Vagabond Treehouse (2023) [Beware of Chicken 3 - December 4th] Showing 5,751-5,800 of 5,829

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I'm not sure I'm going to do the settlement RP... too many BRs, not much room for random reads... I'll probably just lurk...

And when I'm not doing my ratings/reviews this week, I've got a half dozen other book maintenance things to work on...

[Soo]

Just look at your planned BRs or a fun re-read book for Player, Place and Time.

Make it easy

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

and done for today... had to sneak into October to write the review for 13th God... needed to get that off my chest, after writing the review for 12 Plagues and the other one...

Should have hit my reading goal with those 45 reviews

Somehow no CAPTCHAs... I feel like maybe GR changed their CAPTCHA algorithm to be more forgiving to people like me that do a bunch of reviews in a single day or 2... but do it too many days in a row and they crack down...

[Soo]

Nah, I write maybe 1-3 note/ratings/reviews a day and still get rando Captcha tests. It's super random.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

2024 Spreadsheet sorted... took a nap for a few hours... got up... started listening to Thunderhead finally...

Thought about trying Oathbound Healer, but all the 1 star rampant sexism reviews have really turned me away...

Opened my Series spreadsheet, and it says I haven't updated since December 5th 2022... this is gonna be a project... I'm lucky I do 50% re-reads...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

THE RESOLUTION... all praise my series spreadsheet... was verifying where I left off, checking November 2022 series, and found this little gem... it's me and Nirkatze's or Melissa's name for the series containing Winter's Orbit & Ocean's Echo, since it's the true connective tissue between the otherwise standalone M/M romances, but it's such a semi-generic name, that I constantly forget it...

[Soo]

🤣🤣🤣

I miss the Tracker! I was thinking about joining but I don't think I will. My hands are taking forever to heal and my love for organized records will have me working on laptop vs 2 thumbs on smartphone.

I feel pretty good about coming back and chatting. 😄 Gotta stay slow and steady.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

spreadsheets don't load well on my mobile devices, for sure

[Soo]

I open in Browser, but excel is clunky no matter what and pinching in and out of zoom to click on spaces, etc. Extra work.

I don't have issues loading, but it's just more "hand work" in general.

I've got my brain working on Settlement Portal challenge. I was trying to get people to brainstorm with me but it is the holidays.

Thinking maybe using the Dimensional Library as the research point & where different players can interact. Or do I wanna make the library my settlement and start it from scratch or have it as a fixer upper & "discover" stuff as things get fixed?

If Dimensional Library is a meeting place, means Players need to build a library room or have a shelf & desk in room. Upgraded interfaces, etc

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Soo wrote: "I open in Browser, but excel is clunky no matter what and pinching in and out of zoom to click on spaces, etc. Extra work.

I don't have issues loading, but it's just more "hand work" in general.
..."

It's definitely an undertaking... and I'm swamped with my own...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Incomplete Series Spreadsheet updated through today... 13 months, 70 series added, for 698 total...

I think I had a pretty good year, honestly... most of the stuff I added, I also caught up on, abandoned, or have plans to catch up on through Buddy Reads in the near future...

262 books added to the spreadsheet, 175 read already + 28 abandoned = 59 new books to read still... 16 of those have BRs already... others are on my own time, I guess...

Overall Statistics:

698 Series Tracked
254 Abandoned Series
105 Up-To-Date Series
192 Finished Series
72 Incomplete Series (most interested in continuing)
75 Limbo Series (dunno when I'll return to)

TBR: 490 books
Read 2082 of 2572 books tracked in non-abandoned series
Abandoned 1360 books in those 254 Abandoned Series

Just need to go back through, clean up, check for new releases, toss over to New Release Spreadsheet, then resort my Incomplete Series Sheet by Grouping, as I like to do...

Pass along 2024 New Release Data to GG&G group, and I'll be all caught up...

50% done, minimum...

[Soo]

Nice stats! I am too lazy to keep up a series tracker. 😆😆😆

I started several times and dropped each attempt.

