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

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

I didn't struggle with the Boys, but I agree Kim's Convenience is great. I hope we get another season sometime next year.

Trike wrote: "Jan wrote: "The Goodreads Choice Awards have started with their opening round. You can among others vote for Best Fantasy of 2020 and Best Science Fiction of 2020 - and interestingly you can vote f..."

At the risk of derailing this thread, you're wrong. The Relentless Moon also came out this year and was shamefully missing from the nomination list, so I wrote it in.

Silvana wrote: "But anyway next year I'm planning to opt out of all challenges. It's been great :)"

Yeah, I'm considering that as well. This year my reading was way down. I had reduced my goals pre-covid to "take it easy" this year with my reading.

But at this point much of book consumption is from audio books; so with no commute to work for several months, I had very little audio book time.

In general I think I'm going to sort of re-evaluate my reading habbits a bit. Or not. Basically I'll read when I feel like it, and not feel guilty for not reading.


For the last few months while the weather here was nice I opted to drive home with the windows down and sunroof open and music cranking over listening to more of my audio book.

But I may still do the challenges, just reduce my numbers even more. I haven't decided.

However trying to compare my reading to other people on this site is a losing cause :-D

Goodreads really got me back into reading about 8 years ago, largerly in part due to this group. But I think after several years of pushing to read more and more (I peaked in 2014 at 135 books) I started to burn out on a bit and it became more of a chore than a recreation.

Our November pick will be Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones.

Let us know what you think of the pick!

you're welcome

The Expanse Lives discord is organizing a massive re-watch group party thing: https://discord.gg/js6mUj5

I enjoyed binging season 4, but honestly the most fun I had watching Expanse was during the save the show campaign in season 3 live tweeting with other fans.

I kind of look forward to have a week to week conversation about the latest episode. I'll probably jump back over to the expanse lives discord server when it drops.

After that it's 1/week. Like they did with Season 2 of the Boys.

The first 3 episodes of season 5 of the Expanse drops on December 16th.

https://youtu.be/caLji74IIp4

The first 3 episodes of season 5 of the Expanse drops on December 16th.

https://youtu.be/caLji74IIp4

Noelle Stevenson is going to adapt the series she helped co-create Lumberjanes for HBO Max:

https://www.tor.com/2020/10/07/noelle...

I really enjoyed the early volumes of the series where she was still involved, so I'm looking forward to the adaptation.

Not a big fan of novellas tbh. I'm more likely to just read some graphic novels to pad my numbers.

Colin wrote: "At my rate of approximately one Dresden book per year, I'll catch up with this conversation sometime around 2030 "

🤣

The month has begun. Go forth and read and discuss.

Personally I really enjoyed Peace Talks, but now that I've read Battle grounds it makes me realize how much weaker Peace Talks was than many of the past books. Battle Grounds, on the other hand may be my favorite Dresden book since Changes.

I'm tempted to remove a star from Peace Talks. I was probably being overly generous with my 5 star rating, but for me those are books I put aside everything else to read, and Peace Talks fit that bill.

I think Peace Talks and Battle Grounds would have been better as the 1 book he originally wrote it as, but I'm not complaining too much about getting 2 Dresden books in 3 months after waiting 6 years.

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

Personal: 37/50 (74% complete)
Sword: 14/15 (73% complete, 18% ahead of schedule)
Laser: 13/10 (130% complete)
Comics: 6/5 (120% complete)


This month I've added 2 Sword, 0 Laser, 1 Graphic novels.

I currently have 4 books in progress, which is a record for me. But that's because I've been slow at reading my ebook and Battle Ground came out this week so I dropped everything for that.

I should finish at least 3/4 soonish, and Wintersteel comes out next week, so October could end up being one of my best months with maybe 5 or even 6 books if I get my linger graphic novel finally complete. We'll see though. It's still looking unlikely I'll hit 50 books this year.

At this point I need to average 4+ books in each of the final 3 months, which is well above the 2-3 I've been doing lately.

On the plus side I'm back to work full time so my audio time has gone up with the return of my commute. But then again the weather has been pretty nice lately so I've been opting to drive home with the sunroof open and the music cranking instead of listening to my book on the way home.

However that will be less likely the next few months, so maybe I should find a bunch of short audiobooks :-D

September Results:

Sword Challenge
Total Participants: 293 (+2)
Total Read: 3,768 (+523)
Average Books Read: 11 (+1)
Total Committed: 5,212 (+50)
Average Books pledged: 18 (0)


Laser Challenge
Total Participants: 290 (+1)
Total Read: 3,058 (+377)
Average Books Read: 10 (+1)
Total Committed: 4,577 (+10)
Average Books pledged: 16 (0)

I dropped both my ebook and audio book to split between the audio/hardcover of Battle Ground. I'll probably finish it today though.I kind

Really enjoying it so far. I don't want to say more than that for possible spoilers.

What's going on this month?

Welcome Tim. If you're looking to promote your own work, make sure to check out our Author Promotion section.