Rob’s
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(group member since Jul 06, 2012)
Rob’s
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from the The Sword and Laser group.
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Please do not delete your posts..it really messes with my system. If you want to change your nomination, that's fine. But please make a new post instead of editing or deleting your existing post...
Current Nominations
Just like previous years I'll be periodically rolling up the nominations as we go (ideally at the top of each page).
FAQ:
How Many books can I nominate? One. You cannot nominate one book and second another. You cannot nominate both a Fantasy book and a Sci-Fi book. Just ONE book total. If you mention more than one, I'm going to pick one. Likely the first one you mention. Please be CLEAR about your nomination.
Can we nominate any book we want? The only criteria is that it's a Fantasy or Sci-Fi book we haven't read. That said, it's preferable that you also nominate a book by an author we haven't read as well. Those nominations will likely have a better chance of making the final bracket. There is also a rule to forbid author's from nominating their own books. In addition we'd like to prevent people from nominating their friend's book etc. If I see you doing this, I will first warn you to pick another book, and later simply ignore your nomination all together.
You can see the full list of past books here: https://swordandlaser.fandom.com/wiki...
Can I change My Nomination? Yes, but if you do so, please specify which book you are changing it from, as I'm doing this by hand.
What if I make a mistake in my nomination? No problem. Just please make another post correcting your mistake. Do no delete or edit your original post as I may miss the change. Thanks.
How many books will be selected? 16 (8 Fantasy, 8 Sci-Fi)
When do nominations close? Monday, February 20th 8:00 PM ET. This will give Tom & Veronica some time to make the final bracket.
Which books will be selected? Whichever books Tom & Veronica want. They will simply use the nominations in this thread for suggestions.
How will the books be seeded? This is entirely up to Tom & Veronica. They may take into account how many people have nominated a book, but there is no guarantee.
The book I want was already nominated. You can second a nomination made by someone else, and I'll count how many people have nominated that book and sort accordingly.
No one else is nominating my book, should I change my vote to something more popular? In my opinion, you're better off just nominating a book you're interested in us reading than hoping to game the nomination system by changing your vote. Most years some of the books in the final bracket had only a single nomination, while several books with multiple nominations didn't make it. Multiple nominations may help it get noticed or in the seeding, but really all of that is up to Tom & Veronica.
How are the Nominations Sorted? The numbering is based on number of nominations, followed by when they moved up the list (i.e. based on post order). This number will likely not reflect the actual seeding as that will be entirely up to Tom & Veronica.
My nomination is missing/wrong! Sorry about that. I'm doing this by hand. Please post again and yell at me for missing, or not grouping it with another nomination for the same book, or marking you down for the wrong book, etc. If you're not clear about your nomination (or you nominate 2) I may add the "wrong" book. Please be sure you're clear, and I can fix it.
-----------Nominations----------------
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree - 5 (Tassie Dave, Calvey, Elizabeth, Randy, Misti)
Red Rising by Pierce Brown - 3 (Wayne, Noe, terpkristin)
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky - 2 (John, Iain)
Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North - 2 (Ruth, Steve)
The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind by Jackson Ford - 2 (Cory, Trike)
Momo by Michael Ende - 2 (Jan, Linguana)
The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein - 2 (Melanie, Seth)
The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu - 2 (Roberator, Robert)
Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott - 2 (Ricardo, Harry)
Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey - 1 (Mark)
Tau Zero by Poul Anderson - 1 (John (Taloni))
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley - 1 (John (Nevets))
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon - 1 (Tamahome)
The Forever Watch by David B. Ramirez - 1 (Joanna)
Minimum Wage Magic by Rachel Aaron - 1 (T.T.)
The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu - (Chris K.)
The Slayers by Hajime Kanzaka - 1 (Alexander)
Legend by David Gemmell - 1 (Daryl)
The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett - 1 (Jesse)
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny - 1 (Clyde)
In Fury Born by David Weber - 1 (Marc-ids)
Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore - 1 (Jen)
Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko - 1 (Mer)
The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers - 1 (Dale)
The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal - 1 (Silvana)
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao - 1 (Alex)
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta - 1 (Elianara)
Welcome to the madness!
It's time once again for March Madness! Nominations are now open, and will run through Monday, February 20th at 8pm ET. We're once again doing a Sword bracket and Laser bracket with 8 books each.
