One of the reading challenges I participated in this year was the Spells and Spaceships Virtual Badge collection. Look how adorable the little badges are! How could I resist?
Much to my surprise, I was able to collect twenty-three out of the twenty-five badges available, missing only the self-published fantasy blog off badge, and hence also failing to become a collector by reading books that counted for all of the badges. Overall, this was a super-fun reading challenge, and pushed me to read books I otherwise would not have read.
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| Spells and Spaceships Virtual Badge Collection |
1. My first badge was the post-apocalytic badge: which I collected by reading A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Some books are classics for a reason.
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| The Post Apocalyptic Badge |
2. I earned myself the Big Battle Badge by reading Anthony Ryan's The Pariah, the first book of the dark fantasy trilogy The Covenant of Steel. The novel's rather loutish hero, Alwyn Scribe, fights in a big battle against a pretender to the throne of Albermaine, under the banner of the devout and troubled Lady Evaline Courlain. It's a world inspired by late medieval Europe with women in military command! Very much my jam, and I enjoyed Alwyn's voice as a first-person narrator.
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| The Big Battle Badge |
3. I earned my Debut badge by reading Emily Tesh's Some Desperate Glory, author's first novel, and the winner of a Hugo Award. In her wonderful, wise acceptance speech, Tesh spoke about how she wrote the book in response to contemporary concerns and fully hopes that the novel will join the many previous Hugo Award winners which were significant and of their time, but have now faded into obscurity.
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| The Debut Badge |
4. I earned my Epic Fantasy badge by continuing to read Anthony Ryan's Covenant of Steel series. The second book, The Martyr, shows the characters deepening their commitment to preventing a coming apocalypse. But are they actually preventing it or actually bringing it about?
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| The Epic Fantasy Badge |
5. I earned my "mythology and folklore badge" with The Girl in Red, which is based on the story of Little Red Riding Hood.
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| Mythology and Folklore Badge |
6. I earned my lightweight badge with Lolly Willowes, which is a book I would most enthusiastically recommend. If you read one book on this list, read Lolly Willowes. "A middle-aged spinster becomes a sworn servant of the Devil" doesn't sound like the most promising setup of a book, but just trust me, it's tremendous.
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| Lightweight Badge |
7. Murderbot absolutely counts as not a human, right? At least, I'm 100% confident it doesn't see itself as human. I liked Artificial Condition well enough, but didn't find myself adoring it as much as All Systems Red. But it sets up some intriguing worldbuilding--I do hope the portion of the plot dealing with ComfortUnits is developed in later books--and I am now team ART forever. Sometimes what a depressed, socially anxious person needs is a figure in their lives who (lovingly) takes none of their crap and reminds them to pull their head from their nethers every so often--as ART does in this book. All hail ART.
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| The Non-Human Badge |
8. My Asian Inspiration badge came from reading S.L. Huang's The Water Outlaws. The characters won my heart completely and I stayed up well into a Friday night to inhale it. If you are looking for a engrossing epic tale of good people taking down bad (who isn't these days), seek this out.
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| Asian Inspiration Badge |
9. I earned my Dragon badge for reading the third book of the Empyrean, Onyx Storm. I wouldn't say I'm a fan of the Empyrean books, precisely--I definitely laugh in places the author did not intend me to--but I am fascinated by the phenomenon of the series, and curious what will happen to the characters.
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| Dragon Badge |
10. My Uncovered Diamond badge was from reading a collection of short stories, the Mile-Long Spaceship, published by Kate Wilhelm early in her career. It has only, at the time I am writing this paragraph (April 2025), seven reviews on Goodreads, so definitely counts for this badge! The collection was published in 1963, and the stories themselves were written in the late 1950s and early 1960s, which made them a fascinating time capsule. My favourite stories of the lot were "No Light in the Window," an extremely clever, subtle, and satisfying take on the selection of passengers for a generation ship; and "Jenny with Wings," because it made me laugh.
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Uncovered Diamond Badge |
11. My first contact badge came from reading Sylvain Neuvel's series The Themis Files. Unusually, the story is told as a series of journal entries, news broadcasts, and recorded interviews, which is a rather fun form to read! While book one, Sleeping Giants does contain "first contact", in the form of humanity discovering extraterrestrial artefacts (and humans with alien DNA); the second book in the series, Waking Gods, is the one I'm counting here. Aliens invading earth is pretty unambiguous first contact. And we get more details on the genetic mixing of humans and extraterrestrials, too!
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| The First Contact Badge |
12. My Standalone Badge came from reading the science fictional climate change novel, Daylight Come by Diana McCauley. I haven't ever read a scifi novel set in Jamaica (renamed Bajacu) and the novel chronicles the efforts of a mother and daughter, Sorrel and Bibi, to seek safety and community. It's a short, fast-paced book with intriguing worldbuilding.
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| The Standalone Badge |
13. Horror is not a genre I would have said I liked but Chuck Wendig's Black River Orchard had changed my mind. I may never look at an apple orchard--or an apple seed (shudder)--the same way again. A wonderfully creepy book.
