SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
SciFi and Fantasy Book Challenge
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2018 SFFBC Owned Books Challenge!
Allison wrote: "I would also like points for reading books in other languages. I think that's the only way I'm going to finish Le Comte de Monte-Cristo I en francais...."Ooh yes I need that too.
CBRetriever wrote: "Dj wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "After reading one of Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy books, I would suggest fact checking before believing"I was bemoaning the fact that it had a higher rating than Dhal..."
LOL, I can relate. I felt that way when I read things occasionally, I end up thinking I thought this would be better.
Sarah Anne wrote: "I got 40 points for Twelve Days. I think I should have given a 200 point bonus for reading books that totally suck."I'd be up for that bonus because man some of the ones I have deserve it.
Mod
I would also like points for reading books in ot..."
DJ, I'm going to check if that's one I have and if so, I will likely take your suggestion, thanks! I'm not here to make friends [with new-to-me authors]. I'm here to win. So I gotta read at least one of these things.
Allison wrote: "I'm not here to make friends [with new-to-me authors]. I'm here to win."I'm dead at your ruthlessness. I think I need to start picking more point worthy books if I'm to be successful at all this year.
My first two were low points. i need to read Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear for like 700 points total. 800?
Seems to be getting competitive in here... is everyone’s highest scoring books the ones they are dreading the most? That’s why we’ve owned them so long without reading them I suppose.
maybe just putting some of them off for a while because of the time commitment as i have a lot of compilations that are massive:The Complete Wheel of Time = over 12,000 pages
Sarah wrote: "Seems to be getting competitive in here... is everyone’s highest scoring books the ones they are dreading the most? That’s why we’ve owned them so long without reading them I suppose."True :)
CBRetriever wrote: "maybe just putting some of them off for a while because of the time commitment as i have a lot of compilations that are massive:The Complete Wheel of Time = over 12,000 pages"
I think I'd count the books separately on that one. I don't have special points for over 10,000 pages.
Mod
PS I'm totally not going to win, but I'll never get onto a reality TV show with that attitude.
My first thought on strategy was to tackle all the series I have on my shelves. I have a fair bit of trilogies that I haven't read as well as longer series like The Dark Tower, Thursday Next and of course Wheel of Time.
Sarah Anne wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: The Complete Wheel of Time = over 12,000 pages"
I think I'd count the books separately on that one. I don't have special points for over 10,000 pages"
well, that would increase my TBR pile if I did that with all my compilations...
Sarah wrote: "Seems to be getting competitive in here... is everyone’s highest scoring books the ones they are dreading the most? That’s why we’ve owned them so long without reading them I suppose."For me, yes. I've done some speculative totals... Xeelee racks me up 600+ points all on its own so that might finally be the trigger to get me to get it out of my cluttered "own but don't care enough to read" pile.
@Allison - ugh, I don’t know about Clive cussler, but the non-fic ones sound really depressing. @Donald at least with the omnibus sets you could read them in chunks? Like 4 books over 900 pages is just about 225 at a time, that’s not so bad right? You could do that over a year and not have to read them all at once.
Allison wrote: "Dj wrote: "Allison wrote: "I have to pick a Clive Cussler book to read. I'm not excited. But I have basically all of them pre-2012, thanks to a family member.I would also like points for reading ..."
Well, I haven't read very many of them, some are more dated than others. Just think if Dirk Pitt as the James Bond of the Diving set. Raise the Titanic, is probably the most dated since the found the ship's resting place the method they use would never work. It is awesome and as I understand it, is something that they have in place for deep sea raising, but I don't believe it has ever been used.
Treasure though stood out.
Sarah Anne wrote: "My first two were low points. i need to read Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear for like 700 points total. 800?"I finished the first of these and am sort of working on the second, but I have to say, can he stop trying to write about every damn day? It seems a little unlikely that so much can happen with no, yeah, nothing going on today.
