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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page 2 has been rolled up. Please double check I got everything correct
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. No seriously ONE BOOK.
If you're not clear I'm either going to pick the first book you mention or simply ignore your nomination all together.
Can I second someone else's nomination? Sure but that's also YOUR nomination. See Question 1 about how many books you can nominate. Still just One.
What if I want to nominate a Sword Book And a Laser Book? Did you read question 1? You can only nominate ONE book.
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.
We also have a rule to prevent authors 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.
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. Please Do Not 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? Thursday, February 20th 7:00 PM EST. This will give me some time to do the final roll-up of the nominations and 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----------------
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman - 5 (John, Linguana, Mer, Jay, Tassie Dave)
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire - 3 (Scott, Sheila Jean, Misti)
Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley P. Beaulieu - 3 (Tash, Ricardo, Phil On The Hill)
The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers - 3 (Dominik, Jan, Daniel)
The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu - 3 (Roberator, Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth, Liam)
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden - 2 (Seth, Jen)
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan - 2 (Art, Ruth)
Dracula by Bram Stoker - 2 (John (Taloni), Tina)
King Rat by China Miéville - 2 (Valerie, Meghan)
He Who Fights with Monsters by Shirtaloon - 2 (Mikemayou, Chris)
Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell - 1 (Louise)
In Fury Born by David Weber - 1 (Marc-ids)
Babel by R.F. Kuang - 1 (Paul)
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen - 1 (Steve)
The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal - 1 (Adrian)
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - 1 (Nico)
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore - 1 (Phil)
Time of the Cat by Tansy Rayner Roberts - 1 (Qukatheg)
Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase - 1 (Genesee)
Aftershocks by Marko Kloos - 1 (Aaron)
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon - 1 (Beth)
Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry - 1 (Jacquelyn)
The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir - 1 (Joyce)
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley - 1 (Adam)
Gobbelino London & a Scourge of Pleasantries by Kim M. Watt - 1 (Melanie)
These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs - 1 (Cory)
Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko / Sergey Dyachenko - 1 (Joanna)
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny - 1 (Clyde)
Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey - 1 (Mark)
36 Streets by T.R. Napper - 1 (Phillip)
Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton - 1 (John)
Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson - 1 (HobbitFromPA)
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes - 1 (Alex)
The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan - 1 (Jason (jasonb))
Sunshine by Robin McKinley - 1 (Violinknitter)
Chasing the Darkness by Cassie Sanchez - 1 (Brian)
The Management Style of the Supreme Beings by Tom Holt - 1 (Don)
A Pale Light in the Black by K.B. Wagers - 1 (Joe Sherry)
Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland - 1 (Stephen)
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson - 1 (Rhys)
A Portrait in Shadow by Nicole Jarvis - 1 (Elizabeth)
Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler - 1 (Jason)
The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel - 1 (Calvey)
The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer - 1 (Deborah)
Replay by Ken Grimwood - (Julia)
The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman - 1 (Lucy)
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett - 1 (Martin)
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty - 1 (Richard)
Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson / Kevin Hearne
For Whom the Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn - 1 (Will)
On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers - 1 (Pumpkinstew)
Garth Marenghi's TerrorTome by Garth Marenghi - 1 (Christos)
Storm Front by Jim Butcher - 1 (Randy)
In the Black by Patrick S. Tomlinson - 1 (Tamahome)
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason - 1 (Robin)
Armor by John Steakley - 1 (Jeremy)
The roll-up of the first page is complete. If you nominated a book on the first page please double check you're on the list.
Joanna wrote: "Melanie wrote: ""I read it as "can" the first time too… :-D"I have tried to rephrase it. But there is a WHOLE paragraph that repeatedly tries to clarify that you get a single book. But despite being a book club and how many version of that answer I've had over the years, people always try to nominate more than 1 book
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. No seriously ONE BOOK.
If you're not clear I'm either going to pick the first book you mention or simply ignore your nomination all together.