As usual I will periodically roll-up everyone nominations (Roughly once/page or approximately 50 posts)
Please Read the rules for nominations below for more specifics
Please see the March Madness 2023 Information Thread for additional details about the tournament as a whole.
Nomination FAQ
How Many books can I nominate? One. You cannot nominate one book and second another. You cannot nominate both a Fantasy book and a Sci-Fi book. Just ONE book total. If you mention more than one, I'm going to pick one. Likely the first one you mention. Please be CLEAR about your nomination.
Can we nominate any book we want? The only criteria is that it's a Fantasy or Sci-Fi book we haven't read. That said, it's preferable that you also nominate a book by an author we haven't read as well. Those nominations will likely have a better chance of making the final bracket. There is also a rule to forbid author's from nominating their own books. In addition we'd like to prevent people from nominating their friend's book etc. If I see you doing this, I will first warn you to pick another book, and later simply ignore your nomination all together.
You can see the full list of past books here: https://swordandlaser.fandom.com/wiki...
Can I change My Nomination? Yes, but if you do so, please specify which book you are changing it from, as I'm doing this by hand.
What if I make a mistake in my nomination? No problem. Just please make another post correcting your mistake. Do no delete or edit your original post as I may miss the change. Thanks.
How many books will be selected? 16 (8 Fantasy, 8 Sci-Fi)
When do nominations close? Monday, February 20th8:00 PM ET. This will give Tom & Veronica some time to make the final bracket.
Which books will be selected? Whichever books Tom & Veronica want. They will simply use the nominations in this thread for suggestions.
How will the books be seeded? This is entirely up to Tom & Veronica. They may take into account how many people have nominated a book, but there is no guarantee.
The book I want was already nominated. You can second a nomination made by someone else, and I'll count how many people have nominated that book and sort accordingly.
No one else is nominating my book, should I change my vote to something more popular?In my opinion, you're better off just nominating a book you're interested in us reading than hoping to game the nomination system by changing your vote. Most years some of the books in the final bracket had only a single nomination, while several books with multiple nominations didn't make it. Multiple nominations may help it get noticed or in the seeding, but really all of that is up to Tom & Veronica.
How are the Nominations Sorted? The numbering is based on number of nominations, followed by when they moved up the list (i.e. based on post order). This number will likely not reflect the actual seeding as that will be entirely up to Tom & Veronica.
My nomination is missing/wrong! Sorry about that. I'm doing this by hand. Please post again and yell at me for missing, or not grouping it with another nomination for the same book, or marking you down for the wrong book, etc. If you're not clear about your nomination (or you nominate 2) I may add the "wrong" book. Please be sure you're clear, and I can fix it.
Welcome to the 8th annual March Madness tournament!What is the Sword & Laser March Madness tournament you ask?
Each year we take nominations from our members for the Sci-Fi and Fantasy books they think the group should read and narrow it down to 16. We create two brackets, one for each genre. That means there are 8 Sword picks, and 8 Laser picks.
The 16 books are selected by our benevolent leaders based on your suggestions in the nomination thread and a super secret criteria of their own making for seeding etc.
Once the brackets are set we have 4 rounds of voting. Rounds 1-3 will take us from 8 Sword books and 8 Laser books down to 1 of each that will go head to head for our to be our pick for April.
This single elimination style tournament is inspired by some sporting event that takes place every year during the month of March. Does your nomination have what it takes to win 4 straight head-to-head matchups and become our April book pick? Let the madness begin!
This thread will serve as the main information center for the tournament and I'll be creating separate threads for each round.
Bracket: https://challonge.com/b9vf0sp2
Nominations thread
Round 1 thread
Round 2 thread
Round 3 thread
Finals thread
Schedule & Details
Here is the schedule for this year's tournament:
Nominations: February 6th-February 20th 8pm EST
Round of 16: February 22nd-February 28th 11:59 PM EST
Round of 8: March 1st-7th 11:59 PM EST
Round of 4: March 8th-15th 11:59 PM EST
Final Round: March 16th-22nd 11:59PM EST
*NOTE: due to an issue with the sword semi-final, we pushed things back by a day
Nomination FAQ
(view spoiler)
new month. book dis?
The month has begun..go forth and discuss!
Our February book pick is: Nettle & Bone by T. KingfisherLet us know what you think about the selection.
