imyril @ There's Always Room For One More Giveaways, Wyrd and Wonder, Wyrd and Wonder 2022

Quest Log the First

Wyrd and Wonder: May 1-31st

Welcome back to the tavern, traveller! Grab a drink and rest awhile – the first week of Wyrd and Wonder has been busy, so it’s time to settle in and find out what adventures the rest of the party have found as they ventured into the wilds of fantasy. Never fear, your co-hosts have a round-up of all the action!

The first day of Wyrd and Wonder is always a big event and this fifth anniversary has been no exception! The introductions and TBRs have flooded in, the reviews are quickly following – you will find all the details of these over on Dear Geek Place, where co-host Lisa is keeping track (along with the latest news on all our giveaways). I’ll be introducing our newest party members and guiding you through the lists, recommendations, discussions and fun that has been bubbling up each day (did you pack that extra book bag of holding? You may need it).

New companions

An adventurer is never early or late; they arrive exactly when they mean to, so we never lock the tavern doors and we always raise a shout of greeting when they join us. This week, please give a warm welcome to: Mogsy of The Bibliosanctum, CurlyGeek of The Book Stop, Fran Laniado, Alyssa of Into the Heartwyld, author Jennifer Silverwood, Carys AKA Loki’s Library, Lynn’s Books and Mervi’s Book Reviews.

Want to join the party? Just add your name to the party rolls and we’ll announce you next week. If you’d rather slide quietly into the conversation without the fanfare, just use the #WyrdAndWonder tag when you make a post and – altogether now – add your links to our master schedule (yes, I say that a lot).

Housekeeping

If you want your posts to be included in Quest Logs, please remember to add your links to our master schedule. A million thank yous to everyone who has already been doing so. If you missed this week’s cut-off, don’t worry – get your links in there retrospectively and we’ll include them next week.

Also, if I’ve managed to link to the wrong place again in this post, I apologise profusely. Feel free to point and laugh, and then gently nudge me and I’ll sort it out. It’s a bit of a year, okay?

Fantastic Fives

Your hosts have declared each Sunday our day for championing our ‘fantastic five’ for a particular theme – to get the party started, we looked back at the amazing fantasy books we’ve read since we met last Wyrd and Wonder (because let’s face it, a year is a long time in fantasy reading) – or picked out five fantasies we discovered during a previous Wyrd and Wonder.

There’s no time like the present so some of the party have dived into other Fantastic Fives already! Anouk of Time for Tales and Tea and Louise of Foxes and Fairytales have shared Five Forest Fantasies (handy if you’re looking for ideas of on-theme books to read this month)

Check out all our Fantastic Five prompts if you’re looking for inspiration for your posts.

Lists and recommendations

Sia of Every Book A Doorway shared ten amazing fantasies you’ve probably never heard of for readers looking to get off the beaten track; over at The Fantasy Hive, Julia had an update on favourite self-published fantasies you might like to get your hands on. Lauren of Always Me recapped favourite fantasy releases since last Wyrd and Wonder; at Books, Bones & Buffy, Tammy previewed 12 upcoming YA fantasy releases to stick on your wishlist. Tackling the Wyrd & Wonder book bingo and stuck on a prompt? Annemieke made some suggestions at A Dance With Books to help you out!

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday challenge was to write one word reviews for the last ten books you read – Lynn was game at Lynn’s Books, as was Natalie at Too Short To Read.

Lauren also shared a Wyrd and Wonder watchlist full of intriguing fantasy and horror titles – I’m very curious to seek out The Adventurer for the cast alone!

The Challenge

Each year, we come up with a prompt for each day of Wyrd & Wonder for the party to use as inspiration for posts, pics, tags, or whatever else they make of it. You can tackle as many or as few as you like, in any order you fancy. In previous years, I’ve done a weekly round-up across all channels: today, I’m focusing on blogs only – to catch up on the gorgeous pics being shared on Instagram, check out our shiny new @wyrdandwonder account where co-hosts Annemieke and Ariane are collating reels and highlights capturing the action; or check out the #wyrdandwonder hashtag on Twitter and Litsy.

Before we dive into this year’s blog posts, time for a retrospective: The Fantasy Hive are sharing their favourite examples from previous years of the Wyrd & Wonder challenge as a Throwback Thursday spectacular. Remember any of these?

Right – what about 2022?

Tags and memes

But it hasn’t all been prompts and challenges – there’s nothing as Wyrd and Wonderful as a fun book tag or weekly meme. If you’ve been wondering what to post about, you might want to consider tagging yourself in and taking on one of these…

Discussions

Peat Long kicked off Wyrd and Wonder with a look at the many definitions of fantasy and reviewed the influences of some of the great American epic fantasy authors. Peyton considered Naruto through the lens of the Good All Along trope (‘ware, spoilers). Jess examined the concept of agency in Juliet Marillier’s Daughter of the Forest.

Miscellaneous fun

I’ve been enjoying following Peat Long through his reread of The Wheel of Time – this past week included his thoughts on The Dragon Reborn chapters 29-42 and chapters 43-56. Susy was clear it’s all your fault – or well, the broader fantasy community anyway (but it could be you next week) – as she reviewed the latest additions to her TBR.

Read-along round-up

We have two read-alongs just getting started. Each week we read set chapters (weekly breakdowns) and answer questions posed by the week’s host on our blogs / instagram / etc, then swing by the comments of our fellow read-alongers to compare notes. For those of you on Twitter, each read-along also has a dedicated Community – please contact me (@imyril) or Lisa (@deargeekplace) if you would like to be invited in.

Discussions this week:

Want to join us? Grab a copy and get reading – or slide into the comments on our posts to share your thoughts. If you have read the book or read ahead – please, no spoilers for future weeks!

That’s it for this week – pop by again next week for the latest adventures from around the party.

IMAGE CREDITS: tree wolf image by chic2view on 123RF.com

Note: the gorgeous tree wolf is not royalty-free, but is licensed for use to promote Wyrd and Wonder online. You are welcome to use the banner on your Wyrd and Wonder posts, but please make no changes (except to resize if needed) and always credit the artist!