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

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

The Dragon Republic is $3 today: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B...

Jonathan wrote: "Finished Ghostwater! It was another excellent addition to the Cradle series by Will Wight. Started listening to The Light of All That Falls."

Underlord is even better..

Some books from the last 10-20 I've enjoyed (in no particular order):

Red Rising

Thrawn

Aftershocks (this may be too new, but I think it's a better book than Terms of Enlistment). Kloos is the one who was nominated for a Hugo by the Puppies and bowed out which led to The Three-Body Problem being added in his place (and ended up winning).

The Lives of Tao

Nexus

We're about a week into the month so I'm going to close the kickoff thread. Please join in one of the other threads or feel free to make your own to discuss the details of the book!

It's not that I mind it, it's just taking me some time to adjust my expectations for the show.

I do prefer serial arcs these days to a bunch of loosely connected episodes though.

Stephen wrote: "There is a free Fantasy anthology and it has a new Hadrian & Royce short story by Michael J Sullivan in it. Along with some other fine new authors. [book:Heroes Wanted: A Fantasy Anthology|49013656..."

Thanks for the heads up!

So I've come to the sad realization that this show follows the more traditional style of TV where you get a little overarching story at the beginning and end of the episode but for the most part each episode stands alone.

It's not quite the syndication model where you can pretty much watch any random episode and not be lost, but I guess I had been hoping for more of a serial plot and less "bounty of the week".

That said I thought this was one of the better episodes and less derivative than last weeks. It still borrows from the tropes, but nowhere as heavily as last week.

Also, the run time was only 35 minutes. Not that I felt it was rushed, but in an only 8 episode season I feel like the episodes should be longer. I'd have liked to see more time spent on advancing the mystery around baby yoda.

We've basically gotten zero answers through 5 of the 8 episodes.

I'm probably overly critical of this show (despite the fact that I like it) but I guess I got spoiled by Dave Fiolini's other shows and was expecting more story than we've gotten.

Awesome Todd, you just moved us back into 7th! Not that it's a competition..but still awesome!

:-D

Probably, it just might be a tight squeeze. If everyone comes one month we'll probably need to see about them seating us upstairs where there is more room.

Tassie Dave wrote: "I'd prefer Tassie Dave (Only because that's what I'm know as here)."

Yeah, I'd have had no idea who you were if you hadn't put Tassie Dave in your message!

So as a small incentive Tom has agreed to read the names of all of the people who donate through the S&L team page on an upcoming Podcast.

If anyone who donates (or already has) would rather not be mentioned, or prefer a different name from the one it shows on the world builders site (ex if Tassie Dave would prefer to be mentioned as Tassie Dave rather than his first and last name) please let me know and I'll simply count you among the anonymous donors instead.

I'll be giving them your full names, so if you'd just prefer a first name let me know that too.

Those of you donate anonymously will forgo that (we've had 3 of those so far) honor but you very much appreciated too!

Since post this morning the /r/fantasy folks have moved way ahead but we're still clinging to that #8 spot.

Any little bit helps, especially while they are still doing the matching.

OK, I'll shut up. I'm not trying to turn this into some kind of telethon. Webathon? Whatever you call it.

Mark wrote: "Who's up for Roberator 2020?

Edit: I guess that would be limited to US citizens."

The goal is for more donations..not fewer..

I'm working on a small incentive to add to our team, just waiting to hear back from Tom & Veronica.

We've moved up to #8 with $2206!

That means we're just $87 behind /r/fantasy at #7.

We're $881 behind the #6 team, so that may not be feesible.

There looks to be about $30,000 of matching left though, so that really only means we need ~$44 and ~$441 to catch up!

Really though since the goal was $1000, even without the matching we've exheeded that in only 2 days.

You guys are awesome!

Welcome Barry, but please limit your self promotion to our self-promotion section.

Looks like we hit our goal already! Hmm, seems like we need strech goals.

Of course I have no real way of incentiving stuff. It seems like most of the other teams are doing stuff to encourage people to donate to them.

I got nothing. Maybe friendly competition to compete with other teams like /r/fantasy or something? I dunno.

But hey we already raised a bunch of money for a good cause. Good job everyone!

Yeah, I guess we should have aimed higher on our goal. Although I wasn't accounting for the donation matching. If it had been in place from the start we'd already be over the goal.

Hmm. Apparently they are doing donation matching right now, so my donation was matched by Worldbuilders, but the earlier two weren't.

I guess it's a good thing I couldn't donate this morning, but had I known they'd be doing matching later today I'd have waited to share the link.

Sky wrote: "Thanks for getting the page up! I'll donate on the S&L page once I've either won an auction or lost all hope of winning one."

lol. I'm not sure if I should wish you good luck or bad. Good luck means you get something cool that you want. Bad luck means S&L gets more of your money (and more chances for you to win something from the lottery)

But in both cases the money goes to worldbuilders so win-win!

And thanks to Mark and Stephanie for already donating!

The fundraiser is live, and so is our team page. Or well they don't appear to have Teams this year, but rather "individual" fundraisers within fundraisers. I thought I was doing something wrong but even Pat's "team" is done that way.

Either way we have a page! Sword & Laser World Builders

I had planned to donate first thing this morning to kick things off, but then I realized I don't know what my password is so I have to wait until after work.

Hopefully one of you can kick it off instead.

I wasn't sure how much of a goal to set for us, so after discussing with Tom & Veronica we went with $1000.

Any amount is helpful, and it's for a great cause.

If you're not familiar with how the lottery bit works, it's pretty simple: for every $10 you donate to our worldbuilders (that includes donations through the S&L page) you get entered into the lottery. You can see all the cool stuff you can win on the Worldbuilders Lottery page.


There are also auctions on Ebay. Those won't associate you with the S&L team, but it's another way to donate and one that guarentees you a prize (assuming you win of course). Right now there doesn't appear to be too many auctions up, but I think they add some as it goes on.

Also the murderbot novellas. Not sure on the price since I already own them. I'm not a huge fan of novella in audio due to the cost/hour compared to a regular book but those were good in audio.