SciFi and Fantasy Challenge 2014

[Yvonne]

I'm aiming for 12. Only have these 3 at the moment.

1. The Lions of al-Rassan
2. The Summer Tree
3. Perdido Street Station

[Scott]

I've made a pretty kick ass start to my 2014 challenge in general and this group. Just finished the 5th book in my challenge, A Game of Thrones and I have to say I loved it. I didn't think I would, but I sooo did. About 25% through A Clash of Kings, which would be #6 for my challenge.

Fantasy supremacy, here I come!

[MK]

Darwin wrote: "I've made a pretty kick ass start to my 2014 challenge in general and this group. Just finished the 5th book in my challenge, A Game of Thrones and I have to say I loved it. I didn't t..."

You have indeed make a kick ass start! To both!!!

You're averaging about 200 pages a day. That's impressive.


I am 3 of 24 books in, for my sci fi/fantasy group challenge. Solid start, I'd say. Not kick-ass territory ;-)

[Scott]

Either impressive or a sign that I don't do much other than read when I have days off lol ... or maybe both

I am definitely enjoying the books I've picked so far this year so I can't really complain

[Yvonne]

I've finished making my list and started reading the first 2. I love The Lions of al-Rassan so far.

1. The Lions of al-Rassan
2. The Long Earth
3. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
4. The Last Unicorn
5. Leviathan Wakes
6. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
7. Across the Nightingale Floor
8. Fuzzy Nation
9. The Summer Tree
10. The Handmaid's Tale
11. Perdido Street Station
12. Consider Phlebas

[Michael]

Yvonne wrote: "I've finished making my list and started reading the first 2. I love The Lions of al-Rassan so far.

1. The Lions of al-Rassan
2. The Long Earth
3. [book...]"

There are now 4 people who have listed The Long Earth - you plus Darwin, Gumps, and Jim. If anyone wants a group read for that, propose it on the coordinating thread...

Also note that there are group reads proposed for other books on your list - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Leviathan Wakes, and Perdido Street Station, in case you are interested in reading with others!

[Kim]

We only read The Long Earth last month so I'd suggest using the section already there for it.

[Yvonne]

Michael wrote: "There are now 4 people who have listed The Long Earth - you plus Darwin, Gumps, and Jim. If anyone wants a group read for that, propose it on the coordinating thread..."

Yes, I noticed your list. It is why I chose some those books in the first place. I think it's more fun to read them with a group, so I'll definitely join!

[Kim]

I've managed to knock four books over so far. Fuzzy Nation, The Accidental Time Machine, A Night in the Lonesome October and The Martian Chronicles.

[Richard]

Yvonne and Michael, I am currently working on "The Long Earth" and "The.Moon Is A Harsh Mistress." I am 33% done with "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency."

[Rollie]

Last year I set the goal to read 100 books. That seems like a lot, but I did that for three years straight, but that was about 30 years ago. So, my reading goal for this year is to read more books than I did last year.

And, I am off to a good start.

1. Sourdough Wars (Rebecca Schwartz Mysteries #2), Julie Smith

2. The Mating Season, P.G. Wodehouse

3. Space Viking, H. Beam Piper

[Kim]

Rollie wrote: "Last year I set the goal to read 100 books. That seems like a lot, but I did that for three years straight, but that was about 30 years ago. So, my reading goal for this year is to read more book..."

As stated at the start of this thread this is only for books relating to our group challenge, and not general reading challenges/goals.

[Julia]

I said back in December: "I'll aim for 24 12, and maybe finish 6. If I don't like one of the monthly selections (or can't easily get hold of it) then I'll go to the list on the bookshelf for that month." I will read around 150-160-170 books this year. Last year it was #173. Here's my books from the list:

1. The Ocean at the End of the Lane
2. The Lies of Locke Lamora
3. Tigana
4. The Man in the High Castle
5. The Snow Queen
6. Oryx and Crake
7. Deathless
8. The Magic of Recluce
9. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
10.The Native Star
11. Cold Magic
12. The Terror
13. Night Watch
14. Cat's Cradle
15. Dawn
16. The Sparrow

Whoops! I'd forgotten I'd made this list...

