Rob’s Comments (group member since Jul 06, 2012)

Rob’s comments from the The Sword and Laser group.

Tassie Dave wrote: "Ruth wrote: "Ah ok, I probably have bought the right book then! All will be confirmed soon..."

Rob is a bit late announcing it. It is past the 24 hour embargo, so it is safe to say we are reading
..."

It's been a day..I was napping after work

I mean the details are explored a lot more to it in the books, but the proto-molecule and access to the gate system they create serve as a catalyst to push the 3 factions into escalated conflict.

Your suggestion of just a bio-weapon alone would not have accomplished this.

In particular:

(view spoiler)[Marco and his faction are feeling as though their place in the universe is disappearing because there is no longer a need for belters where there are thousands of worlds and abundant resources for people to live on.

For those who grew up in space and don't want to live on a planet, what is left for them?

The Trade Union at the end of the series serves to answer some of that question. Those belters who will not be going to settle on some new planet have a place and a new job enabling commerce between all of those worlds. (hide spoiler)]

The books also get more into the mystery behind the alien tech etc. In a lot of ways that was the main focus of the final 3 books, but again there is more to it than they managed to setup on the show.

The Wolf's Call is $2: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07JYNY9N3

Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I always set my Goodreads goal to 150 (and read 275-425 depending on the year) and I set these low too - 6 each. That way I can just enjoy myself and still participate."

You and I have very different notions of low. But I agree about enjoying yourself!

I'm listening to Jade War. It's been awhile since I did the first book so it's taking me awhile to get back into it. I'm sure I'm forgetting a ton of detail from the first one but I seem to have my bearings again.

Thurman wrote: "Just wondering where are the stats from last year?"

Which stats? I posted the finally summary in the 2021 thread.

Welcome back Ivy

So I guess I never said, but I'm sticking to:

5 sword
5 laser

this year. I'm committing to 0 Graphic Novels again. I didn't do any last year, and until Saga releases a new trade paperback, I probably won't read any more.

Ian (RebelGeek) wrote: "Please add a graphic novels &/or comics challenge."

Done: https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

For my own personal challenges, I finished the year with:


Personal: 30/25 (108% complete)
Sword: 11/5 (220% complete)
Laser: 16/5 (320% complete)

I finished reading 2 sci-fi books and 1 fantasy book to close out the year. All in audio. So I only sat and read 5 books for all of 2021, which is low even for me.


30 is a nice round number. I'm glad I exceeded what my goal was, but in the past I'd easily do 75 in a year. Last year I managed 50, but just barely.

For 2022 I'm going to target 25 again and we'll see if my desire/ability to sit and read again returns next year or not. For now I'm sticking with my low/no pressure approach because reading was starting to feel like a chore instead of something I just loved putting most of my free time towards.

2021 Results:

Here are the final results for the year. Since it was always a moving target we once again fell short of our "goal" but I still think we had a pretty good amount of participation/reading overall, which is really the point of these challenges in my mind.

Sword Challenge
Total Participants: 150 (+5)
Total Read: 3,996 (+518)
Average Books Read: 27 (+3)
Total Committed: 4,102 (+135)
Average Books pledged: 27 (0)


Laser Challenge
Total Participants: 151 (+5)
Total Read: 3,337 (+381)
Average Books Read: 22 (+2)
Total Committed: 3,673 (+2254
Average Books pledged: 24 (-1)

Ian (RebelGeek) wrote: "Phil wrote: "My 5 star books were:
...Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb ..."

The Elderlings saga is great!"

Agreed. I think Tawny man in particular was one of my favorite parts.

The month has begun, go forth and discuss!

Here are the details for the 2022 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 2022

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.

Short Story Challenge Questions
What happened to the Short Story challenges? Honestly I pretty much ignored it in 2021, so I didn't bother to make new ones this year. If people are really interested, I can probably just make one.

A new year is upon us. What will you be reading to ring in the new year?

So another year is over. Not the greatest year, but largely better than 2020 I hope.

My reading wasn't super great, but still I had some books I really enjoyed.

Here is my top 5 from 2021:

1) Leviathan Falls - 5 Stars - (My Review)
2) Reaper - 4 Stars - (My Review)
3) Project Hail Mary - 4 Stars - (My Review)
4) Bloodline -4 Stars - (My Review)
5) The House in the Cerulean Sea - 4 Stars - (My Review)


And here is my full "review" of my 2021 on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

How about you? What were your reading highlights this year?

Kind of late, but I made a poll if anyone is interested: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

My participation on the monthly books has continued to decline (12 in 2013-2018, 11 in 2019, 8 in 2020, 4 in 2021).

I only read 2 books with the club this year (The Fold & The House in the Cerulean Sea) , and had previously read 2 of the other picks (Network Effect & NOS4A2)

I enjoyed all 4. but I liked Network Effect the most. Of the 2 I only read due to the club though, I'd give it to Cerulean Sea.

For the 8 books I didn't do, I'm more likely to pick up The Priory of the Orange Tree instead of one of those. They just didn't sound appealing to me, and I'm just not reading enough right now to take chances on every S&L pick anymore.

In general I found my enjoyment/average rating of the S&L picks to be declining. Generally speaking the ones I like the most are ones that I end up reading before they are S&L picks too.

Welcome John

Next Meetup

Date: Saturday January 29th
When: 12PM ET
Where: Discord

RSVP: https://discord.gg/NHj43w262v?event=9...