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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At this point I don't bother to tell people when they mess up their nominations. It's a book club, if they can't read the FAQ and/or don't check over the nomination posts it's on them :)
terpkristin wrote: " think the GR search is broken because it doesn't show up in search."I've been having a lot of issues with searches recently, so it wouldn't surprise me.
It might just be easier if you delete your roll-up post Trike. I prefer to keep my own since I can edit it and copy/paste each time I do a roll-up so I keep all the book/author links in tact.Plus you didn't roll it up the same way I normally do and I'm kind of OCD about it.
Yesterday was just a long day at work and it took me a bit longer to update my post than I had planned.
Typically when we're getting close to the end of a page I try to camp the thread so I can get the top post of each page, so I did that yesterday in between meetings, but didn't have time/energy to do the roll-up part until after dinner.
I promise I will take care of it though.
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.
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? Saturday, February 20th 8:00 PM EST. 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.
-----------Nominations----------------
The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Blue Bear by Walter Moers - 3 (Jan, Arrika, Daniel)
Rivers of London/Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch - 2 (Iain, Tassie Dave)
Before Mars by Emma Newman - 2 (Silvana, Fredrik)
The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey - 2 (Stephen, Jen)
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - 2 (Cory, Ruth)
The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King - 2 (Melanie, Christos)
The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu - 2 (Roberator, David)
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune - 2 (elizabeth • paper ghosts, Kate)
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon - 2 (Elizabeth, Meghan)
Green Rider by Kristen Britain - 2 (terpkristin, Misti)
The Living by Anna Starobinets - 1 (Viola)
The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers - 1 (Dominik)
The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley - 1 (Adam)
The Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew Williams - 1 (Sara)
War of the Maps by Paul McAuley - 1 (Trike)
The Nameless Day by Sara Douglass - 1 (Mark)
Wine Dark Deep by R. Peter Keith - 1 (Tamahome)
Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis - 1 (TRP)
Bypass Gemini by Joseph R. Lallo - 1 (Kev)
The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss - 1 (Seth)
The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky - 1 (Colin)
The Forever Watch by David B. Ramirez - 1 (Joanna)
Enchanted by Alethea Kontis - 1 (Joelle)
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire - 1 (Julia)
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny - 1 (Clyde)
nothing to see here. getting close to the end of the page.
Trike wrote: "Rob, [spoilers removed]"This is a question I've been waiting for the books to answer ever since. It's also one I'm not expecting to get answered on the show.
Book spoilers (possibly books 7/8): (view spoiler)
Wow the finale was intense/great. The slow build up they've been doing the last few episodes really paid off.I really want to re-read the books now because I don't remember a lot of details. I feel like they changed a bunch of minor things, but hit all the major plot points. It's hard to say. I just remember loving the book and I really loved this season.
With the firing of Cas Anvar they obviously had to change some things. I thought they handled it well.
But there is also the fact that they replaced Bull in the earlier seasons with Drummer, then decided to introduce Bull this season instead. Ironically I think he took over some of her parts from Nemesis Games because I think her subplot in the show this season is completely different.
With (Major show/finale spoiler)(view spoiler)
Christos wrote: "I am going to change my vote to 2nd The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King I am going to delete my original comment"Probably too late now, but please don't delete comments. If I had done the roll-up already and you had a more common name for the forums it'd make changing your vote much harder since you didn't say what you were changing it from.
I decided after past years though to only do 1 roll-up per page so I wasn't doing it constantly. So in this case it probably won't matter.
I mean people can create/ask for recommendations anytime they want to.It's hard enough to get clear nominations for a single book, I don't really want to mess around with a second thread that might confuse people where to nominate a book.
In general if people want to recommend books for consideration for the group to read, there are the Listopias:
Sword Listopia
Laser Listopia
Melanie wrote: "Will Veronica be picking the books this year or will she still be on maternity leave? (just curious)"Not sure, My guess is no since Tom mentioned needing to find a guest host for April who wouldn't mind reading out March Madness winner.
Even though I was just griping about too much Sci-Fi and generally prefer fantasy, I'm once again nominating The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu.
It's time once again for March Madness! Nominations are now open, and will run through Saturday, February 20th at 8pm. 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 2021 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.
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? Saturday, February 20th 8:00 PM EST. 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.
Welcome to the 6th 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
Round 1 thread
Round 2 thread
Round 3 thread
Finals thread
Schedule & Details
Here is the schedule for this year's tournament:
Nominations: February 1st-February 20th 8pm EST
Round of 16: February 25th-March 2nd 11:59PM EST
Round of 8: March 3th-9th 11:59PM EST
Round of 4: March 10th-16th 11:59PM EST
Final Round: March 17th-23rd 11:59PM EST
Nomination FAQ
(view spoiler)
Trike wrote: "It’s not a competition, so goals are just that. I finally went back to a full work schedule last week, so that will probably impact my reading a fair bit, but I’m not doing much else for entertainment. If I do decide to buy XCom 2 on iPad, that will crush my reading.It doesn’t help that my better-than-perfect vision was temporary. I now have rapid-onset glaucoma in my left eye and my vision has deteriorated from 20/15 to 20/200 with double vision. I’m literally reading with one eye closed. At this rate I expect to be legally blind in my left eye by spring. So that’s fun.."