[Nirkatze]

My series tracker: walk along bookshelves and run fingers over books. Occasionally think "huh, it's been a while since I've checked on this author. I should look them up..." and then discover they've got five new books out in a sequel series and there goes my paycheck.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Soo wrote: "Nice stats! I am too lazy to keep up a series tracker. 😆😆😆

I started several times and dropped each attempt."

I tried making one in this group, because there's a folder for it, but I read so much that it's unwieldy, with the 14,000 character limit per comment...

So in the early years I moved it to a spreadsheet, I think I had half as many series on there back then, maybe 1/3... it grows so much each year...

I did a few revamps over the year, and now I maintain a single Master Tab, with some number formulas and color coded formatting, and then I have 7 subtabs that query out a single type of series, or ones with short stories I might want to see if there's new content in (back when I did ebooks more)...

I also like doing URL links alot, and that's really nice in a spreadsheet... but yea... I mostly only update it once or twice a year, because it's a fair bit of work...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Nirkatze wrote: "My series tracker: walk along bookshelves and run fingers over books. Occasionally think "huh, it's been a while since I've checked on this author. I should look them up..." and then discover they'..."

With my spreadsheet system, I generally check on Up to Date, and Incomplete Series I'm behind on, more than Finished and Limbo series...

These days, more and more authors seem to revive supposedly finished series...

[Tonari no Emily]

Yeah last year or the year before I copied Iain's spreadsheet and deleted/added mine so that's how I keep track now :)
Super helpful! Thanks for being a spreadsheet wiz Iain! :D

[Nirkatze]

Ooh, that sounds smart!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

If you need a link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

[Nirkatze]

Oh cool, thank you!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I flipflop between using the Next Book column for the next new release and the next book I need to read...

I think I use the year published column to pull out next year's books/series into a separate tab, where I can track release dates, with a simple year query... been awhile, and I haven't gotten to that part in my data sorting, yet...

[Nirkatze]

I'm tempted to copy and tamper, like Emily... but I know if I do, I will probably screw things up, lol... might be better to just start from scratch... I am not an excel wizard...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Nirkatze wrote: "I'm tempted to copy and tamper, like Emily... but I know if I do, I will probably screw things up, lol... might be better to just start from scratch... I am not an excel wizard..."

It's hard to screw up... just only mess with the first tab, and don't touch anything with the title bars...

messing with the other tabs will break it, since the data there is all pulled with QUERY functions, hidden in the title bar (it's even grabbing the title bars, and sometimes rearranging and paring them down, I think...

The thing with QUERY functions, is they break the second you input hard data in a cell they want to auto-populate...

Anyway... if you wipe all my series data from the first tab, it'll be removed from all other tabs... so just remove series you don't care about from that first tab...

Also, the other thing I do, is highlight say cell A5 to L702 (all the input data)... then you can right click and go to the bottom and view more actions, and Sort Range... then you sort by columns H & I, and that'll group your series by status, and number of books you're behind... can also alphabetize by series or genre or something if you like... how you sort is up to you, but it's a great tool...

Again, you only do this stuff in the first tab...

[Brian]

@Iain have you read Jeffrey Deaver The Never Game?

[Nirkatze]

Timelord Iain wrote: "Nirkatze wrote: "I'm tempted to copy and tamper, like Emily... but I know if I do, I will probably screw things up, lol... might be better to just start from scratch... I am not an excel wizard..."..."

Was wondering how to sort alpha by author last name... will most likely try this.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Nirkatze wrote: "Timelord Iain wrote: "Nirkatze wrote: "I'm tempted to copy and tamper, like Emily... but I know if I do, I will probably screw things up, lol... might be better to just start from scratch... I am n..."

Pretty sure you'll need to write all authors as Last Name, Comma First Name, to get those sort results... I don't think it lets you sort by final word in a cell...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Brian wrote: "@Iain have you read Jeffrey Deaver The Never Game?"

Haven't read it... sounds interesting... only 4 books... not a big commitment... been lacking in new thrillers since catching up on Orphan X and Gray Man...

