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

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

OK. Challenges have been created. I updated the original post with the links/details.

Here are the details for the 2024 Challenges. If you have any questions, first check the FAQ, and otherwise post them here.

Sword Challenge: Fantasy Books
Laser Challenge: Sci-Fi Books

Side Challenge
Graphic Novel Challenge: Comics/Manga/Etc


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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 2024

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).

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.

original message:
(view spoiler)[
So last year seems to have glitched out..but I'm happy to make challenges for 2024 if people are still interested. Let me know what challenges you'd like to see for next year
(hide spoiler)]

New year. New thread. How are you kicking things off this year?

new thread for the new year...

Our January pick is The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

let us know what you think of the pick in the thread below

The final month of the year is upon on. What will be reading to end things off? Did you meet any reading goals you may have set for the year?

the month has begun..go forth and discuss

Welcome Alex

Maria Carey has come out of an ice block apparently to try to maximize her royalties on that Christmas song she released 2 decades ago..so it must be November!

What are you reading this month?

The month has begun. Go forth and discuss!

Our November pick will be The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older

Let us know what you think of the pick

Welcome Matthew

Welcome Fergus.

It's spooky season here in North America. Everyone knows Veronica is already excited. Reading anything in the spirit of Halloween?

If not, what else are you enjoying this month?

Welcome Cameron

Our October pick will be The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins

Let us know what you think about the pick

The month has begun. Go forth and discuss!

Martha wrote: "How can I link my read book to these challenges??"

There are 3 steps:

1) create a custom book shelf for each challenge you want to participate
2) Enter the number of books you want to read this year and the name of the shelf you created
3) For each book you read that qualifies make sure it's tagged with both the custom shelf and a 2023 read date.

Our book pick for next month is: China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh

Let us know what you think about the pick.

books?