I have no plans on trying to win, I'm just using this as a help to get me to read more of my owned books :)
I a couple point-garnering questions. I'm not competitive, I just want my books to get all the points they deserve. 1) A book I read early in the year gets nominated for an award at the end of the year, can I add the points? Similar, for a group read which occurs after I read the book.
2) I am reading an anthology. Can I get points if some of the authors are new to me? (though adhering to the 1/bk rule)
I'm going to guess yes to #1 and no to #2 (at least that's the way I'm counting points)
I think I've gotten myself a little confused here about the 1/bk thing and counting my books. I can count all the above things for each of the books I read, correct (barring the one that counts only once per year)And where does the number of books I own come into the point system and I'm not sure how to count them as I know I have about 850 ebooks but physical books, lets just say there's a storage unit. I could estimate them at about 2000 to keep the numbers nice and round but I'm not sure where that all fits in
Cornerofmadness wrote: "I think I've gotten myself a little confused here about the 1/bk thing and counting my books. I can count all the above things for each of the books I read, correct (barring the one that counts onl..."The count is for Unread books and this took a while to go through my physical books and figure out how many i had not read
Total Owned Books Read (1/yr)
0-10 - 25 points
11-30 - 50 points
31-50 - 75 points
51-75 - 100 points
76-100 - 150 points
100+ - 200 points
BONUS: If you have fewer unread books on your shelves on 1/1/19 - 500 points. = you can't buy more than you read in a year or you don't get these points (I'm in that situation right now)
At the end of the year everyone will give us the total number of points they earned as well as the points divided by the number of books. Reading a majority of owned books will result in a high average number of points. = if you use the 850 ebooks + 2000 physical books (or the currently unread portion of those), I think you'd have to read a lot of books to get points here
Sarah wrote: "@Donald at least with the omnibus sets you could read them in chunks? Like 4 books over 900 pages is just about 225 at a time, that’s not so bad right? You could do that over a year and not have to read them all at once."I'm not very good at that. I'm quite able to have three or four books (say, a mobile phone book, an iPad book, a downstairs book and an upstairs book) on the go at once but putting down and picking back up an anthology is tough - I find that once I've put it down I never pick it up. It took me years to work my way through the last anthology I read (Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful) because of that.
I guess instead of counting all the books you own and need to read, you could count the number of books you have read that fits the challenge and compare it to the number of new books youve bought during the year? I guess you could make a separate shelf for books bought in 2018 or something?That way you don't have to count your thousands of currently owned books..
Thanks, that's probably what I'll end up doing, counting just the first time reads through my owned books and using that as the final number (ignoring rereads and of course library books)
Cornerofmadness wrote: "I think I've gotten myself a little confused here about the 1/bk thing and counting my books. I can count all the above things for each of the books I read, correctl..."Yep, that's correct. I'm counting the total number of books I own instead of just unread ones. I plan on using library donations to keep my total down :)
For the points per year it's just based on the total number of owned books that you read. So if you read 25 you get 50 points at the end of the year.
Meredith wrote: "I a couple point-garnering questions. I'm not competitive, I just want my books to get all the points they deserve.
1) A book I read early in the year gets nominated for an award at the end of th..."
CB is correct, yes to #1 and no to #2.
CBRetriever wrote: "I'd love that for the books I purchased prior to 1985......480 points instead of 150"
I pared most of the 30+ year-old books out of my collection a while ago--I mean, if I haven't read them by now, is it likely that I ever will?--but the couple I kept, and actually ended up reading, were uniquely satisfying to mark as complete.
It'd be nice to get a bunch more points for
(this very edition!), say, than I'd get from the challenge as currently constructed, but finishing it after all this time would be a prize all on its own...
Sarah Anne wrote: CB is correct, yes to #1 and no to #2.Sounds good to me, thanks!
