Rob’s
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(group member since Jul 06, 2012)
Rob’s
comments
from the The Sword and Laser group.
Showing 1,221-1,240 of 7,205
Yeah Dead Beat is about where it starts getting really good. But there is some good stuff in Death Masks and Blood Rites.In particular Death Masks introduces one of the best antagonists of the series which show up every 5th book (so Small Favor, Skin Game) and some of my favorite world building he's done.
Th first four pretty much just do world building: magic/wizards, werewolves, vampires, fae.
By book 5 he's starting to put those things to use in a larger story. But most of the early books are very heavily self contained and could almost be read in any order. I feel like that changes starting around White Night though.
But it's been a few years and the books have blended together a bit.
Caitlin wrote: "My favourite Sword was The Poppy War and my favourite Laser was The Calculating StarsWill there be a poll like there was last year?"
We should totally do that. Assuming I remember later I'll do that.
John (Nevets) wrote: "terpkristin wrote: "Dresden Files is on my "to be read in entirety" list. Probably after I finish the Lightbringer books."And the audio narration is excellent, if you choose to go that direction."
I'd clarify that to say "it gets excellent". The first few were recorded by some company called "Buzzy Multimedia" and the quality isn't as good. I forget which book they switch to Randomhouse Audio, but the audio quality dramatically improves when it does.
Also, in my opinion James Marsters takes a few books before he goes from OK/Average to great. And in at least one of the early books you can hear him swallowing a lot.
But I've done the books in audio at least twice now after having previously done them all in paperback/hard cover. Thankfully they went back and had Marsters re-record Ghost Story. When it first came out he was busy with something else so they got another narrator.
Dresden is also one of those series that I'd probably have rolled off of if I was starting it today. The early books are fine, but not specatatuclar. However, the later books are some of the best fantasy I've read, and the standard that I basically measure all other Urban Fantasy against.
I just read it on tor's website. lol.
Interesting stats. How did you get the numbers? Is this just the people who came to the OC meetup? How many people was that?I actually enjoyed all 3 of your bottom list in roughly the same order too. Just goes to show how much tastes can very even in a group of SFF fans.
Yeah. And as I said that I remembered at my last S&L meetup someone mentioned the MD library has a lot of the novellas to borrow.So I looked them up and all but the newest are there, most have an audio option too, so I put holds in on them.
So far I've only read The Churn and Drive (which was free)
Stephen wrote: "Not only can you not skip a book, you have to read the novellas too, In order. At least to get the true immersion into the series my local meetup called the Best SF Series of the Decade."Personally I'm waiting on most novellas since the rumor is they are going to relase them in a collection at some point.
Trike wrote: "I have places to be! Just give me the cliff’s notes."Isn't that just the TV show? I guess it depends on how fast you can read the books, but I'd imagine for the typical viewer they'll watch a season faster than they read a book.
For the typical Goodreads user though, that may not be true.
Silvana wrote: "Rob, rereading the previous eight is a great idea even though slightly daunting. I'd need to plan at least four months prior the ninth book's publication. But oh boy, the Great Expanse reread!."Yeah. I have them all in audio, so I need to math it out and figure out how many weeks in advance to start doing them.
I have a relatively fixed amount of audiobook time each day/week so I probably won't be able to keep up with anyone reading the books unless we pad it out so I can listen to each book before the readers start the next book and wait for me to finish.
Yeah, it's the main reason I created the survey last year. But I got far less participation this year (like 600+ vs 255) so even with those numbers I still have no great idea of how we did.I still think the challenges are fun to do though, but I'll probably be dropping the stats for the 2 side challenges in 2020. We'll see.
I'm planning to reread all 8 books before book 9. I'd be up for discussing them as I go if others want to participate. And I'm definitely interested in discussing the last book when it comes out.
I probably know someone who could create a folder for the Expanse here...
Xacur wrote: "Is there a way to make one of these challenges don't count against Goodreads' 2020 Reading Challenge? I want to read a more Graphic Novels, but personally I don't count them as book reads. This y..."
Not that I know of. The group challenges are tied to the read date, so once you mark them as read in 2020 they'll count towards your main challenge too.
KK wrote: "Finished up the 4th season, starting reading the books. Can anyone recommend an online book club for either the series or individual books? Thanks kindly."The best places I know to discuss the books are the reddit group: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/
or the discord server: https://discord.gg/RE63z5d
The Expanse (Amazon Prime)Orphan Black (Prime)
The Good Place (Netflix)
SW Rebels (Disney+)
For 2020 I'm drastically reducing my pledges:15 fantasy (compared to 40 and later 35 in 2019)
10 sci-fi (compared to 15 in 2019)
5 comics (compared to 10 in 2019)
I figure this way I should meet all my goals and possibly exceed them without the pressure of trying to finish them next December.
Please note the change that we're no longer shooting for a specific amount, so people should pledge what they think they will/want to read for the year and not worry too much about the final numbers.
Let's see how we do as a group in 2020!
Here are the details for the 2020 Challenges. If you have any questions, first check the FAQ, and otherwise post them here.Main Challenges
Sword Challenge: Fantasy Books
Laser Challenge: Sci-Fi Books
Side Challenges
Graphic Novel Challenge: Comics/Manga/Etc
Short Story Challenge: Short Stories
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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 2020
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).
We are asking you not to count graphic novels or short stories. Those have their own challenges.
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.
Short Story Challenge Questions
Should I count individual stories? That's the idea, although I've been told Goodreads tends to remove any individual stories in favor of collections/anthologies.
