Action Heroine Fans discussion
Action Heroine Reading Challenge
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Action heroine annual reading challenge
I unexpectedly read an action heroine book while in Australia (long story), so I've updated my goal to reflect that. I've now got it set at seven.
Awesome. I've managed 12 of the 16 I set, and I'm the middle of a good one now, so I may end up increasing my goal before year end.
I've now read 19 books and comics for this challenge so I upgraded my goal to 25. I've read a couple of Buffy Omnibuses and have one more to go. They've mostly been fun but very light reads. A little to my surprise one of the Babylon 5 tie-in books Accusations was heavily focused on Commander Susan Ivanova fighting Raiders so I added it, too, to this challenge. Elizabeth Moon's book Trading in Danger was another space opera book with an action heroine in the lead.I'm currently reading Winter of the Gods which stars the former goddess Artemis in a modern setting. She's a private investigator and now investigates a murder with her mortal boyfriend.
Good going, Mervi! I'm still in hopes of meeting my goal, although the last book of the Jade del Cameron series (which Barb and I are reading together) hasn't featured any action elements yet. But in that series, the action often doesn't materialize until near the end; and in any case, the next two books we plan to read have action heroine potential as well. :-)
I've now upped my goal for this year to nine books, and I think I have of good chance of meeting it. And congratulations to the two folks who've already completed the challenge, Sadie and E.G. Way to go!
Thanks Werner! There are some super reads on that list. I believe it's my month for the mod recommendation- look for it this weekend!
I've upgraded my challenge to 30 books.I just finished
which reimagines many of DC's most popular superheroines. The setting is the Second World War where Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Stargirl, and other heroines are fighting Nazis and their magical menace.I also finished
which is the very first collection bringing together Oracle, Black Canary, and the Huntress. Not as good as the later stories but I quite liked Oracle's and the Canary's friendhsip.
Mervi wrote: "I've upgraded my challenge to 30 books.I just finished
which reimagines many of DC's most popular superheroines. The setting is the Sec..."Q: How close did you get to your target before upgrading? i am 3 away from completing my objective.
Graeme wrote: "Mervi wrote: "I've upgraded my challenge to 30 books.I just finished
which reimagines many of DC's most popular superheroines. The sett..."Within 2. I lost track and overshot mine - so I can't change it now. It registers all the additional reads as 'over the challenge', but I can increase the challenge number.
Graeme, it's fine to set a personal goal for yourself; but did you know you can officially register for the challenge, and have the Goodreads program keep track of it for you, at this link: https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/... ? Personally, I think that adds a bit to the fun. (Even though it's late in the year, once you create a customized shelf for the challenge and add the books you've read already to it, the program will give you credit for them.)Last year (which was the first year our group did this), I didn't know you couldn't raise your goal number after you'd already attained it; so I got caught in the same trap as E.G. did this time. This year, I increased my goal just before adding the book that would have finished the challenge at the original number, since changed reading plans and circumstances suggested the higher figure would be reachable. (This time, I may have set it a tad too high, but we'll see!)
Werner wrote: "Graeme, it's fine to set a personal goal for yourself; but did you know you can officially register for the challenge, and have the Goodreads program keep track of it for you, at this link: https:/..."Thanks Werner. What 'unbalanced' my challenge first year when I did it was reading the 5th GOT novel (1120 pages) and the 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' trilogy. This year (2017) much smaller books. The worst of 2017: The 3 Jason Bourne books by Ludlum (RL can't write good action).
I tend to plan my reading for about a year ahead; and when I upped my goal to nine books for this year (I've read seven so far), I was counting on a couple of titles featuring heroines whom I knew carried guns, and could probably use them if necessary. However, in one of those books, it turned out not to be necessary, and the heroine isn't put in any position of real physical challenge. While I'm not done with the other book yet, I'm close to it, and guessing that this may be the case with it as well. Another book I'm reading definitely features an action heroine, but that only makes eight.Given that we can lower the number of books in our goal as well as raise it, I can drop my goal to eight and attain it. That would help the group as a whole to meet its collective goal (which, the way the program is set by Goodreads, is the total of the individual goals). On the other hand, one could argue that if you can lower the mark for the challenge once it's set, it detracts from the challenge aspect --it becomes a "challenge" you can't possibly fail to attain, which seems a bit like an oxymoron. (But you're still in a sense challenging yourself to try to meet the original goal, so that aspect does remain!) What do the rest of you think about this?
Werner wrote: "But you're still in a sense challenging yourself to try to meet the original goal, so that aspect does remain!"This is what's important to me. Because this is a hobby, I wouldn't take too much stress putting too hard goals. I'd certainly allow lowering the goal.
Mervi, that makes sense to me; thanks for sharing!
After accidentally finding out that Inceptio is an action heroine book, I updated my challenge with one book. I inted to read one more Xena comic this year and possibly a couple of Birds of Prey comics. But Christmas time is busy, so we'll see.
I've made my goal again this year --I took Mervi's encouragement to heart, and lowered my goal to eight. That's still up from what I started with, so I've raised the bar more this year than I've lowered it! :-)Is there anyone else, who, like me, would be up for doing this again next year?
I'd like to participate next year, too. I already have a stack of Birds of Prey comics and the next book in the Nova Roma series waiting.
