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| I'm taking part in the Spells & Spaceships Virtual Badge Collection Challenge 2025! |
In my goals for 2025, I set myself a number of reading challenges:
My LARGE goal is to participate in the Books in Translation Reading Challenge. I had such fun with it last year! I also want to collect some of the adorable badges from the 2025 Fantasy/SF Badge Collection. I have a new reading challenge of my own, which I'm calling the Bancroft Prize Reading Challenge. Awarded annually by Columbia University, the prize is given to books on American history and/or diplomacy. Two of my favourite works of history I've read for fun have been by Bancroft-winning authors, so I'm setting myself the goal of reading a previous winner or the 2025 winner when it is announced in March or April.
So how's that badge collecting going?
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| My badge collection bingo card to date |
- The African inspiration badge
- SPFBO (self-published fantasy blog-off) badge
- The animal companion badge
- The sea setting badge
- The space opera badge
- The graphic novel badge
- The collector badge (all of them)
I don't normally read graphic novels or self-published fantasy, and am unlikely to stumble across either accidentally, so some research and planning is clearly in order!
- For reading suggestions of fantasy and science fiction inspired by the countries and cultures of Africa, I looked at lists of books on Book Riot, the Conversation, and Reactor.com as well as on reddit. As it happens, I've just checked out Out There Screaming, an anthology of horror stories, which appears on Publishers Weekly's list of "8 New Works of Science Fiction Influenced by Africa and the Diaspora".
- None of the SPFBO winners are available in my public library system, so I will have to put in an inter-library loan or purchase request to get this badge.
- I've previously read most of the books and series recommended for the animal companion badge, except the faithful and the fallen series by John Gwynne, which is available at my local library.
- Deep as the sky, red as the sea, was wonderful, but isn't SFF, so I'm still looking for my sea setting badge. Fast Ships, Black Sails--an anthology of pirate fantasy--would meet the criteria and satisfy my love of anthologies; but I might also look for some of the recommendations in this reddit thread, or this list from Books Are My Third Place. (Reactor gets a shout-out again for a wonderful list of fantasy's best boats--the only trouble is I've read almost everything on the list.)
- Shocked, absolutely shocked that I haven't yet checked space opera off the list, but the rules of the challenge specify that one book cannot count for multiple badges, and I already counted Artificial Condition for the nonhuman badge. I haven't yet counted other Murderbot books for this badge, so that's a back up plan, but I have counted multiple books of a series once already, so it would be fun to push myself to keep reading. My library system doesn't have Wayfarers (although Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep, part of a series with a very similar title, sounds rather fun); or the Protectorate, the two books/series suggested as examples of space opera. But I can check out the third suggestion, Pierce Brown's Red Rising. For classics like Downbelow Station or other works listed on the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (not to mention more recent hits like Gideon the Ninth), I'd need to use inter-library loan.
- I know absolutely nothing about graphic novels or comics but tracking down something from this Book Riot list or browsing the library shelves and seeing what I can come up with should be fun!
What would you read to collect these last few badges? Recommendations and suggestions very welcome!