[Brian]

I got the first one on Libby. Might try to squeeze it in early Jan

[Soo]

🍿🍿🍿

Spreadsheet Madness! 😄😆😉

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I'm down the rabbithole, baby!!!

I'm finding some real surprises, going through my series lists...

Finder Chronicles is getting a 4th and final installment next year: Ghostdrift... been stuck on the cliffhanger ending to #3 since 2021...

[Soo]

Oooo need to read that. Wait, I think I'm on 3rd?

Nope! 4th is next for me too.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Soo wrote: "Oooo need to read that. Wait, I think I'm on 3rd?

Nope! 4th is next for me too."

Alex Bledsoe (Tufa, Eddie Lacrosse) finally released something new, after years of silence... it's on Audible Plus I think... it's an Audible Original, and I followed some links to Amazon, which said free with subscription...

Dandelion

[Soo]

Ooooo we should read that!

[Soo]

I've read more than half of Quick Transmigration Cannon Fodder’s Record of Counterattacks and it's way better than the title makes it out to be. So many inside jokes. 🤣🤣🤣

Ning Shu has been traumatized by having to be a man 3x now and been in Rated R tasks. No longer pure and innocent! Now she makes snarky comments about boob and weenie sizes. 🤣🤣🤣

The mini arcs have gone in the direction I was hoping they would go. There are a lot of fluffy & deranged hero, romance, etc stories out there. What I like about these tasks is that it presents a trope and then deconstructs it within the arc. Question why a man/woman has to accept blame or easily cast blame under the love label. How relationships are made up of more than just saying I love you and sex.

Also, the translators notes are funny to read 😆

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I definitely found a bunch of stuff I want to read, today, doing all this... I need to clean up my Incomplete Series list, and move a bunch more to limbo, and focus on catching up on the things I might actually read... and make room for this stuff I found... in between a million Buddy Reads and re-reads...

[Soo]

Quick Transmigration Cannon Fodder’s Record of Counterattacks - Current Arc is so fun!

Trope: Star-crossed Lovers
Most handsome man became a Ghost and the female died. She was reborn as a human a thousand years later. Ghost totally charms her & they're hooking up. But the exposure to his negative energy and hanky panky is basically killing her & will end up devouring her soul.

Ning Shu task is to save her Dao family (Monk & batch of orphans) and the female.

So lots of fun details like locust trees (known for being able to hold bad energy/ghosts), talismans, ghost maze, water ghosts, how to "see" ghosts, and a bunch more.

This arc is awesome ghost-horror story! 👻👻👻

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I finished assembling my 2024 New Release list... I could add more, but it would just be a list of things I think are coming out in 2024, that lack book pages so far... also, I feel like Goodreads is getting worse at accurately linking all books to the correct author page... I find so many books that don't appear on the offical author booklists, these days...

If anyone wants to look at the list (it's 130 books, about 75 of them I care about), here's the link to the thread, over in the other group: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I feel like a weight has been lifted of my shoulders... all I have left to do is 110 reviews and catch up on reading book blurbs and adding stuff to my GR bookshelf TBR...

... and add stuff to the Mystery Bookclub Spreadsheet...

... and modify/customize people's 2024 spreadsheets...

I guess, if I try, I can pile the stress on again... but I'm taking a bit of a break now, and the stuff I've been doing yesterday and today I've been able to do while listening to the Nora Kelly mysteries... if I keep with these, I might even hit 200,000 pages for the year, which I didn't think I'd be able to do...

Thunderhead was interesting... weird seeing Nora Kelly so young... also, felt a bit different being published in 1999, compared to the series starting in 2019, after all her events in later Pendergast books... but then, I've felt she made some questionable decisions during the story, to protect the dig and put herself in danger... guess the years haven't brought 100% maturity... I'm curious how Nora Kelly and Agent Cory Swanson become a team... I'm near the end of Old Bones, and they're still 2 separate storylines...

[Soo]

Woo! Ya can do it!

I met my GR goal of 100. That was like 67 books in 42 days or so. Since I only read at beginning & end of year. 😆

Now I sorta want to catch up to current release on the LN I'm reading before 1st of 2024. I wanna mark the LN as 'read' for 2023 and table it to catch up on later. Better to have lots of releases to read in batches vs waiting for 1 every few days.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

I'm speedrunning now...

