Rob’s
Comments
(group member since Jul 06, 2012)
Rob’s
comments
from the The Sword and Laser group.
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Welcome Janet.
Look like we got some threads going already so I'm going to lock this one. If there isn't a thread that suits you already, don't be shy about making a new one!
Welcome Keith.
For my own personal challenges, I'm finished with:Sword: 23/40 (57% complete, 9% behind)
Laser: 12/20 (60% complete, 7% behind)
Comics: 8/10 (80% complete, 13% ahead)
This month I've added +3 Sword, 1 Laser, 1 Graphic novels.
I'm falling further behind on both of my main challenges. I expect to add at least 3 more fantasy, but I need a few months where I'm doing over 4 books to reach my goal. I don't see that happening at this point. I think I overestimated how many non-comic fantasy books I read in a year so that threw off my numbers and made me think doing 40 this year was doable. I think next year I'll drop it back down, maybe to 30 instead.
Laser I may still manage, although it doesn't help that this month's pick is fantasy and not sci-fi. I need to average 2/month for the rest of the year to finish it. We'll see how it goes.
I've cut back on my bike rides to try to balance my life a bit more and that's really hurt my audio book time.
August Results:Sword Challenge
Total Participants: 415 (+7)
Total Read: 4,597 (+696)
Average Books Read: 11 (+1)
Total Committed: 7,241 (+258)
Average Books pledged: 17 (0)
Total Challenges Completed : 4 (+1) 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: 413 (+6)
Total Read: 3,805 (+491)
Average Books Read: 9 (+1)
Total Committed: 6,535 (+76)
Average Books pledged: 16 (0)
Total Challenges Completed (Goodreads): 2 (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.
Graphic Novel Challenge
Total Participants: 116 (+3)
Total Read: 1,103 (+95)
Average Books Read: 9 (+1)
Total Committed: 2,643 (+47)
Average Books pledged: 23 (0)
Total Challenges Completed : 2 (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.
Short Story Challenge
Total Participants: 39 (+1)
Total Read: 286 (+9)
Average Books Read: 7 (0)
Total Committed: 542 (+30)
Average Books pledged: 14 (+1)
Total Challenges Completed : 2 (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.
The updated projections indicate we'll get about 6,900 fantasy books, short of both the pledged books of 7,241 and the goal of 10k books. Similarly we'll only get 5,700 sci-fi books short of the 6,535 pledged.
We're 2/3 of the way through the year, what's on your reading agenda as we approach the home stretch?
Rick wrote: "Rob wrote: "So any volunteers to be discussion leader (ie make a few threads so we don't all try to use this one for book discussion)?"Why not just lock this on the 1st?"
To give people a bit of time. Not everyone starts right away. People may still be trying to figure out where to get a copy, etc.
Silvana wrote: "Will all picks have discussion leaders? I just realized Ruth was the one from this month :D"Eh, it's an experiment right now. Seemed to work out well this month, so I was going to try it again nextmonth.
Dara wrote: "Rob wrote: "I'm not sure how I feel about a discussion leader. That might discourage anyone who isn't the leader from making threads. I think locking this after a week should suffice. ."It didn't last month. The idea is someone to just get the ball rolling like Ruth did this month, not to be the only one making threads.
Ruth made 4 threads. 6 other people made threads.
So any volunteers to be discussion leader (ie make a few threads so we don't all try to use this one for book discussion)?
Due to bad timing with Labor Day weekend and generally unavailability of the regular members during the surrounding weekends, we cancelled this weekend's August meetup. Instead we'll do a joint meetup for August and September on 9/28.https://www.goodreads.com/event/show/...
Bryan wrote: "Now I wish that I had been smart and bought it a few weeks ago when it was on sale for $5 on Audible..."Ditto. Although I'm pretty busy with audio right now so probably for the best. I'm opting to borrow the hardcover from the library instead.
The September pick will be Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse.I think like last month I'm going to lock this thread about a week or so into the month. Maybe sooner. That combined with having a discussion leader seemed to really prompt a lot more discussion threads being created than we've seen in awhile.
Do we have anyone interested in being discussion leader for this book?
A Ms. Marvel live action series staring Kamala Khan is in the works for Disney+https://io9.gizmodo.com/report-the-ms...
Apparently G. Willow Wilson is already leaving Wonder Woman for a "secret dream project" and i09 is hoping it's to work on the show.
Update: Turns out that's not the secret dream project sadly.
*ahem* Quick Links?
Great. I'll add it to the newsletter that's going out this weekend.I was afraid with you guys meeting last night that I wouldn't have a date to include.
What I mean by more restricting was in terms of characters, not plot. I read something saying that Ned wasn't part of the license sony had, because he actually comes from Ultimate spider-man or something. Could you imagine the next spider-man movie with Ned suddenly gone? That would be lame.Plot-wise they'll have more freedom. That could be a good thing, or not. Given their past track record, I'm concerned about their new found freedom. Then again I really liked into the spider-verse, so maybe they have better people in place now. Of course live action and animation can be very different in terms of story due to complications in live-action you don't have in animation.
Personally I've only liked 2 Spider-Man movies they've put out on their own. The original Toby McGuire movie and Into the Spider-verse. The former I haven't rewatched in years, so not sure if holds up to my memory.
I think a lot of people really liked Spider-Man 2, in particular Doc Oc, but I have memories of being mad at how some plot points were handled. I try to forget Spider-man 3 exists at all and the 2 Garfield movies were OK, but forgettable.
Venom was OK (better than I expected actually) but didn't feel like a proper venom movie without spider-man. That's one thing that could benefit from this change. I'd love to see a proper maximum carnage movie.
The biggest concerns I have though is given where Far From Home leaves off, how do they make a sequel now? Can they keep all the characters they had? Do they have to write them out?
Do they have to recast Tom Holland now? Previously he was restricted from appearing in non-MCU films (like venom).
Personally if this divorce had to happen, I'd have preferred it happen after Holland moved on from the role.
And while I agree competition for superhero movies is good, we should have that with the DC vs Marvell stuff, it's just that most of the DC stuff has been disappointing (at least to me).
I totally blame Disney. They already get ALL of the merchandise for Spider-Man. Them asking for half is stupid and greedy.It's also a dumb move for Sony though. They are going to be more restricted in their story telling now, and probably won't make nearly as much money as they did on the last 2 films.
That said, they'll still probably make more money without disney than they would with the Disney was trying to force on them.
Since Spider-man has always been my favorite, I'm really frustrated at the whole thing. Whoever originally signed the deal to give Sony essentially an unending license to spider-man movies was an idiot.
yeah, that's been pretty evident by the replies. I did seem to get some replies from non-regulars when I first created this thread. I guess I was hoping some of them might chime in again.Maybe I'll put something in the September letter. Or maybe I'll just wait for the end of the year survey.
