pick up this new collection, a mix of speculative and more realistic stories. Ling Ma makes good use of playful techniques and surreal elements to deal with heavy themes. Especially recommended to those who also enjoyed Severance, as many of these stories are written in a similar voice.

• Featuring: second chances, healing, life after heroism
• Unsurprisingly, a wonderful novel in the Earthsea series. With an older protagonist, and a focus on domestic life and growth, it re-examines some of the themes of power and gender dynamics from the previous trilogy in a deft, thoughtful way. I’m so glad I finally started reading Le Guin’s work in the last couple years.

• Featuring: dark forests, unquiet spirits, benevolent (and not so benevolent) witchcraft
• A collection of short horror-fantasy stories set in Appalachia around the start of the 20th century, following the adventures of Anna O’Brien, a traveling witch. Nicely grounded in its setting. I felt like the stories were stronger when inspired by regional folklore, religion and classic horror writing (all influences that the author acknowledged), a bit less so when featuring an original monster.

• Featuring: Venusian whales, lunar movie studios, epistolary extravagance
• Valente has a talent for writing in a wide range of styles, and she really demonstrates that in this darkly whimsical novel about the life and disappearance of a documentary filmmaker. Voices and formats change in every chapter, from film transcripts to noir fiction to gossip rags. Not my favorite book of hers, but worth reading if you enjoy the more experimental side of speculative fiction.

• Featuring: slasher facts, final girls, buried secrets
• I’m not the world’s biggest fan of slasher movies, but I was still drawn into this novel narrated by a protagonist who very well could be. Jones immerses you deeply in the perspective of a thorny, alienated young woman convinced that her small town is about to see a bloodbath. A good balance of pulpy horror and psychological depth.

• Featuring: outsiders, personal transformation, metaphorical and literal monsters
• Not for the squeamish, this novella pits a sadistic serial killer against a protagonist embracing his own monstrous side. I found it gripping, with well-deployed tension and a fascinating underworld of strange monsters. I also enjoyed the few short stories that accompanied it in Barker’s collection, some of which covered similar themes.

• Featuring: loss of a loved one, an evil Alexa (redundant, I know), non-Lovecraftian cosmic horror
• A horror novel focused on grief that starts out with a technological haunting and soon gets a lot weirder, darker and more gruesome. A bit messy, narratively speaking, but I really liked the style and found it gripping. Not all horror can (or should) be wrapped up neatly.

• Featuring: mortal doom, grief and rage, poetic translation
• Though I’m no expert in ancient Greek drama, I’ve found find it fascinating to dip into because of how much still resonates over two millennia later. Euripides’ plays dwell on ruined lives and disquieting problems without easy answers. Carson’s translations are especially compelling to me, as she approaches the text with a distinct, stark poetic style.