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

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

Tamahome wrote: "I liked it. I think I saw too many trailers. I won't watch any more Endgame ones."

*A wild Tamahome appears...*

See I thought Coulson was also de-aged, and didn't look as good as Jackson. But if was just a bad wig, that might explain why I thought he looked weird every time he was on screen.

Well, that or the not smiling thing..

Welcome back Elizabeth. Happy to hear you've been getting back into reading and found us again.

I saw it last night and it was fun. I thought the cast was great. I always like origin story movies, even those I don't know (of which this was one) less enjoyable than ones where the character is already established, but I found this to be one of the better origin stories.

As someone who grew up in the 90s, I loved all the throwbacks, especially Radio Shack, dial-up and CD rom load times.

I was originally off-put by the de-aged Samuel L. Jackson, but I quickly got used to it and it was far less jarring than past iterations of the concept. So they are getting better at it.

I'm really looking forward to seeing Carol in Avengers and beyond.

Welcome Hugh.

I believe Goodreads will count the same book (isbn, not title) once per year towards both personal and group challenges.

This is based on the read dates you assign the book.

Aaron wrote: "Am I misreading the bracket, or has every single matchup been won by the top seed? If this keeps up, then it looks like we will see a narrow victory by ToS over TMC in the final. Based on the comme..."

Yes, it's been all "chalk" to use the basketball term thus far.

I'd have to verify, but I'm pretty sure this is the first year that's happened.

This is also the first year I'm including the seeding in my voting/stat posts though.

But considering my nomination is #1 I won't feel bad if it's chalk all the way! :-D

Round 2 complete!

Checkout my breakdown of the results

Round 3 is a go! Voting ends Tuesday March 19th at 11:59PM EST

Checkout the matchups and go vote!

Theft of Swords narrowly snuck by. Overall I went 3-1 in round 2.

I'm a bit surprised Nexus lost by so large a margin, it's a really good book. Although I did vote for Fifteen Lives because I own it and haven't read it yet.

I'd like to see us read it at some point.

Results from Round 2:

Once again participation dropped off in the second round, and overall participation from last year is down.

View the full bracket here

Tournament Statistics
Total Votes Cast: 3,501
Average Votes Cast: 292
Book With Most Votes: Theft of Swords (208 Votes) (Round 1)
Match-up With Most Votes: TIE! (305 Votes)
The Poppy War vs. Black Leopard, Red Wolf (Round 1)
AND
The Martian Chronicles vs. Infomocracy (Round 1)
Largest Win: Theft of Swords (117 Votes) (Round 1)
Smallest Win: Nexus (3 Votes) (Round 1)
Average Win: 37 votes

Round 2 Statistics
Total Votes Cast: 1,132
Average Votes Cast: 283
Book With Most Votes: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (163 Votes)
Match-up With Most Votes: The Martian Chronicles vs. After Atlas (293 Votes)
Largest Win: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (57 Votes)
Smallest Win: Theft of Swords (13 Votes)
Average Win: 32.5

Round 1 Statistics
Total Votes Cast: 2,369
Average Votes Cast: 296
Book With Most Votes: Theft of Swords (208 Votes)
Match-up With Most Votes: TIE! (305 Votes)
The Poppy War vs. Black Leopard, Red Wolf
AND
The Martian Chronicles vs. Infomocracy
Largest Win: Theft of Swords (117 Votes)
Smallest Win: Nexus (3 Votes)
Average Win: 42 votes

Sword Bracket
---------------------------------

(1) Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan (152 Votes - 52.2%)
vs.
(8) The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (139 Votes - 47.8%)

Winner: Theft of Swords
Total Votes: 291
Margin of Victory: 13

---------------------------------

(4) Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (151 Votes - 54.9%)
vs.
(5) Red Sister by Mark Lawrence (124 Votes - 45.1%)

Winner: Trail of Lightning
Total Votes: 275
Margin of Victory: 27

---------------------------------


Laser Bracket
---------------------------------

(2) The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (155 Votes - 64.1%)
vs.
(7) Nexus by Ramez Naam (98 Votes - 35.9%)

Winner: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Total Votes: 273
Margin of Victory: 57

---------------------------------

(3) The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (163 Votes - 55.6%)
vs.
(6) After Atlas by Emma Newman (130 Votes - 44.4%)

Winner: The Martian Chronicles
Total Votes: 293
Margin of Victory: 33

---------------------------------

Well I'm sure everyone knows who I'm pulling for on the Sword side. I'm bummed Red Sister lost because if Theft lost to that I'd be less disappointed because I loved that book.

On the Laser side I'm pulling for Fifteen Lives simply because I own it already and haven't read it. I won't be upset if Martian Chronicles wins though because the group really should read that book one of these months.

Checkout the full Bracket


Voting for round 3 will be March 13th 12:01AM EST - March 19th 11:59PM EST

See below for the round breakdown with links to each poll

Sword Bracket

Sword Semifinal:
(1) Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan

vs.

(4) Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Vote Here

Laser Semifinal:

(2) The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

vs.

(3) The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Vote Here

I will say my 9th grade English teacher almost turned me off reading, and I really didn't enjoy The Hobbit or There and Back Again.