[Maarit]

I finally made my mind and decided to challenge myself to read atleast the minimum amount of 12 books from the group bookshelf this year. I will read these books for certain:

1.The Left Hand of Darkness (currently reading, Finnish translation)
2.Brave New World (currently reading, Finnish translation)
3.1Q84 (currently reading, will take lots of time)
4.The Lies of Locke Lamora (currently reading)
5.Foundation (Finnish translation)
6.Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Others I will decide later, based on my intrest level, to-read shelf and upcoming group reads, if voted books are easily avaiable to me (meaning I can get them either from library or my home bookshelf). I will read both translated versions (Finnish) and English language books in this challenge.

[Michael]

That adds Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Night Watch, and Oryx and Crake to the list of books being read by 4 people this year. Don't forget to check out the challenge reading thread if you want to read any of those together...

[Michael]

Also, some of us are considering reading Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1) starting on February 15, so if you are interested or have other dates to propose let us know at the challenge reading thread. I have Valerie and Robyn on my list of people who might be reading that this year, so let us know if you are available!

[Michael]

Of course I'll read all 24, as well as pick up some of the previous years' titles. Just finished The Long Earth.

[Coralie]

So far this year I have read Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Ready Player One and Fuzzy Nation. I am currently reading World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. Unfortunately it looks as though I won't be able to read either of this month's group reads or next months as I have either read them or they are not available in my local libraries. I do hope to read over the next month or so -
The Color of Magic
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Soulless
Oryx and Crake
Machine Man

[Maggie]

Planning to read this year:
Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, #1)


Stranger in a Strange Land

Mort (Discworld, #4)

Blackout

The Yiddish Policemen's Union


The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack (Burton & Swinburne, #1)

Island in the Sea of Time (Nantucket, #1)

The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1)


read so far in 2014:
Fuzzy Nation

The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1)

[Kevin]

I signed up to read 12, hopefully I can do more then that. Luckily I've already read 2 and just finished reading this months selection right now

1:The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman COMPLETED
2:Homeland by R.A. Salvatore COMPLETED
3:The Last Unicornby Peter S. Beagle COMPLETED
4:Nine Princes of Amber by Roger Zelazny COMPLETED

[A.L.]

A.L. wrote: "I'm about to start The Reader of Acheron, which is a new release and I have a couple more Janet Morris ones to read so that will keep me out of mischief. I have [book:The Martian Ch..."

Reader of Acheron is excellent. Also read a couple of others since then:) Might switch to history for a week or so.

[Kevin]

Maggie wrote: "Planning to read this year:
Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, #1)
"

I loved all the books in the Tales of the Otori series, I hope you enjoy it.

[Scott]

I had previously just had the number, 12 , of books I had indicated that I would read; however was adding most of the titles:

1. Dirk Gently-completed
2. The Warded Man - completed (Great Book!)
3. Hyperion (Current read)
4. The Rook
5. Mistborn
6. the Forever War
7. The Black Prism
8. Fuzzy Nation
9. The Graveyard Book
10. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
11. Warbreaker
12. Perdido Street Station
13. Watchmen
14. The Last Unicorn
15. Old Man's War
16. Midnight Riot

Yes I know its more than 12...Just wanted to make sure I found 12 I liked :0

[Michael]

In case anyone is interested and doesn't already know about it, some of us are planning on reading Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1) starting this Saturday, February 15. Check out the group read planning thread if you are interested!

[[deleted user]]

I work full time and have small kids, so it would be hard for me to commit to anything beyond the minimum 12 (thank God for my daily train commute or I'd never have time to read at all). My overall goal for the main Goodreads challenge this year is only 45 books, so I wouldn't want to limit myself too much to books from this group. I'll give it a shot though.