Can I second someone else's nomination? Sure but that's also YOUR nomination. See Question 1 about how many books you can nominate. Still just One.
What if I want to nominate a Sword Book And a Laser Book? Did you read question 1? You can only nominate ONE book.
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.
We also have a rule to prevent authors 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.
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. Please Do Not 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? Thursday, February 20th 7:00 PM EST. This will give me some time to do the final roll-up of the nominations and 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----------------
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman - 5 (John, Linguana, Mer, Jay, Tassie Dave)
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire - 3 (Scott, Sheila Jean, Misti)
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden - 2 (Seth, Jen)
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan - 2 (Art, Ruth)
Dracula by Bram Stoker - 2 (John (Taloni), Tina)
Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley P. Beaulieu - 2 (Tash, Ricardo)
The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu - 1 (Roberator)
Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell - 1 (Louise)
In Fury Born by David Weber - 1 (Marc-ids)
He Who Fights with Monsters by Shirtaloon - 1 (Mikemayou)
Babel by R.F. Kuang - 1 (Paul)
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen - 1 (Steve)
The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal - 1 (Adrian)
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - 1 (Nico)
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore - 1 (Phil)
Time of the Cat by Tansy Rayner Roberts - 1 (Qukatheg)
King Rat by China Miéville - 1 (Valerie)
Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase - 1 (Genesee)
The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers - 1 (Dominik)
I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells - 1 (Christos)
Aftershocks by Marko Kloos - 1 (Aaron)
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon - 1 (Beth)
Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry - 1 (Jacquelyn)
The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir - 1 (Joyce)
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley - 1 (Adam)
Gobbelino London & a Scourge of Pleasantries by Kim M. Watt - 1 (Melanie)
These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs - 1 (Cory)
Vita Nostra by Marina Dyachenko / Sergey Dyachenko - 1 (Joanna)
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny - 1 (Clyde)
Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey - 1 (Mark)
36 Streets by T.R. Napper - 1 (Phillip)
Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton - 1 (John)
The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer - 1 (Trike)
nothing to see here.
Nominations are open from now until Thursday February 20th at 7pm ET: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
It's time once again for March Madness! Nominations are now open, and will run through Thursday, February 20th at 7pm 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 2024 Information Thread for additional details about the tournament as a whole.
Nomination FAQ
How Many books can I nominate? One. No seriously ONE BOOK.
If you're not clear I'm either going to pick the first book you mention or simply ignore your nomination all together.
Can I second someone else's nomination? Sure but that's also YOUR nomination. See Question 1 about how many books you can nominate. Still just One.
What if I want to nominate a Sword Book And a Laser Book? Did you read question 1? You can only nominate ONE book.
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.
We also have a rule to prevent authors 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.
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. Please Do Not 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? Thursday, February 20th 7:00 PM EST. This will give me some time to do the final roll-up of the nominations and 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 10th 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.
Nominations thread
Bracket: https://challonge.com/swordandlaser2025/
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 7pm 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
(view spoiler)
Our February pick is The Will of the Many by James Islingtonlet us know what you think of next month's pick
New thread for 2025.Post your SFF Book news for consideration to be included in the next podcast
For those still interested, I created new challenges for 2025: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Here are the details for the 2025 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 2025
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.
I'm not going to lock this thread right away, but I am unpinning it. I've created a new thread for 2025: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I've been plowing through the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I started in December and have done the first four. I'll be starting The Butcher's Masquerade today
New year, new thread. What other books are you reading this year?
Here is a link to the google doc I used to write up the results. I may add some more charts later.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f...
The Roberator End of Year Survey has returned! I'd really appreciate if you participated.
Please note this is my own thing and not directly affiliated with Tom & Veronica. I had been running these annually for a few years, mostly for feedback on the Goodreads book club challenges we were doing. As those mostly lost interest, I stopped doing them.
This year's survey is more about the various activities and ways people participate in the bookclub. I will probably do some summary stuff later in the month.
Thanks!
https://forms.gle/qMm8w61BvTEV26vUA