I know it's not a competition, but I find it depressing that going from 75 in 2019 to 50 in 2020 and now 25 in 2021 and I'm still struggling to stay on pace.
I'm spending most of my time either playing games on my PC (Overwatch) or tablet (card games mostly), or watching TV.
Sorry to hear about your eyes issues. I have bad vision, but just the normal kind of bad where I have to wear glasses. That doesn't sound fun to deal with.
Survey Challenge Results
In January 2021, I posted a short survey to get a general sense of feedback.
2020 Survey Stats
These stats focus on the survey results and not the stats provided by goodreads. I did however use some of the numbers from goodreads to help summarize the survey.
Sword Survey Participants: 106 (35.9% of survey participants; 35.0% of Sword challenge)
Sword Challenges completed: 78 (73.6% of survey Sword participants; 25.7% of Sword challenge)
Average Sword books pledged: 17 (Sword challenge Average: 18)
Average Sword books read: 24 (Sword challenge Average: 17)
Laser Survey Participants: 106 (35.9% of survey participants; 35.5% of Laser challenge)
Laser Challenges completed: 76 (71.7% of survey Laser participants; 25.4% of Laser challenge)
Average Laser books pledged: 16 (Laser challenge Average: 15)
Average Laser books read: 21 (Laser challenge Average: 14)
2021 Preferences
Challenge Feedback
There wasn't any real feedback on the challenges this year, not to mention I already started the 2021 challenges. I think interest in the group challenges will continue to decline over time, but I guess we'll see. Each year the projections are less.
With regards to which challenges we should do next year:
* 197 said they’d join a Sword challenge (66.8% of survey participants)
* 190 said they’d join a Laser challenge (64.4% of survey participants)
* 74 said they’d join a Graphic Novel challenge (25.1% of survey participants)
* 61 said they’d join a Short Story challenge (20.7% of survey participants)
Thanks to everyone who took the time to fill the survey out.
So I'm not turning off the survey (unlike last year), but I decided it's been up long enough to offer a bit of a summary. Here's a quick breakdown of some of the results (the challenge results will be in the challenge thread whenever I get motivated enough to do that too).
General Summary
Number of survey participants: 295 ( +41 from 2019)
Number of March Madness participants: 133 (45.1%, -8% from 2019)
Read the Newsletter: 223 (75.6%, -7.1% from 2019)
Joined the Discord Server: 91 (30.8%, N/A in 2019)
Year Breakdown
2008: - 9 (3.1%)
2009: - 9 (3.1%)
2010: - 13 (4.5%)
2011: - 16 (5.5%)
2012: - 48 (16.6%)
2013: - 15 (5.2%)
2014: - 18 (6.2%)
2015: - 16 (5.5%)
2016: - 12 (4.2%)
2017: - 7 (2.4%)
2018: - 21 (7.3%)
2019: - 17 (5.9%)
2020: - 19 (6.6%)
I don't remember: - 69 (23.9%)
I added the I don't remember partway through or I suspect it would be higher. A lot of people don't remember when they joined I guess.
Total responded: 289 (98.0% of survey participants)
Country Breakdown
Australia: - 12 (4.1%)
Austria: - 2 (0.7%)
Brazil: - 1 (0.3%)
Canada: - 11 (3.8%)
Denmark: - 1 (0.3%)
Finland: - 4 (1.4%)
France: - 1 (0.3%)
Germany: - 4 (1.4%)
Hong Kong: - 1 (0.3%)
Hungary: - 1 (0.3%)
Indonesia: - 1 (0.3%)
Israel: - 1 (0.3%)
Japan: - 2 (0.7%)
Korea, South: - 1 (0.3%)
Marshall Islands: - 1 (0.3%)
Mexico: - 2 (0.7%)
New Zealand: - 1 (0.3%)
Norway: - 2 (0.7%)
Peru: - 1 (0.3%)
Poland: - 2 (0.7%)
Portugal: - 1 (0.3%)
Romania: - 1 (0.3%)
Slovakia: - 1 (0.3%)
South Africa: - 1 (0.3%)
Sweden: - 3 (1.0%)
Switzerland: - 4 (1.4%)
United Kingdom: - 26 (8.9%)
United States: - 203 (69.5%)
Total responded: 292 (99.0% of survey participants)
Most years my books average to a very high 3 stars. Especially when I pick most of my books (ie not reading book club picks). I tend to know what I'm going to like and have been pretty accurate with it.I prefer a half star/10 star rating to what Goodreads has. I don't really care about the overall rating for a book (or movie or show). I'm not rating the books for other people so much as myself. There are definitely books I've given a higher or lower rating than I'd prefer due to lack of options. IMDB does 10 stars and I find that a lot more useful.
I agree that everyone has their own scale of things, and for every book I love there are at least 100 people (or much more) on the internet who hated that thing and want to convince me/lecture me on why I'm wrong.
If I want to read/watch something I do. If I don't, I don't. My reading is a hobby, I'm not looking to "broaden my horizons" so much as to entertain myself for a few hours. When I read more books I was more open to trying stuff that didn't sound appealing in an effort to expand the authors I read and to fill out a much larger reading year.
Now I just mostly stick to stuff I hope/expect to enjoy a lot and if I come up short I tend to move on quickly.