Sarah wrote: "Seems to be getting competitive in here... is everyone’s highest scoring books the ones they are dreading the most? That’s why we’ve owned them so long without reading them I suppose."Maybe this year I should read Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady. It's 1,500 pages and I have owned it for 27 years.
On the other hand I have just succumbed to the charms of TBD so I need to get reading to earn those 500 bonus points.
Cornerofmadness wrote: "Thanks, that's probably what I'll end up doing, counting just the first time reads through my owned books and using that as the final number (ignoring rereads and of course library books)"I have realised that will be the best solution for me. Now I just have to stop friends from giving me books.
BTW What is the policy on DNFing? I have often read 100 or so pages in before I finally give-up.
I gave up on ever reading Clarissa and got rid of it late last year :)DNFs won't count at all, unfortunately. I also do those from time to time.
Sarah Anne wrote: "DNFs won't count at all, unfortunately. I also do those from time to time."I count DNFs toward my main GR challenge if I feel I've given them a generous chance, but won't count them toward this one. Thanks for the additional clarification.
That's exactly what I do, Beth. I usually give myself to 20% and then if I DNF I count it as read. Just not for this :) Damn. I could get through them a lot quicker that way.
DoodlePanda wrote: "Is calibre free? I've never used it, is it basically an ebook management?"I've never mentioned Calibre to you???? I'm so sorry for being a bad book pusher. :-(
I won't count points for the DNF but they will move off my shelf and therefore reduce my TBR pile.
Ok so got as gift and gift from 2017 holiday are separate so does that mean they can be counted together (Like 20 points for a holiday gift) or is it one or other?
Well, the language doesn't specify so is use both.
Question about award points: Would being included in lists of top 100 books to read count? I'm looking at my books for Feb. and LibraryThing includes these lists as "Awards and Honors."
I was thinking more mainstream awards so I'm honestly not sure. It looks like they're calling it an award because it's making their top 100 list?
That or maybe the listmakers are honoring the book by including it? I'll just ignore anything phrased as "Top 100" lists.
the only list wording I used for my awards was "shortlisted for" XXX Award/Prize because I figured that was the same as nominated for
For the group read points, do we need to participate in the group read at the time it is occurring, or is it enough that a group is reading or has read the book at some point in the same year we read it?Like, in February one of my groups reads Book A, but I don't read it until June... Would I still get points for the group read category, even though I don't read it with the group? Or vice versa, I read it first and then a group picks it... Does that count?
I just want to clarify because of the answer to Meredith.
Just sometime in the same year is fine.
Just a reminder that March 2018 Steampunk Fantasy Nominations are going on right now. Let's turn your owned books into 25 points!
I have a question about the bonus- because I keep seeing it mentioned. If I start with say: 120 unread books
And I read 50
And I bought 55 this year
But I also read 50 of those 55:
120 + 55= 175
175 unread books - 50 2017 books read - 50 2018 books read:
That’s only 75 unread books on my shelves which is less than 120 so I’d qualify right?
I feel like I’m seeing it interpreted in multiple ways so I wasn’t sure. I know we can’t count 2018 purchased books toward the challenge for actual points but buying and reading them in the same year negates them in regards to the bonus right?
Sarah, that's how I interpret it as well.
I read it this way using your numbers - you started with 120 unread books and ended up with (120 + 55) - (50 + 50) = 75 TBR
because it simply states: 'BONUS: If you have fewer unread books on your shelves on 1/1/19 - 500 points."
and I'm doing terrible in this respect
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Green Road (other topics)Drums of Autumn (other topics)
Oathbringer (other topics)
Uneven Break (other topics)
Shiver (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Mark Lawrence (other topics)Brandon Sanderson (other topics)
Erin Morgenstern (other topics)
Agatha Christie (other topics)
I was bemoaning the fact that it had a higher rating than Dhalgren which is considered a SciFi masterpiece not saying that it was better.
ETA: I could just as easily have placed Fifty Shades of Grey in the rated above position