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| The Spooky Badge |
14. I earned my historical fantasy badge by reading The Sin Eater by Megan Campisi (London, 2021), set in Elizabethan England (sure, the names of the queen, the country, and the newly established church are all technically changed, but the original serial numbers are still plainly visible). I read this book just before my international move--it was the final novel I finished from my local public library. It has that wonderful folkloric quality that all the best historical fantasy does, and compelling worldbuilding.
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| The Historical Fantasy Badge |
15. I earned my big'un badge by reading Robert Silverberg's mammoth (715 page) Legends: short novels by the masters of modern fantasy. The stories that linger particularly with me are Stephen King's The Little Sisters of Eluria (wonderfully creepy); The Hedge Knight by George R.R. Martin (still not tempted to take another run at ASOIAF though); Grinning Man by Orson Scott Card (love the appearance by Daniel Boone and would vote for the story's bear-mayor); but above all, The Sea and the Little Fishes by Terry Pratchett (my introduction to Granny Weatherwax. I need more, I tell you, more!) Silverberg was clearly a hell of an editor to put this thing together.
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| The Big'un: Legends clocked in at 715 pages! |
16. For my monster badge, I'm counting Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo. Vampires and demons count as otherwordly creatures, right? They do for purposes of this badge! As far as dark academia goes, it's heavy on the dark and light on the academia; with actual Ivy League coursework alongside their trips to hell, every single character should be on academic probation at the start of the book and suspended by the end. (College kids, do your reading!) Doesn't stop me from loving the luxuriously detailed description of Yale's magnificent library, though. I could also count Uprooted by Naomi Novik (which I adored) for this badge.
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| The Monster Badge |
17. Annihilation the movie would scare the crap out of me--Annihilation the book certainly did. The first book I have read by Jeff Vandermeer. Definitely not the last.
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| Big screen badge for Annihilation |
18. Although I enjoy a number of blogs--especially SFF Book Reviews--that focus on following new books and new released, I rarely make the effort to keep up the latest new books myself. So, I figured this badge was going to be one of the ones I missed, but then I realised that a book Dina reviewed was a) available from my local library and b) published in 2025! So, I picked up The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig and rather enjoyed it! Even if the plot is uneven, the world is well-structured, the romance at the center of the story is pleasant, and the talking gargoyle is an absolute delight.
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| 2025 Badge for The Knight and the Moth |
19. For some reason, I find the experience of reading graphic novels to be a distinctly uncomfortable. It feels like there's too much to take in at once, and hunting down all the text and details of the page to make sure I've understood everything frustrates me. I've never seen anyone else talk or write about similar feelings--mostly, graphic novels seem to be discussed as an easier alternative to print books, but they're not that way for me. So I knew that this badge was going to be among the hardest for me to grab, simply because I'd have to make a real effort to collect it. Fortunately, my public library has a small section of adult graphic novels, including some in the genre of science fiction and fantasy. So for this badge I read Nnedi Okorafor's Laguardia. The art was extremely fun, and many aspects of the story were very engaging. But I don't think I'll go out of my way to read more graphic novels.
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| The Graphic Novel Badge |
20. While I could another book from the Murderbot Diaries for my space opera, I thought it would be fun to try to add a new author to my list. So I picked up a book that--with 1,108 pages (counting the extras) absolutely could have counted for the Big'un badge, but which the blurbs on the back also described as "super intelligent space opera" and "brash, broad space opera with military hardware galore". The reviewer of the Denver Post wrote that "Space operas are galaxy-spanning tales of battling starships, exploding planets...and questions on the nature of good and evil and the evolution of man. Making coherent stories from this material is a rare talent..." A reddit reviewer described Peter F. Hamilton's work as "pulpy", and for me, that description encapsulates The Reality Dysfunction, book one of the Night's Dawn Trilogy. This entertained and exasperated me and I might read the remaining 2,000+ pages of the series, just to see how it all ends...
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| Space Opera Badge |
21. For my animal companion badge, I could pick either Chouette, a strange, spiky novel about a woman who gives birth to an owlet (rather stretching the definition of "animal companion") or another book by Nnedi Okorafor, Remote Control, where the main character, Sankofa, is accompanied by an inscrutable fox named Movenpick. I'm counting Remote Control, despite my preference for not repeating authors. My favourite of Okorafor's novels is and remains Lagoon, closely followed by Who Fears Death; despite having some beautiful and atmospheric momemts, Remote Control never quite grabbed me the way I hoped it would.
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| Animal Companion Badge |
22. Marlon James' Black Leopard, Red Wolf, is the book on all this list that will linger with me the longest. Even in moments where the writing and characters frustrated or baffled me, there was something gripping about its ambition and brutality. Not a book I would have read without the desire to collect the African Inspiration badge, and not a book I can easily recommend, but what a ride.
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| African Inspiration Badge |
23. The last badge I managed to snag was a reread of Scott Lynch's Red Seas Under Red Skies, which enabled me to capture my Sea Setting badge. A casino heist turns into a pirate adventure on the high seas, this book features two of the best lady pirates of fiction.
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| Sea Setting Badge |
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