We over analyzed the shit out of that. None of which I remember. Thankfully when I bought Lord of the Rings in college it came with the hobbit and I decided to reread it again.

I will say I can understand why school turns some people off of reading. Some teachers I've had make it out like you have to spend time deep in thought rather than just enjoying yourself.

Now as an adult I enjoy talking about books, but that's not always for everyone.

Alif the Unseen is $2 today (probably because her new book also dropped today)

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0087GJVPO/

Also, with series I think the later books always tend to trend upward in ratings because the people who don't like the first book roll off and people to continue to drop off when they give up on a series so that only the diehards are reading by book 6.

Although the entire series is above 4 stars, which is impressive, even if the number of ratings is only in the thousands

Unsouled - 4.27 stars from 6,047 ratings
Soulsmith - 4.45 stars from 4,880 ratings
Blackflame - 4.56 stars from 4,534 ratings
Skysworn - 4.44 stars from 3,953 ratings
Ghostwater - 4.63 stars from 3,575 ratings
Underlord - 4.80 stars from 1,810 ratings

Book 6 was released 10 days ago, and considering book 5 had only 3,575 1,810 ratings is pretty good. But it's going to mostly be people like me who were eagerly awaiting the next book.

I think Skysworn is the weakest book of the series, which is probably why the rating dropped off for that book compared to the otherwise upward trend of rating as the number of ratings trends downward.

I know Michael J. Sullivan wrote a blog post commenting how Underlord hit the top 5 on Amazon's Best Seller's list. Not in fantasy, for all books (I believe). https://riyria.blogspot.com/2019/03/w...

Pretty impressive for such a little-known author. He has only ~1,500 followers on Goodreads.

I stopped reading (or cut way back) in my 20s first because of college and later because of World of Warcraft.

Finding S&L and Goodreads really rekindled (and kicked into overdrive) my reading again.

I personally don't worry/care about if other people read, but I have recommended audio to people who "don't have time". I know some of my friends are exclusively audio because they want to keep reading, but can't seem to fit it it otherwise.

I think it inevitably comes down to how much you care. Also, apparently there are really stupid/presumptuous people around you..

My favorite is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire because of of the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard tournament, but Prisoner is a close second.

I agree it's the happiest of the series, because Goblet is where the series starts getting a lot darker.

Oh, and after I posted that stuff about the WoW book, I think you were talking actually about Underlord. Lol.

Well Will Wight is an up and coming (or maybe he's been around too long/written too many books) indie author with a pretty devoted fanbase.

Wight puts out a few books/year and is actively writing "three" series. I put the three in quotes because 2 of the series are connected and he always seems to release those books in pairs. So far I'm mostly just reading his Cradle series.

I got the first book (Unsouled) for free last year when the 5th book was coming out. I liked it enough to pay for the second book and kept going from there. For me they really scratch an itch. It probably helps to that all of his books are included in Kindle Unlimited.

I had a few friends of mine offline both independently recommend him and his first trilogy to me, but because I got Unsouled for free.

I did end up buying his older trilogy too, and have read the first book House of Blades, but didn't like that nearly as much. I do plan to finish it eventually though.

Another indie author I like Andrew Rowe has been posting on his blog in the last few weeks calling the kinds of books he and Wight "Progression Fantasy".

I don't really think a new "subgenre" is necessary but he at least did a good job in his blog post with explaining the structure: https://andrewkrowe.wordpress.com/201...

Trike wrote: "I’ve never seen so many effusive reviews for a book. Surely it can’t be that good? I downloaded a sample of the first one to see what all the fuss is about.."

Well the only people who have read/reviewed the book so far are Kickstarter backers, so we're going to be biased.

Also for me it's worth noting a 5 star book isn't a perfect book so much as a book that I enjoy so much as to overlook any flaws it might have. See Ready Player One

As I stated in my review this book really hits a sweet spot for me personally that makes it hard for me to be objective about it.

If you're looking for a sample of what the book is like, he posted a few stories on Wowhead to promote the book. These are NOT included in the book, as they cover topics after the release of WoW (where the book stops).

Warsong Gulch
Schlomance
Various dungeon/raid anecdotes

I'm not sure when the book will be broadly available to non-backers, but I expect the average rating will go down at that point, although I suspect the target audience for this will be small enough that most who read it are really going to enjoy it.

I'm playing a bit of catch-up for the last two weeks.

First up was the The World of Warcraft Diary, which I got from backing the kickstarter. I really enjoyed it, but it's hard for me to gauge how much someone who isn't both a WoW junkie and a software engineer will enjoy it. - ★★★★★ - (My Review)

I continued my SFF break in audio with The Black Echo. I liked it enough that I plan to continue on with the series (and thankfully was able to pick it up with a sale) - ★★★★☆ - (My Review)

After the WoW book, I all but devoured Underlord. It might be my new favorite book in the series. I already can't wait for the next book. - ★★★★★ - (My Review)

Finally I continued on with the Vorkosigan series with Brothers in Arms I really like the Miles books more than the others.- ★★★½☆ - (My Review)