Out across the wild worlds of fantasy, the adventurers went in search of adventures. Some went alone. Some went with buddies. Some traversed the same worlds by different paths. And from time to time, they gathered back at the tavern to hear the bards sing the news of their journeying.
Welcome to the second week of Wyrd and Wonder. What a delightful party this is proving to be – we’re loving the reviews and the photo challenge, the chat and discussions buzzing around the blogs and on Twitter. I’m particularly loving seeing new friendships sparked over a common love of fantasy – that’s what it’s all about, folks!
Don’t worry if you haven’t been able to keep up (I’ve had a busy week at work myself) – once again, Lisa and I have compiled a Quest Log to pull together the many threads of this weeks’ conversations. This week, I’ll be focusing on discussions and interviews; you can find the week’s reviews and other random treasure over at Dear Geek Place.
Now – grab yourself a flagon of your favourite drink, and let’s settle in…
Announcements
Some new faces in the tavern this week! Say hello to our newest adventurers: Carrie of I Can Has Books, Brittany of Perfectly Tolerable, Gerry of the Book Nook UK, Jean Lee of Jean Lee’s World and Mervi of Mervi’s Book Reviews. Plus we met some familiar faces on the Twitter roads: the Wyrd and Wonder challenge has tempted Mike ‘Everest’ Evans, (Not?) James Latimer and Rebecca to join the party.
Giveaways
- Sammie of The Bookwyrm’s Den is the winner of our Sign-up Giveaway! A copy of The Bone Ships will be setting sail this week.
- Hoping to win something yourself? Watch out for Tammy’s giveaway at the end of May
Discussions
It’s been a good week of posts to sink your teeth into. Annemieke at A Dance with Books took a look at the importance of knowing your sub-genres. Not sure where magical realism stops and fabulism starts? Don’t worry, she has you covered. Jessticulates examined how internalised misogyny can affect our perception of fictional characters with the adept aid of Lady Trent (warning: spoilers for her Memoirs). And Wandering Lynn took on the big question – what counts as fantasy, anyway?
Elsewhere, fantastical creatures have been a hot topic! Last week, Jessticulates mourned the lack of centaur fiction; this week Sia of Every Book a Doorway focused on unicorns in fiction (please swing by to share your recommendations) and Wandering Lynn picked three favourite fantasy creatures (…that are also under-represented in fiction if you ask me). While we’re talking fantasy creatures, Jessticulates had five great reasons you should get your hands on a copy of Certain Dark Things, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s awesome Mexican vampire novel.
Lists and recommendations
We had a few more intros and TBRs as the party settled in for the month:
- Anouk of Time for Tales and Tea has five luscious-sounding reads planned
- Arina of The Paperback Voyager has a really intriguing line up (look don’t touch if you value your fingers)
- Erin of Erin’s Library has an impressive list of books on deck – good luck!
- Mervi’s Book Reviews is considering where to start on their backlog
- Queen Terrible Timy of Rock Starlit Book Asylum has a mix of traditional, indie and audio reads lined up
- Brittany of Perfectly Tolerable has the best excuse for a late start (glad to hear Logan is doing okay)
- Dianthaa Dabbles not only made a plan and a TBR, but a flow chart (bonus points; you know I love a good flow chart)
We’ve had some adventurers lament the impact Wyrd and Wonder has had on their TBRs already. All we can say is: if your shelves are full, look away now. Otherwise, get our your notebooks and open your bags of holding, because the party have plenty more to tempt you with…
- Liz at Redd’s Reads took a look at upcoming releases she’ll be reading this month
- Erin of Erin’s Library took a longer-term view at fantasy releases to get excited about this summer
- Susy treasured the works of Jacqueline Carey over at Susy’s Cozy World
- Maxine of Maxine’s Obsessions celebrated her recent fantasy books hauls
- Louise of Foxes and Fairytales has fantasy recommendations with a focus on queer characters
- Kriti of Armed with a Book discussed her love for The Sword of Truth
- …and Line of First Line Reader looked back at some impressive fantasy debuts
Features
Top Five Tuesday (hosted by The Bionic Bookworm) and Top Ten Tuesday hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) are always a good excuse for a fun list. For Wyrd and Wonder many of us are ignoring the weekly prompts in favour of a fantasy focus:
- Annemieke at A Dance With Books shared her favourite fantasy tropes
- I shared some favourite opening lines (and scenes) from fantasy novels
- Jessticulates made us hungry with the best fantasy cuisine
- Sia of Every Book A Doorway celebrated ridiculously cool magic systems
- Liz of Redd’s Reads has her favourite epic fantasies
- Caitlin of Realms of My Mind brought us her top five fantasy romances
- Charlotte of Mug Full of Books recommended five great fantasy series for beginners
Time for some 5 Star (Fantasy) Books in 5 Words (created by Matthew Sciarappa)? You bet. First up, we’ve got Mayri the Book Forager and Jenna of Falling Letters taking the challenge. DeeZee of Dragons and Zombies turned it into a Top Ten Tuesday (I may never stop laughing at this take on the Malazan).