Tassie Dave wrote: "To be honest I couldn't tell you if we were close to achieving the group challenges or failed miserably in any year since this started.I'll give it a miss this year. Meeting my own personal chall..."
I'm pretty sure we've never succeeded as a group. People change their pledges, and some join late. So it's constantly a moving target.
I pretty much stopped tracking it last year as all the monthly upkeep I do for the club was starting to wear on me.
However some people still seem to like doing it, and it's trivial for me to set up.
I may drop it from the monthly newsletter this year though, as it's just 1 more thing I have to keep track of.
New Thread for a new year. Please share your SFF news here.
Jan 01, 2023 10:25AM
the month has begun..go forth and discuss!
ok. challenges are live..
Here are the details for the 2023 Challenges. If you have any questions, first check the FAQ, and otherwise post them here.Sword Challenge: Fantasy Books
Laser Challenge: Sci-Fi Books
Side Challenge
Graphic Novel Challenge: Comics/Manga/Etc
----------------------------------------
Challenge FAQ
General Questions
What are the Group Challenges? The group challenges are a feature of Goodreads that allows a group the ability to create various challenges for members to participate. Sword & Laser first started doing group challenges in 2018.
How can I sign up? Click on one or more of the links above to sign up for the challenge(s) you wish to participate.
Which Challenges Should I Join? As many as you want. That includes none for those of you who are uninterested. It's totally optional. Although if you're reading along with the group each month, you could pledge 6 sword and 6 laser picks for the year even if you won't read any others. But no pressure!
Why aren't my books being counted?
The main reasons I've seen is that either:
1) Your challenge isn't pointing at the correct shelf
2) Your book isn't on the correct shelf
3) You didn't mark the book with a read date of 2023
I completed my challenge, why isn't it being counted? In past years we found the count of challenges completed was buggy. As such that number is unreliable. The book counts should be correct however assuming you've shelved your books and marked them as read.
Does this relate to the monthly pick? Nope. The types of challenges we do, the books we read, have no impact on how the group is being run. It's the same as always. This is more of a side thing for people to participate in.
Sword/Laser Challenge Questions
How Many Books are We Trying to Read? This year we're not shooting for a specific goal, rather we're simply challenging our members to see how many books we read as a group. The previous targets were kind of arbitrary and I don't think they had much effect on our results.
What Books Qualify? We're asking you only count Novella length books or longer. That's 17,500 words, 50 pages or 2 hours of audio.
The format doesn't matter (physical book, ebook, audio book).
What Should I do if I'm not sure the genre of a book I'm reading?
You can ask in the thread, but in general I always suggest to use your best judgement. If something isn't clearly Sword or Laser, or you think it's both. Count it however you think makes sense. We're not auditing the books you contribute, we just ask you try to follow the guidelines.
Graphic Novel Challenge Questions
I read trades, should I be shelving/tracking Issues? No, please only count books by trade.
I only read issues/there is no trade, what should I do? If you're reading issues and a trade exists/has been created, we ask you to track by that. If none is available or you don't want to shelve comics twice, we're going by a rule of thumb to shelve every 5th issue to roughly simulate a single trade. As with most things, use your best judgement.
Does Manga Count? Yup! We just ask you count the trades, not individual chapters. If you're reading online via Crunchyroll or Shonen Jump, etc often times there will still be a trade book created on Goodreads even if the English translation isn't listed yet.
Happy new year! What is first on your reading agenda?
Dec 23, 2022 07:13PM
Trike wrote: "Legends & Lattes came in this morning, so I started it. The audiobook came off hold first and I was a little concerned at first because it’s read by the author, but his performance ..."Travis Baldtree does audio books for other authors. I was kind of surprised when I saw he had a book coming out because I just thought he was a narrator.
Welcome!To join the book club challenges you can head over to the challenges page: https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...
Then click on the challenge you want. It sounds like maybe you want to join the fantasy one?. So you'd want our Sword challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...
Fill out the form with the number of books you want to include from this year and the name of a shelf. I personally have shelves called sl-sword and sl-laser
Then in order for your books to count you have to make sure:
1) they have a read date between 1/1/2022 and 12/31/2022
2) they are tagged with the shelf name you picked.
You can use a shelf you already have (so if you tag your books with fantasy you could use that. I personally like a different shelf since I don't count everything for the challenge.
Hope that helps!
Home stretch. What will you be reading to close out the year?
The month has begun..go forth and discuss!
