SciFi and Fantasy Book Club Challenge 2015

[Michael]

Congrats, Chris and Sarah!

[Sarah]

Thanks Michael :)

[Chris]

Yeah, thanks Michael..

[Valerie]

Well, I am confident that I’ve taken my challenge as far as I can for this year, so this is my final progress update.

2015 Goal: 36/30
Scifi: 20 books, (14) M / (6) F
Fantasy: 16 books, (12) M / (4) F

Progress against group bookshelf:
2012^: 11 past = 11 of 127 = 8.66%
2013: 8 read + 2 past = 21 of 151 = 13.91%
2014: 29 read + 3 past = 53 of 175 = 30.29%
2015: 36 read + 6 past reads = 95 of 199 = 47.74%

^ = Prior to joining group in Sept 2013

I was SO close to hitting 100 group books for the year.

2015 Reads:
1. Watchmen
2. The Killing Moon
3. The Rook
4. To Say Nothing of the Dog
5. Tigana
6. Altered Carbon
7. City of Stairs
8. The Martian Chronicles
9. Fahrenheit 451
10. The Warrior's Apprentice
11. Station Eleven
12. The Dispossessed
13. The Forever War
14. American Gods
15. The Sparrow
16. The Martian
17. The Long Earth
18. I Am Legend
19. The Snow Queen
20. Dawn
21. The Summer Tree
22. Stranger in a Strange Land
23. The City & the City
24. The Girl with All the Gifts
25. A Wizard of Earthsea
26. The Eye of the World
27. Red Rising
28. The Stand
29. The Neverending Story
30. Elantris
31. Old Man's War
32. Midnight Riot
33. Neuromancer
34. Little, Big
35. His Majesty's Dragon
36. The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes

[Sarah]

Nice job Valerie! I was also close to hitting 100 total. I think I ended at 94. It's disappointing. I really like your yearly breakdowns and percentages.

[Valerie]

I've stolen the idea from others in the group. :D

[Trike]

Valerie wrote: "I've stolen the idea from others in the group. :D"

I did pie charts. :p

[Sarah]

Maybe next year I'll keep track. No pie charts, though. I haven't done one in years and I have no idea how to embed them. Trike is the king ;)

[Trike]

Sarah wrote: "Maybe next year I'll keep track. No pie charts, though. I haven't done one in years and I have no idea how to embed them. Trike is the king ;)"

Hail to the king, baby.

I just used a generator aimed at kids, saved the resulting chart as a jpg, then uploaded it to Tinypic. Grab the Direct Link and use the image HTML tag to embed it,

The tag is this (remove the space after the first bracket):
< img src="putlinkhere">

Easier than it sounds.

[Sarah]

Thanks :) Are you sure you don't want to save your secret? Someone might dethrone you.

[Maggie]

so I ended up with 17 out of 20. I thought it was going to be 18, because I was halfway through a Scanner Darkly, only to realize I had grabbed the wrong book and was actually reading Martian Time-Slip.

Who does that?
Me I guess....lol

[Edwin]

27 out of 24 for me. I was hoping to hit 28, but am going to have to make some serious progress in The Snow Queen to get there by tomorrow.

[Maarit]

As the year is about to end and I'm pretty sure that I won't finish The Blade Itself in 1½ days, here's my final list of books I ended up reading for this challenge. My goal was 15 books read, I finished 23 books and went 153% over the goal.

These are the books I read for this years challenge in order of finishing:
Magian väri (The Colour of Magic) by Terry Pratchett (***)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (**)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (***)
Hyviä enteitä: Noita Agnes Nutterin hienot ja oikeat ennustukset (Good Omens) by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (****)
Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (****)
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (**)
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (****)
The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (***)
Lapsuuden loppu (Childhood's End) by Arthur C. Clarke (***)
Kissan kehto (Cat's Cradle) by Kurt Vonnegut (****)
Mort by Terry Pratchett (****)
Unohdetut jumalat (American Gods) by Neil Gaiman (**)
Kuu on julma (Moon is a Harsh Mistress) by Robert A. Heinlein (***)
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (****)
Neurovelho (Neuromancer) by William Gibson (***)
Hävitys (Annihilation) by Jeff VanderMeer (**)
Uhka avaruudesta (Rendezvous with Rama) by Arthur C. Clarke (****)
The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman (***)
Dirk Gentlyn holistinen etsivätoimisto (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency) by Douglas Adams (**)
Maailma, vihreä metsä (The Word for World Is Forest) by Ursula K. Le Guin (***)
Homeland by R.A. Salvatore (***)
Hämärän vartija (A Scanner Darkly) by Philip K. Dick (***)
Viimeinen yksisarvinen (The Last Unicorn) by Peter S. Beagle (***)

12 books are fantasy and 11 books are scifi, so I ended up in pretty balanced situation. Out of the 23 books read, only three books were written by a single female author, Ursula K. Le Guin. That leaves 20 books for male authors. The most read male authors in order are: Neil Gaiman (4 books, including Good Omens), Terry Pratchett (3 books, including Good Omens), Douglas Adams (2 books) and Arthur C. Clarke (2 books). The rest of the male authors have one book each read from them in this challenge. My average rating for all books combined in this challenge is 3,26 (3,3) stars, so it's consistent with my yearly challenge as well (I'm pretty harsh on my star ratings and I'm not easily giving out five stars to any book, but also I'm not rating books 1 star that often either).