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2019 Survey Challenge Results
In December 2019, I posted a short survey to get a general sense of feedback.
Here are the final results (I'm putting the results in spoiler tags simply to keep this post shorter/focused on this year's details):
(view spoiler)
For my own personal challenges, I'm finished with:Sword: 35/35 (100% complete)
Laser: 15/15 (100% complete)
Comics: 17/10 (170% complete)
This month I've added 4 Sword, 1 Laser, 9 Graphic novels.
So I managed to finish all of my challenges, just barely. And that was after adjusting down my goals a few months ago.
I binged a bit on The Boys in order to finish my main GR challenge of 75 books too, and will probably finish that series up in January.
Final Results:The top come from my usual stats, the bottom from the survey results. We had far fewer respond to the survey this year (I'm sure in part to the much shorter timeframe to respond) so while it gives a better idea of some of the numbers neither set is complete.
Sword Challenge
Total Participants: 429 (+2)
Total Read: 7,098 (+764)
Average Books Read: 17 (+3)
Total Committed: 7,535 (+7)
Average Books pledged: 18 (0)
Total Challenges Completed : 18 (+6) NOTE: This number is terribly inaccurate. However there is no way for me to verify/get the correct numbers, so I have to take what Goodreads gives me.
Laser Challenge
Total Participants: 425 (+4)
Total Read: 5,702 (+662)
Average Books Read: 13 (+1)
Total Committed: 6,592 (+14)
Average Books pledged: 16 (0)
Total Challenges Completed (Goodreads): 13 (+7) NOTE: This number is terribly inaccurate. However there is no way for me to verify/get the correct numbers, so I have to take what Goodreads gives me.
Graphic Novel Challenge
Total Participants: 122 (+2)
Total Read: 1,843 (+243)
Average Books Read: 15 (+3)
Total Committed: 2,737 (-4)
Average Books pledged: 22 (-1)
Total Challenges Completed : 8 (+3) NOTE: This number is terribly inaccurate. However there is no way for me to verify/get the correct numbers, so I have to take what Goodreads gives me.
Short Story Challenge
Total Participants: 44 (0)
Total Read: 432 (+37)
Average Books Read: 10 (+1)
Total Committed: 580 (0)
Average Books pledged: 13 (-1)
Total Challenges Completed : 5 (0) NOTE: This number is terribly inaccurate. However there is no way for me to verify/get the correct numbers, so I have to take what Goodreads gives me.
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Survey Challenge Results
In December 2019, I posted a short survey to get a general sense of feedback.
2019 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: 114 (44.9% of survey participants; 26.6% of Sword challenge)
Sword Challenges completed: 98 (86.0% of survey Sword participants; 22.8% of Sword challenge)
Average Sword books pledged: 21 (Sword challenge Average: 18)
Average Sword books read: 28 (Sword challenge Average: 13)
Laser Survey Participants: 118 (46.5% of survey participants; 27.8% of Laser challenge)
Laser Challenges completed: 86 (72.9% of survey Laser participants; 20.2% of Laser challenge)
Average Laser books pledged: 18 (Laser challenge Average: 23)
Average Laser books read: 21 (Laser challenge Average: 12)
2020 Preferences
Challenge Feedback
There weren't a lot of suggestions this year beyond changing the goals to something more reasonable, more updates on the podcast (something I can't change/control) and more stats (something I'm honestly not motivated enough to do). So the main change for 2020 will be dropping the count goals. We'll see what that looks like compared to past years.
I've added the challenges to our monthly newsletter but overall participation seems to be down from 2018, so I'm not sure it helped anything.
With regards to which challenges we should do next year:
* 174 said they’d join a Sword challenge (68.5% of survey participants)
* 179 said they’d join a Laser challenge (70.5% of survey participants)
* 71 said they’d join a Graphic Novel challenge (28.0% of survey participants)
* 58 said they’d join a Short Story challenge (22.8% of survey participants)
The survey is now concluded. 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: 254
Number of March Madness participants: 135 (53.1%)
Read the Newsletter: 210 (82.7%)
Year Breakdown
2008: - 15 (6.2%)
2009: - 11 (4.5%)
2010: - 16 (6.6%)
2011: - 13 (5.4%)
2012: - 58 (24.0%)
2013: - 14 (5.8%)
2014: - 17 (7.0%)
2015: - 23 (9.5%)
2016: - 20 (8.3%)
2017: - 23 (9.5%)
2018: - 16 (6.6%)
2019: - 16 (6.6%)
Total responded: 242 (95.3% of survey participants)
Country Breakdown
Australia: - 15 (5.9%)
Austria: - 2 (0.8%)
Belgium: - 1 (0.4%)
Bulgaria: - 1 (0.4%)
Canada: - 16 (6.3%)
Denmark: - 1 (0.4%)
Germany: - 4 (1.6%)
Hungary: - 1 (0.4%)
Indonesia: - 1 (0.4%)
Ireland: - 2 (0.8%)
Israel: - 1 (0.4%)
Japan: - 2 (0.8%)
Mexico: - 1 (0.4%)
Netherlands: - 2 (0.8%)
New Zealand: - 1 (0.4%)
Norway: - 1 (0.4%)
Poland: - 3 (1.2%)
Singapore: - 1 (0.4%)
Slovakia: - 1 (0.4%)
Sweden: - 5 (2.0%)
Switzerland: - 1 (0.4%)
Ukraine: - 1 (0.4%)
United Arab Emirates: - 1 (0.4%)
United Kingdom: - 26 (10.3%)
United States: - 162 (64.0%)
Total responded: 253 (99.6% of survey participants)