Hard to say for sure which 12 to go with, but I would very tentatively narrow it down to some combination of the following, most of which were at least already on my radar if not at the top of my to-read list:

Embassytown
Ancillary Justice
The Black Company
1Q84
Deathless
The Terror
Hyperion
The Lions of al-Rassan
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
The Windup Girl
The Player of Games
Machine Man
Gardens of the Moon
Dune
Tigana
A Fire Upon the Deep
Neuromancer
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Oh, and I already read Pump Six and Other Stories this year, so that leaves me with 11 left to pick from that list!

[[deleted user]]

Hmmm... I entered in my goal of 12 in the challenge and created a shelf which includes Pump Six (which I read this year), but the challenge thingy on the group front page is telling me that I've read "0" books toward my goal of 12. What gives?

[Edwin]

You guys are killing me here. I originally set my goal at 18, 1 per month from the monthly choices and 6 other side reads.

And now with the great choices for Feb and March, including all of the added side reads that I want to read too, I have upped my goal to 24, which is still probably too low.

Geez, would you stop adding so many good books already???

[Kim]

I can't view your shelves so I can't help much. You have to link the shelf to your challenge and you also need to make sure you put a read date on your review for it to count.

[Edwin]

Andy wrote: "Hmmm... I entered in my goal of 12 in the challenge and created a shelf which includes Pump Six (which I read this year), but the challenge thingy on the group front page is telling me that I've re..."

You need to first create the bookshelf (mine is "scifi-fantasy-book-club-challenge-2014"). When you add a book, you need to make sure that that shelf is clicked (you can choose multiple shelves). When you do finish the book, make sure that you change it to read and make sure that your challenge shelf stays clicked. You must also make sure that you have included the date that you finished it.

I hope that helps.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks Kim and Edwin. For some reason when I created the challenge shelf, it created a duplicate shelf with the same name but 0 books in it. Once I populated that shelf with all the books (including Pump Six) from the other shelf it recognized them.

[MK]

Next month's books are going to be a wait, from the library. At my library, The Name of the Wind has 6 people on the holds list for 1 copy, and Ancillary Justice is not available at my home library, only via inter-library loan, but all those copies are checked out, and you can't join a holds list, for inter-library loans, you can only request to borrow if it's available.

Just a heads up to folks who borrow the monthly reads from the library, these seem to be popular books, and you might want to join the queue now ;-).

[Mina]

My 2014 reading challenge is to focus on Female Fantasy Authors. I'm going from A to Z, so aiming for 26 with a few extras thrown in that I couldn't resist reading :D

I have already read 3 FFA books this year:

Rifkind's Challenge by Lynn Abbey
The Anvil of the World by Kage Baker
The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

And I'm now reading:

A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay because, well, I wanted to read it & I love his writing.

[Michael]

Mina wrote: "My 2014 reading challenge is to focus on Female Fantasy Authors. I'm going from A to Z, so aiming for 26 with a few extras thrown in that I couldn't resist reading :D

I have already read 3 FFA boo..."

That's a great challenge, although the A-Z part sounds impossible! Are you only doing author last names?

[Michael]

Mina wrote: "My 2014 reading challenge is to focus on Female Fantasy Authors. I'm going from A to Z, so aiming for 26 with a few extras thrown in that I couldn't resist reading :D

I have already read 3 FFA boo..."

Oh, except those aren't from the group's bookshelf, are they? The thread is for books on the club's bookshelf.

[Kim]

No, none of those books are on our bookshelf.

[Tyler]

I've set a goal to read 24 off the group' bookshelf. A lot of them are on my tbr pile and this will be good motivation to get to them.

[Mina]

Michael wrote: "Oh, except those aren't from the group's bookshelf, are they? The thread is for books on the club's bookshelf. ..."

So terribly sorry, I missed that part...eep. I'll check out the group bookshelf & see if I can add some :) and yes, I'm going by last names...X should be interesting!

[Penny]

I've been using this thread to update which of the books on my list I've read but I haven't commented in a while.

I'm now 8 books into my challenge! I think the hardest part of this is going to be not allowing myself to read sequels during the course of this year because I've made my challenge list too big for any deviations. It has been great to finally get to so many of the books I've wanted to read for so long though. I'm currently reading I Robot and I'm finding it really enjoyable so far :)

[MK]

^5, Penny!