So overall I'm very happy of the outcome of this years challenge and I will participate in next years challenge as well. My first book for next year will be Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself, which I will finish soon enough (but not this year). After that, I just choose what I want to read :).

[Chris]

Maggie wrote: "so I ended up with 17 out of 20. I thought it was going to be 18, because I was halfway through a Scanner Darkly, only to realize I had grabbed the wrong book and was actually reading [book:Martian..."

I could see that. A trippy thing to do with PKD books.

And I can imagine you reading along, "where the hell is Keanu Reeves?"

[Monica]

I read 12/12 books this year for the SFF reading challenge. Was hoping to finish The Snow Queen but I think that will end up as part of 2016 by about 2 days. So I will probably up my challenge to 14 from 12 for 2016. Here's the breakdown:

Books: 11 SciFi 1 Fantasy
Authors: 8 Male 4 Female
1 Sci Fi by a person of color (Butler)

5* -

4* -

3* -

[Maggie]

Chris wrote: "Maggie wrote: "so I ended up with 17 out of 20. I thought it was going to be 18, because I was halfway through a Scanner Darkly, only to realize I had grabbed the wrong book and was actually readin..."

Hahahaha Exactly!

[Eggp]

Finished 23 this year, read more fantasy than I thought I had.


Science Fiction: 13, 56.52%
Fantasy: 10, 43.48%
Female: 9, 39.13%

01. The Man in the High Castle - 10 Jan 2015, 3/5
02. The Sheep Look Up - 23 Feb 2015, 5/5
03. Adulthood Rites (Xenogenesis, #2) - 25 Feb 2015, 5/5
04. Station Eleven - 18 Mar 2015, 4/5
05. The Day of the Triffids - 21 Mar 2015, 4/5
06. Tigana - 25 Mar 2015, 3/5
07. Ready Player One - 08 Apr 2015, 3/5
08. A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1) - 25 Apr 2015, 4/5
09. American Gods - 04 May 2015, 4/5
10. The Girl with All the Gifts - 15 May 2015, 4/5
11. The City & the City - 15 May 2015, 4/5
12. In the Night Garden (Orphan's Tales, #1) - 08 Jun 2015, 3/5
13. The Dispossessed - 10 Jun 2015, 4/5
14. Cloud Atlas - 27 Jun 2015, 4/5
15. The Three-Body Problem (Three Body, #1) - 10 Jul 2015, 4/5
16. The Wise Man's Fear (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #2) - 14 Jul 2015, 3/5
17. Imago (Lilith's Brood, #3) - 28 Jul 2015, 5/5
18. Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8; City Watch #1) - 08 Aug 2015, 4/5
19. Brave New World - 21 Aug 2015, 4/5
20. The Graveyard Book - 20 Sep 2015, 4/5
21. Those Who Hunt the Night - 16 Oct 2015, 2/5
22. Wild Seed (Patternmaster, #1) - 28 Oct 2015, 5/5
23. The Goblin Emperor - 05 Dec 2015, 4/5

[Amanda]

Sarah wrote: "I'm reading Leviathan Wakes in early Jan. I'd be curious to know if you like it :) I'm dreading it."

I just finished Leviathan Wakes, and the first book of the 2016 challenge!

I liked this one. The only parts that I felt a bit of a struggle with were some of the extended battle scenes (a necessity in space opera), but I really liked the characters and the plot, enough to keep reading the series.

I hope it doesn't end up dreadful for you ;)

[Julia]

I finished 12/12 books from the SF/F list in 2015.

1. Alif the Unseen
2. The Martian
3. Station Eleven
4. The Golem and the Jinni
5. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
6. The Girl with All the Gifts
7. The Martian Chronicles were all favorites.

I also read, or tried to read:
8. Deathless
9. The Sword-Edged Blonde
10. Oryx and Crake
11. The Killing Moon
12. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

[Sarah]

I absolutely loved Deathless :) You read some really great stuff.

[Michael]

Congratulations everyone! And great job on all the stats!

Special points to Valerie, for honing in on 50% of the bookshelf. I'm confident you'll get there in 2016!

[Maggie]

My Final List :


The Snow Queen
In the Night Garden
Zodiac
Blood Song
Guards! Guards!
Watchmen
The City & the City
Ancillary Sword
The Lathe of Heaven
The Dispossessed
The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack
Ready Player One
The Three-Body Problem
Fahrenheit 451
City of Stairs
Look to Windward
The Goblin Emperor

[Valerie]

Michael wrote: "Congratulations everyone! And great job on all the stats!

Special points to Valerie, for honing in on 50% of the bookshelf. I'm confident you'll get there in 2016!"

Thanks. I actually started Armada in audio format on Dec. 31st, so I am hitting the ground running for 2016!