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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bump. nothing to see here.
Tina wrote: "Ooh, sorry about that, I’ll do better next time"It's not a big deal, I'll have to do another roll-up once we get to a 3rd page anyways.
Tina wrote: "I deleted my post to second a book since I’m an idiot and I didn’t read the rules carefully, and I already nominated a book. 🙁"I wish you hadn't done that because now my roll-up is on page 1 instead of page 2. lol.
I just skipped your second post. It happens every year with at least 1 person, so I wouldn't worry about it.
I did the first round of updates/consolidation, so if you were on page 1 double check I got your nominations right at the top of page 2.
Current Nominations
Just like previous years I'll be periodically rolling up the nominations as we go.
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.
How many books will be selected? 16 (8 Fantasy, 8 Sci-Fi)
When do nominations close? Monday, February 21st 8:00 PM ET. This will give Tom & Veronica some time to make the final bracket.
Adrian Tchaikovsky
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----------------
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan - 2 (Ruth, Viola)
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins - 2 (Daniel, Rick)
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes - 2 (Mark, Tamahome)
Rivers of London / Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch - 2 (Iain, Steve)
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor - 2 (Trike, Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth)
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde - 2 (Colin, Misti)
The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu - 1 (Roberator)
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik - 1 (Laura)
The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers - 1 (Jan)
Cry Pilot by Joel Dane - 1 (Qukatheg)
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire - 1 (William)
Noir by Christopher Moore - 1 (I)
The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach - 1 (Nicolas)
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky - 1 (Mike)
Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi - 1 (Alexander)
The Paths Between Worlds by Paul Antony Jones - 1 (Ian (RebelGeek))
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire - 1 (Malcolm)
The Wizard's Butler by Nathan Lowell - 1 (Melanie)
The Actual Star by Monica Byrne - 1 (Jenny (Reading Envy))
Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore - 1 (Jason)
The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec - 1 (Tina)
Another Fine Myth by Robert Lynn Asprin - 1 (Prosseca)
The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman - 1 (Kristy)
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik - 1 (Silvana)
The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier -1 (Krissy)
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville - 1 (Rhys)
Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis - 1 (Cory)
Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky - 1 (Debra)
The Folding Knife by The Folding Knife - 1 (Joseph)
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro - 1 (Greg)
Way Station by Clifford D. Simak - 1 (Kris)
Extasia by Claire Legrand - 1 (Valerie)
I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells - 1 (Christos)
The Gas by Charles Platt - 1 (Randolph)
The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas - 1 (TRP)
The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey - 1 (Stephen)
Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson - 1 (Mike)
Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko - 1 (Joanna)
Warship by Joshua Dalzelle - 1 (Mark)
The Bone Ships by R.J. Barker -1 (Todd)
bump. nothing to see here
So this was announced awhile ago but just to make it official and have a kick-off thread, in March we'll be reading Pandora's Star by Peter F. HamiltonIf you've started already, please take discussion to another thread, a few have already been created.
Welcome to the 7th 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/swordandlaser2022
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 7th-February 21st 8PM ET
Round of 16: February 23rd-March 1st 11:59 PM ET
Round of 8: March 2nd-8th 11:59 PM ET
Round of 4: March 9th-15th 11:59 PM ET
Final Round: March 16th-22nd 11:59PM ET
Nomination FAQ
(view spoiler)
It's time once again for March Madness! Nominations are now open, and will run through Monday, February 21st 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 2022 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.
How many books will be selected? 16 (8 Fantasy, 8 Sci-Fi)
When do nominations close? Monday, February 21st 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.
This is the quick burns thread, not the what else are you reading thread. Please take this elsewhere.
For my own personal challenges, I'm finished with:Personal: 2/25 (8% complete)
Sword: 1/5 (20% complete)
Laser: 1/5 (20% complete)
I did a quick Sci-Fi novella and a much larger fantasy book that took up most of January. Both audio. I figure for February I'll add at least 1 more fantasy book (rounding out the Green Bone Saga trilogy), but not sure if I'll get to anything else beyond that.
At some point I may try to dig into my ebook backlog to try to read again, but right now I'm just not in the mood.
January Results:Sword Challenge
Total Participants: 135 (+135)
Total Read: 211 (+211)
Average Books Read: 2 (+2)
Total Committed: 2,568 (+2,568)
Average Books pledged: 19 (+19)
Laser Challenge
Total Participants: 132 (+132)
Total Read: 141 (+141)
Average Books Read: 1 (+1)
Total Committed: 2,069 (+2,069)
Average Books pledged: 16 (+16)
Welcome February. What books will you be enjoying this month?
the month has begun, go forth and discuss.
Next MeetupDate: Saturday February 26th
When: 12PM ET
Where: Discord
RSVP: https://discord.gg/NHj43w262v?event=9...
Welcome Chiara. We'll happily pile you up with more books recommendations than you'll ever have time to read around here.
Yeah, I'm kind of confused by this. This isn't like Mando doing a guest appearance on the show to build synergy between Star Wars shows. Also it's sad the best episode of Book of Boba Fett is really just an episode of the Mandalorian.