I'm 5 books into my challenge. Almost 6, currently 77% of the way done with The Last Unicorn, when finished, I'll have completed 6 books for the challenge. :)

[Edwin]

I just hit 6 of my planned 24, on track so far. However, my "to-read" shelf is growing faster that my "read" shelf. I think I need to spend some time away from this insidious website.

[MK]

LOL! The same, Edwin :-p

[Joel]

I'm pretty new to GoodReads and the reading challenges. I've set my own challenge of a book count for the year. It seems that you are discussing your book list as if you've already chosen your books to read. If that's correct, do you guys allow any deviations in your list? Or do you stay true to your original list, even if a great new book/series comes along out of nowhere?

Just curious!!

[MK]

I haven't chosen my books ahead of time, I was thinking I'd likely read many of the group monthly picks. Those aren't on the group's bookshelf yet, so I can't 'pre-list' them :-).

This thread is about the group challenge, on the group home page. Only the books on the group's shelf count towards this challenge. I didn't realize that at first, so I thought perhaps you might not have, either :).

Oh, hey, welcome to Goodreads! I just joined last fall, too. I went a little giddy and grabbed 'all the books' sometime around the beginning of January ;-). Trying to remedy that little bit of temporary insanity, at the moment ;-).

[Michael]

I create a reading list bookshelf at the start of each year, not just for these types of challenges but also because I have so many genres I'm interested in it helps me make sure I'm not skipping any of them. But like Penny said, this makes it hard when there are sequels or related books on the same topic I might want to follow up on. I do allow space for new book club reads, though, and I could always just plan half my books and fill in the rest as I go.

As for "great new book/series", well, I've been burned on that too often and I tend to ignore the current trends, instead I look to see what books are actually still talked about a year later. This helps, too, because I love free books and prefer to wait until there's no waiting list at the library!

[Joel]

Ahhh, I understand. My apologies for the confusion. Thanks for the welcome! I look forward to being a somewhat productive member of the group :D

[MK]

No apologies necessary, Joel! I'm a newish member too :-).

Michael, I just LOL'd. Every once in awhile, I visit someone's profile page, and 'compare books'. Our tastes are 0% similar for books we've both rated :-D. (I've only seen that one other time before heh)

Maybe Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1) will give us 1 book similar soon :).

[Michael]

MK wrote: "No apologies necessary, Joel! I'm a newish member too :-).

Michael, I just LOL'd. Every once in awhile, I visit someone's profile page, and 'compare books'. Our tastes are 0% similar for books we'..."

Heh, I probably get that a lot. But the actual reason is that I have over 2,000 books on my to-read list(s) (hey, I like to plan ahead!). Since the compatibility test can only compare 100 books (which seems like an unhelpful limitation) it randomly picks 100 and a lot of times you'll only get books I haven't rated, so 0% compatibility.

To avoid this, on the "Compare Books" page, you have to select "read" from the "common shelves" drop-down. That will force Goodreads to just compare our read books, which is much more useful. (It doesn't work if you don't use the "read" shelf for your rated books). I get 79% for you, including Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1)!

Thought that might help you. I don't think a lot of people know about this, but I spend a lot of time analyzing comparison ratings...

[MK]

ahhh! makes more sense, now, Michael! Cuz I know when I read your comments on books, I'm like ... yea, yea, YEA, what HE said! :p

Also, my shelves are a hot mess. So, that doesn't help ;-)

[MK]

ps - lol'ing RIGHT NOW at the 'like to plan ahead' bit. I guess you do! *grin*

[Edwin]

Michael wrote: "I create a reading list bookshelf at the start of each year, not just for these types of challenges but also because I have so many genres I'm interested in it helps me make sure I'm not skipping any of them."

Hey, maybe we can start a competition for the most OCD here. Me, I keep a list of my reading goals on an Excel spreadsheet, with nice little columns for each of my group goals and sub-columns to keep tab of my progress with each. Yup, I'm a geek.