…and Sammie of The Bookwyrm’s Den explained which characters she’d invite to her birthday party.
Interviews
We’ve had a few interviews this week too:
- my co-host Jorie interviewed indie author Brianna Sugalski about her Breton fantasy Disenchanted for Storytellers on Tour
- Over at the Fantasy Hive, the team chatted to Nick Martell about his debut novel Kingdom of Liars (look at that gorgeous cover art!)
- Watch out for live interviews each Saturday – Jorie will be hosting a #SatBookChat each week on Twitter (full schedule here)
The Wyrd and Wonder Challenge
The challenge continues to be pure delight – I’m loving all the different interpretations of the prompts! I strongly recommend you check out #WyrdAndWonder on Instagram (maybe we need a second tag for Twitter to make the challenge tweets easier to find?), as I’m mostly focusing on blog posts again this week. Mostly.
Day 4 | Rebellions are built on hope
- Natrosette celebrated May the Fourth (be with you) by showcasing her favourite Star Wars novels (let’s hear it for space wizards!)
- Louise of Foxes and Fairytales marked Star Wars Day with some space recommendations for non-scifi readers (including The Unspoken Name, which is as blurred a boundary between scifi and fantasy as you can imagine)
Day 5 | Confounding expectations
- Peyton of Word Wilderness reflected on the books she didn’t expect to love
- Peat Long discussed fantasy romances that confounded expectations – ‘ware spoilers for The Truth and Carpe Jugulum (Pratchett), the Empire trilogy (Wurts & Feist), the Warlord trilogy (Cornwell), A Brightness Long Ago (GGK) and the Deverry Cycle by Kit Kerr (happy anniversary Peat!)
Day 6 | Goblins
- Peat Long explored the worlds where goblins are more frequently found
- I’m loving @Acquadimore’s inclusion of prompt cacti (but also, why haven’t I heard of Desdemona and the Deep? Hallucinatory rococo fairytale ahoy!)
Day 7 | Under-rated
- Brace yourself – Dianthaa came up with 23 reads that deserve more love
- …and Brittany of Perfectly Tolerable added another 6 to the under-rated list including Pride and Prejudice with dragons (YAS)
- Peat Long has a lovely combination of old and new works that don’t get the respect they deserve
- Arina the Paperback Voyager made the case for kidlit being as important as adult reads (hell yes!)
Day 8 | Can’t wait to read
- JonBob of Parsecs and Parchment has three of my all-time favourite fantasy books awaiting his reading pleasure (and a bunch more)
- Peat Long has thirty authors on his to-read list
Day 9 | #StackSaturday
- Not a natural blog prompt, so hats off to Peat Long for re-interpreting it so brilliantly as the ultimate fantasy heist crew to steal a stack (of money
Day 10 | Spine poetry or Mother’s Day
Hat’s off to Gerry of Book Nook UK for a spectacular piece of spine poetry!
Read-along
The Goblin Emperor read-along has well and truly started! It’s not too late to catch up if you wish to join us – this week we’ll be reading Chapters 10 through 17. Lisa will post questions on Goodreads midweek.
Our thoughts so far: Dear Geek Place | Book Forager | Lynn’s Books | Natrosette | Peat Long | There’s Always Room For One More | Word Wilderness | Zezee with Books
Anyone chipping in who has read the book / series – please, no spoilers!
Last but not least
Many thanks to all of you who have added your links to the Master schedule – it really does make the process of compiling the Quest Logs much easier.
Now – shall we get back on the road? There are dragons to find!
onemore.org 