I didn't do much reading for 2 days, when I went deep into bookkeeping mode... read Thunderhead yesterday...

Read Old Bones and most of Scorpion Tail already today... Diablo Mesa next...

Only need 1300 more pages after Scorpion Tail... got 2-2.5 days... I got this in the bag...

Can read more Nora Kelly (there's Diablo Mesa and Dead Mountain left)... got 2 easy Cozy Mysteries on Audible... and my last Buddy Read of the year, Rake of His Own... plenty of choices...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

The way Pendergast shows up at the end of each Nora Kelly book, to "do his Pendergast thing" and pull a Sherlockian feat of puzzle solving, really makes me question the timeline of the 2 series more... I think they're taking place a few years behind the current Pendergast books... there are certain trilogies, like the current one, in the Pendergast series, where there isn't time for him to be haring off to New Mexico for a few days...

Also, I don't think Nora Kelly and Corrie Swanson have appeared in a Pendergast book since the Diogenes trilogy, over a decade ago...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

The 3rd Nora Kelly book is a surprising start... sloughing off the institute setting of the previous 2 books (after the bittersweet ending to the previous book, where she didn't get the chief position), only to get offered a job by a Jeff Bezos clone (and turn it down), involving an excavation of the Roswell Crash site...

I can't remember if Pendergast ever did an alien book, but Pendergast has always felt like a series in the vein of Joe Ledger, where anything is possible (as evinced by the recent time travel multiverse trilogy)...

I'm curious to see how Nora & Corrie get roped in... and where this will leave them, in the end, for future books...

[Nirkatze]

Grats on the 100, Soo!

@Iain, did you hit your 200k pages like you were talking about earlier? Cheering for you!

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Nirkatze wrote: "Grats on the 100, Soo!

@Iain, did you hit your 200k pages like you were talking about earlier? Cheering for you!"

I'm at 199.2k now... read 3 books today, with heavy page counts that were a bit undeserved...

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Just finished Diablo Mesa, Nora Kelly #3, and that was wild... I was unsure how they were gonna wrap it all up before the end, but they did it in the best way possible... earned 5 stars from me...

Binged so many Nora Kelly books in the past 24hrs, it's gonna suck to run out, when I read the 4th and final one, that came out earlier this year... then I'll officially be out of Preston & Child books to read, until new releases come out...

[Tonari no Emily]

Finally started BOC^3 a day or two ago! Through Chapter 21 now.. I actually had to restart it after Chapter 9 today because I had a hard time paying attention at first. But now I'm enjoying it so far :) (view spoiler)[ Tigu giving her opponent tips/correcting them during the tournament was super funny. Also I forgot about the naked statues! 🤣 (hide spoiler)]

[Nirkatze]

Tonari no Emily wrote: "Finally started BOC^3 a day or two ago! Through Chapter 21 now.. I actually had to restart it after Chapter 9 today because I had a hard time paying attention at first. But now I'm enjoying it so f..."

OMG I forgot about that. Tigu is awesome.

[Soo]

Tigu's all too realistic Art. 🤣🤣🤣

Iain, just got Nora Kelly 3: Diablo Mesa from library. Will listen today-tommorrow-ish. I'm 68th person in line for #4. My library has 11 copies. Hahahah! Should get it in a few months.

[Narilka]

I'm loving Beware of Chicken 3 :) In ch 47 (view spoiler)[I think the Cloudy Mountain demon guy has bitten off more than he can take on lol they did not anticipate the Song brothers being anything more than the yokels they appeared on the surface. And with Jin on the way... I hope this is the end of this guy. (hide spoiler)]

[Soo]

*fighting spirit*

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Gone into an Audible+ streak for the end of the year...

Few months ago, I found out the author of Night of the Living Deed released audio for the last 2 books in the series, 6 months after I binged the first 8 back in 2020... they're on Audible Plus...

Also checked out Dandelion, and the last Tufa book I never read...