Mervi wrote: "I'd like to participate next year, too. I already have a stack of Birds of Prey comics and the next book in the Nova Roma series waiting."I'll try to get the new challenge posted ASAP as soon as 2018 rolls around, then!
E.G. wrote: "I”m in!" Great, E.G.; glad to have you!
The third annual challenge is now up and running at this link: https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/... . I'll try to use the Goodreads messaging system later this week to send out a general invitation to our group members to take part. I'm afraid I haven't publicized the challenge very well in the two previous years (sorry!).Each year that we've done this, we've added a logo to the challenge; I think that makes it look more visually appealing. Last year, I used a book cover, but I wasn't sure how appropriate it is to pick one book cover for a multi-book challenge! But there aren't many other action-heroine images out there that don't pose copyright issues. :-( So, this year (with the permission of their moderator) I've borrowed the logo of our sister group, Girls and Guns. That logo was picked by their founding moderator, who's no longer on Goodreads. Apologies to anyone who feels the lady shows too much skin! She's just dressing for comfort and coolness in a hot climate, not to give anybody the wrong idea --and if any guy looks at her disrespectfully, she'll just shoot him dead. :-) (Though I'm sure nobody in this group would do that!)
Thanks, E.G. :-) And glad to have you aboard for the challenge!I set a modest goal of five books to start with. But I might increase it as circumstances develop during the year.
I'm also in with an initial goal of 15.
That's great, Georgeann! Glad to have you in; the more participants, the better.
Glad to have you aboard, Angela! I believe we're on track to get more participation this year than last year, and that's wonderful.
Wow, this year we have 11 people taking part in the challenge! In the three years that we've done this, that's the most we've ever had. Thanks to everyone who's signed up, and happy reading!
I hit the 50% mark and decided I was being too conservative, so I increased by goal by 8 books.
As a rule, I plan my reading for a calendar year before it starts, while recognizing that there are going to be some surprises that can't be planned for (and I've had a few surprises already this year!). At this point, I've read 60% of my goal; but that's roughly where I'd expected to be by now, and I'm not ready to opt for a higher goal yet. (Later in the year, I might, but it depends: I've been promised a review copy of a certain projected action heroine novel when it's published, but it's not yet certain whether 2018 will be the year it's published or not.)
Sometime after I posted the comment above, I did up my goal, to six books. But since then, all three of the action-heroine books I've begun to read ended up on my "started-not-finished" shelf! (In one case, of course, that's only because it's the second of a series and I decided I really need to read the series opener first; but I don't have the latter in hand.) So I might have to scramble to make my revised goal before year's end, or wind up lowering it to five again. But we'll see what happens. :-)
Werner wrote: "Sometime after I posted the comment above, I did up my goal, to six books. But since then, all three of the action-heroine books I've begun to read ended up on my "started-not-finished" shelf! (In ..."I hate that -- when I have my reading planned only to find the book I was counting on is one I can't finish.
I finished Olympus Bound which is the third and final book in the series. The main character Selene, formerly goddess Artemis, still kicks ass. It's a satisfying conclusion to the series.
I've now read 14 books and comics for this challenge so I ended up increasing my goal to 18 books.
Good for you, Mervi! You're quite a bit ahead of the rest of us. :-)
I've just finished the second book in a historical superhero series, Serpent's Rise byt Trish Heinrich. I mostly enjoyed the first book (except for the romance triangle) and the second book was even better.The main character Alice doesn't have any superpowers but she's a martial artist and has a kevlar suit and batons, so she's definitely an action heroine.
I've still got a bunch of action heroine comics to read and at least two books with (hopefully) an action heroine lead, so I updated by goal to 25.
I'm currently on track to meet my goal. A book I read to my wife unexpectedly turned out to have an action heroine --I knew the series (Susan Page Davis' Ladies Shooting Club trilogy) featured a group of women in an Old West community learning to use firearms for defensive purposes, but I assumed that none of them would ever actually have to. Between now and the end of the year, I'm hoping to work in another action heroine novel that I've considered a must read for some time; and I'm eventually expecting a couple of action heroine review books, at least one of which I expect will come through.
The number of people in the current challenge who have supposedly completed 0 books --even though I'm pretty sure they've read much more than that!-- made me realize I need to share a technical point, which isn't explained very well in the challenge description. In order to get Goodreads' computer program to actually count the books you read for the challenge, on your bookshelf, you need to create a special shelf dedicated to the challenge, enter the name of it on your challenge page, and then add the books to that shelf. (You can do this any time during the year, and can add books even weeks or months after you've read them.) Hope this is helpful!
I've increased by goal to 30 books. I'm going to continue with Elizabeth Moon's military science fiction series Vatta's war which has two more books remaing. Together with comics I'm sure I can reach that goal.
Mervi wrote: "I've increased by goal to 30 books. I'm going to continue with Elizabeth Moon's military science fiction series Vatta's war which has two more books remaing. Together with comics I'm sure I can reach that goal."Sounds great, Mervi!
The book Barb and I just finished reading last week proved to most definitely be an action heroine novel! So, I've tentatively increased my goal to seven books. :-)
Well, I've upped my challenge goal to eight, and I believe I'll reach it.
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Awesome. Particularly the Gwen Stacy bit!