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

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

I liked the Norton Hulk movie alright. I'm just following the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

I skipped Hulk because you can't stream it (without buying it).

When I get to the Spider-man films I'll just watch my own copies.

I own 11/23 MCU films (mostly from phase 3: 7/11). The rest I've been watching on Disney+

Hmm. Yeah. Not sure why I thought that was the case.

I've been slowly re-watching the MCU movies as well. I started sometime during peak covid lockdown last year while playing WoW Classic. Once I went back to work full time I kind of fizzled out on Iron Man 3.

Lately I started back up again and just re-watched Ant Man, which I liked a lot more on re-watch than I remember when seeing it the first time.

I'm a huge Spiderman fanboy, so my rankings are skewed (Homecoming is my favorite MCU film), but Winter Soldier is such a great movie. It's easily the best of first 2 phases for me, followed by Guardians of the Galaxy.

For as much as I love RJD, I thought all of the Iron Man movies are pretty weak except the first one. In the 3rd one he spends too much time out of the suit.

In general I don't care much about any of the MCU characters except Spiderman, but the casting and way they tied the movies together made me care about them.

I agree that RDJ is a big part of what made the MCU get off the ground. It's easy to forget the MCU started with Edward Norton's Hulk. I liked him as the Hulk, but I probably like Ruffalo better.

I think most of the best films came out in phase 3 (Homecoming, Ragnarok, the last 2 Avengers movies, Black Panther), but overall I don't think any of them are bad movies.

Although there are a few (like IM3 and Age of Ultron) I'm not likely to watch again unless I decide to do another massive re-watch.

Storm Front is $2: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B000WH7PLS

Neuromancer is $2: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B000O76ON6

Lies Sleeping is $2: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07BPNZBPS

Kat wrote: "I followed Rob here from another group at some point."

🤣

Jan wrote: "I don't really have any preferences, I am just not really interested in "Rivers of London". It feels to me like something you are supposed to tick off your genre to-read-list and that makes me not ..."

You're missing out, but to each their own.

Every year when I do the survey, the most common answer of "when did you join" tends to be 2012. I suspect the group grew a lot that year due to the exposure G&S brought.

William wrote: "Ah well, I seem to be be a bit of a jinx this time round. Every single book I voted for lost. Sigh.

Now which to vote for next..."

Can I tell you which books I voted for you so you can vote for the others ones? :-D

Mark wrote: "I joined in April 2012, when the first season of the video show premiered on the Geek & Sundry channel. I think I'm one of many who joined about the same time."

Yeah. This is pretty much me, only I didn't start reading along until Assassin's Apprentice

NOTE: There appear to be 2 different polls for Matchup 2.

If you already voted using Tom's links please check again that you voted in THIS version of the poll: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

Sorry for the confusion.

OK, Round 3 has begun. Go vote!

Please use the links in my post and not Tom's. There looks to be something strange going on with Match 2 where there are 2 version of the poll.

Thanks.

Results from Round 2

and since I apparently forgot to link here earlier, here are the Results from Round 1 (if you missed them last week)

Round 3 voting has been delayed a bit. I'll post here again when the polls are sorted out.

I went 3-1 in round 2. I was expecting some closer match-ups for Matches 3 and 4.

Now I'm wondering if our #6 seed is going to continue it's domination and come out the winner.

I find it interesting we have the "expected" 1 vs. 4 match-up, but instead of 2 vs. 3 we have 6 vs. 15 in the next round.

Round 2 is in the books.


Participation for round 2 is only slightly less than it was in round 1. In past years we always seem to have the biggest drop off in participation for round 2 for some reason (then an uptick in round 3). We also had more blow-outs in Round 2 than normal as well. The average win margin this year was almost twice what it was last year.


Here are the results from Round 2:

View the full bracket here

Tournament Statistics
Total Votes Cast: 2,405
Average Votes Cast: 200
Book With Most Votes:The House in the Cerulean Sea - (168 Votes) (Round 1)
Match-up With Most Votes: Rivers of London vs. Enchanted (215 Votes) (Round 1)
Largest Win: The House in the Cerulean Sea (132 Votes) (Round 1)
Smallest Win: Kiki's Delivery Service - (10 Votes) (Round 1)
Average Win: 54 votes

Round 2 Statistics
Total Votes Cast: 787
Average Votes Cast: 197
Book With Most Votes: The House in the Cerulean Sea (128 Votes)
Match-up With Most Votes: Rivers of London vs. Green Rider (199 Votes)
Largest Win: The House in the Cerulean Sea (59 Votes)
Smallest Win: The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry (28 Votes)
Average Win: 48

Round 1 Statistics
Total Votes Cast: 1,618
Average Votes Cast: 202
Book With Most Votes: The House in the Cerulean Sea - (168 Votes)
Match-up With Most Votes: Rivers of London vs. Enchanted (215 Votes)
Largest Win: The House in the Cerulean Sea (132 Votes)
Smallest Win: Kiki's Delivery Service - (10 Votes)
Average Win: 60 votes

Match 1:

(1) Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - 124 Votes

vs.

(8) Middlegame by Seanan McGuire - 73 Votes

Winner: Gods of Jade and Shadow
Total Votes: 197
Margin of Victory: 51

---------------------------------

Match 2:

(4) Rivers of London / Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch - 126 Votes

vs.

(5) Green Rider by Kristen Britain - 73 Votes

Winner: Rivers of London / Midnight Riot
Total Votes: 199
Margin of Victory: 53

---------------------------------

Match 3:

(15) The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner - 111 Votes

vs.

(7) Kiki's Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono - 83 Votes

Winner: The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry
Total Votes: 194
Margin of Victory: 28

---------------------------------

Match 4:

(3) The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon - 69 Votes

vs.

(6) The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune - 128 Votes


Winner: The House in the Cerulean Sea
Total Votes: 197
Margin of Victory: 59

---------------------------------

PLEASE NOTE: I couldn't find the round 3 polls, so the links don't currently go anywhere yet.

Once I talk to Tom/confirm the poll links I'll update my original post and ping this and the information threads.

And assuming I remember about it after I get home today I'll ping the discord server sometime after that.

Match 1:

(1) Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

vs.

(4) Rivers of London / Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch


Vote Here

Match 2:

(15) The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry by C.M. Waggoner

vs.

(6) The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune

Vote Here

Sheila Jean wrote: "Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo - (audio) I liked it fine, but I thought the cast of characters in Six of Crows were much richer and more interesting.

I just started that as well. I have the whole trilogy so I'll probably do them all straight unless I really dislike it. I'd agree so far that Six of Crows has better characters so far.

Prior to that I finished If It Bleeds. It was a mixed bag. I liked 2/4 stories. The title story was my favorite, and the reason I picked up the collection. More Holly Gibney please!

Reminder that voting for round 2 ends in about 8 hours

Reminder that voting for round 2 ends in about 8 hours

Tassie Dave wrote: "The Audible version of Rivers of London I own has it marked as 'Whispersync for Voice-Ready'

I would assume you'd get the same version (Narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith)"

Yeah. There is just 1 version of the audiobooks in English as far as I'm aware of.

Typically all that means is:

1) You (may) get a discounted price on buying the audio since you own the kindle version already.
2) Amazon will sync (roughly) your place between formats if/when you switch.

I've regularly used to use the "whispersync" thing to save money on audiobooks. Get the Kindle for $1-2, get the audio for $5-7 and save or match the price I pay per credit.

The daily Kindle deals don't seem to be as cheap anymore, and often the whispersync price is $12, so I don't use it nearly so often now.