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

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

Looks like there is a banner about it on the S&L events page though.

Oh. I don't think there is a page I got 2 emails about it.

Yeah, the hiatus was far longer than I was expecting. I'm not sure what she was doing. I know BKV was working on Paper Girls, Vol. 1 which I enjoyed.

So since I'm stubborn I modified my Goodreads parser app rather than just using the pivot table which would have been far faster.

I'm also not sure my code is super efficient either, but it works. So here is my top "10" (it's really more due to ties).

Incidentally, not sure if the pivot table is taking into account if you've actually read a book or simply shelved it. That definitely bit me in my first implementation since I've shelved a bunch more King books I haven't read yet.

This output is accurate as of January 2021 (I didn't bother to re-export my data today)

The other caveat is there are probably a bunch of books pre goodreads I didn't import/add to my shelves.

Author Counts:
*****************************************
1: Hajime Isayama - 36
2: Jim Butcher - 31
3: Stephen King - 30
4: Brandon Sanderson - 24
5: Brian K. Vaughan - 23
6: John Grisham - 18
6: John Scalzi - 18
7: Robin Hobb - 16
7: James S.A. Corey - 16
7: Michael J. Sullivan - 16
8: Robert Jordan - 15
9: Terry Pratchett - 13
10: Simon R. Green - 11
10: Joe Abercrombie - 11
10: Steven Erikson - 11
10: Django Wexler - 11
10: G. Willow Wilson - 11
*****************************************

Graphic Novels and Manga kind of skew these numbers a bit.

Now that I have this in my head I'm sure I'll make a few more iterations on this code until I'm happier with it.

Good enough for now. Especially since I should have gone to bed over an hour ago..

That makes no sense. She posted there today and said I could share the url with her there instead...

A URL for what?

Phil wrote: "They removed the "most read authors" thing a couple years ago. It's too bad; I used to look at that all the time to see who was "winning""

Ah ok. I didn't look at it too often, but I did like checking it from time to time. This thread reminded me of that.

I really don't know what the goal/plan Amazon has for this site beyond "sell more books", but I feel like the site has mostly stagnated. The applications are mostly useless.

There is little to no integration between kindle or audible and the website and they just remove features (they are removing events) without adding or improving to the core functionality.

It's one of the reasons I spend more time on discord now than I do on goodreads.

The main thing that keeps me here is this bookclub and the bookshelf stuff.

I could swear goodreads had a page that would list your most read authors but I can't for the life of me find it any more. Maybe they removed it.

I know I've read a LOT of Stephen King due to Dark Tower (and my general enjoyment of how he writes characters). I've not read too many of his more "horror" stories (some would bin most of his stuff as horror, but I think he writes a variety of genres personally).

I've also read everything Jim Butcher has written including his Spider-man book. I really enjoy all of his stuff, not just Dresden.

I've read most of Sanderson stuff, but I've started to burn out on him a bit. I used to love every book he's written but that hasn't been the case the last few years. He's still one of my favorites.

Robin Hobb is another I've read a lot of, but all in the Elderlings universe. I haven't really read much of the other stuff she's written (often under another name).

Robert Jordan is up there, simply due to how long Wheel of Time is. I've never gone looking for other stuff he's written.

Finally Michael J. Sullivan has put out a lot of Riyria books or more recently ancient history of the world from Ryria, so I'm such his count is pretty high as well.

So I originally picked up the Dresden books because of the upcoming (at the time) TV show. I really liked the cast of the show.

I'm generally not a visual reader, so to me when I think of the characters when I read the books now I think of the actors from the show, despite them not really matching the book descriptions.

I didn't like how they turned Bob into Al from Quantum Leap though. I liked the actor, but Bob is a spirit trapped in a skull and I didn't like that he was basically a ghost instead. I think that was mostly for budget reasons, doing Bob properly back then would have been a lot more expensive than if they were to adapt it again today.

Also, they made Dresden's wizard staff a hockey stick IIRC. Not sure I ever understood why.

I honestly just think doing that show properly wasn't possible at the time they did it. I'm kind of hoping someone does a proper adaptation one of these days.

The series is perfect for some kind of serial "magic client of week" format, which is how I think they did the original show.

I'd still prefer they adapt the bigger plot that Butcher has been developing. The first 8 or 10 books are sort of stand alone stories. But the more recent ones really have built towards something. They could start our more serial and move towards the bigger plot in later seasons maybe. I'm just not sure how successful it would be if they did that.

In interviews he's always said each book is "Harry's worst week of the year", but that the upcoming book will be spread out over a longer period of time.

I could see a TV show going either way, but Netflix/streaming has spoiled me away from the "made for syndication" formula most Network TV shows still follow.

There are a few exceptions.

I also think media is a bit oversaturated with SFF right now after the popularity of Game of Thrones (among others) has led to a bit of a gold rush for the "next" GoT.

I won't say I'm getting burnt out on SFF TV and Movies, but I think it's so hard to get noticed among the glut of content coming out these days.

FYI, apparently Goodreads is discontinuing the events function in July. So I'll to figure out some other way to coordinate the meetups going forward.

Welcome Renee.

Trike wrote: "What are you playing?"

Burning Crusade Classic. So basically the same game I was playing before I cut back on gaming to read more.

I've also been playing a lot of Overwatch. I'm a giant Blizzard stan. Although with the way the company has been heading the last few years it's possible that time may be coming to an end.

I guess we'll see since I really love all of their IPs (Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Starcraft).

I also started Super Mario Galaxy and Mario 64 on my Switch, but didn't get very far on either. I've finished Mario 64 before, but not Galaxy. I didn't like the controls much though.

Welcome Glen

I'm planning to watch it tonight

Yeah, I'm not super worried about it. I've mostly filled the time I used to spend reading playing video games. And when I got really into reading again in 2014, it was my video game time that suffered as a result.

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within is $2 today: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B088RDCLQ4

Jerimy wrote: "Do you think you are just burning out on Fantasy/Sci-Fi? ."

I was burning out on sff before covid, so I started to mix in more non-fiction, mysteries and thrillers.

So I think I'm just burnt out on reading in general. Or haven't been able to get back in a reading mode.

Welcome back Veronica!

There a folks welcoming you back in the discord server too.

You can find that here: https://discord.gg/e2YUWzz

:-D

For my own personal challenges, I'm finished with:

Personal: 14/25 (56% complete)
Sword: 8/5 (160% complete)
Laser: 4/5 (80% complete)


I finished reading 2 sci-fi books and 1 non-fiction book in May, in what's become a much more normal month for me.

For June I'm expecting at least 3 audio books as I'm roadtripping back home at the end of the month to see friends and family I haven't seen since December of 2019.

Not sure what I'll listen to after my current fantasy book, but I might take a SFF break and do some mystery or maybe more non-fiction.

May Results:

Sword Challenge
Total Participants: 121 (+6)
Total Read: 1,549 (+400)
Average Books Read: 13 (+3)
Total Committed: 3,607 (+145)
Average Books pledged: 30 (0)


Laser Challenge
Total Participants: 125 (+6)
Total Read: 1,358 (+367)
Average Books Read: 11 (+3)
Total Committed: 3,340 (+138)
Average Books pledged: 27 (0)