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2012 Series Madness Challenge
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I think prequels or any books that continue or add to the series should definitely be counted as 1 point.
I don't think companion books such as The Science of Discworld or Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts etc. should be counted at all since they aren't really part of the series.
Companion books and prequels should count as a point I agree. If anyone gets confused about whether or not it counts they can always ask.
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Ok, if I use the two books that made me ask the question as an example than the general consensus is that the book The lost Tales of Ga'Hoole counts as one point since that book contains short stories about several minor characters set at different points in time during the series and gives in some cases reasons for why they acted as they did and thus adds to the series. The book A Guide to the Great Tree does not count since that is an introduction book to tell you what to expect if you would ever join the owls and doesn't really give that much new information and only tells about the lessonplans of the school and the major festivals in the year etc.
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If a book has been listed as part of a series, but no publication date has been announced for the second book (so you don't know the title, and it's not listed on Goodreads) can you still use it for this challenge?Examples:
The Loners
Cold Grey Stones
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A new series is still a series even though it has only one part because the rest has yet to be written and published. Most authors have a distinct outline in their minds for the rest of the books in a series.
To use your own examples: On the site of Lex Thomas it is said that the Loners is intended to be the first part of a trilogy. They are already writing part two. So even though there isn't a date or title etc. it is clear that it is a part of a trilogy and since that is a series it counts.
Cold Grey Stones is part of a series of short stories collections that they intend to publish every three to four months so we can expect at least 2 other books in that series this year. This infrmation can be found on several sites. Therefor it is the first part of a series even though the rest has yet to be published and yes you can use it.
Wow, thanks for doing all that research Barbara! And yay, now I can use those :)
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Adding my entry here.
1 Point: 3
Storm Front, Déjà Dead, White Cat
2 Points: 4
Fool Moon, A Clash of Kings
3 Points: 6
Grave Peril, A Storm of Swords
6 Points: 6
Night Mare
8 Points: 8
Guards! Guards!
9 Points: 9
Eric
10 Points: 10
Moving Pictures
11 Points: 11
Reaper Man
13 Points: 13
Myth-Told Tales
39 Points: 39
Snuff
Total Points: 109
1 Point: 3
Storm Front, Déjà Dead, White Cat
2 Points: 4
Fool Moon, A Clash of Kings
3 Points: 6
Grave Peril, A Storm of Swords
6 Points: 6
Night Mare
8 Points: 8
Guards! Guards!
9 Points: 9
Eric
10 Points: 10
Moving Pictures
11 Points: 11
Reaper Man
13 Points: 13
Myth-Told Tales
39 Points: 39
Snuff
Total Points: 109
Regarding Snuff, can I count it as I have read all previous books even though I am reading the series again and am only on book 12?
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1 Point Books: Total: 61 x 1 = 61 points
David Starr, Space Ranger Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids Airborn Divergent Hood Magyk Skulduggery Pleasant The Alchemyst The Bad Beginning The Hunger Games The Lost Hero
The Maze Runner The Red Pyramid Uglies Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West Witch & Wizard The Mists of Avalon The City of Ember Big Boned Bones of Faerie Feed A Gift of Dragons: Illustrated Stories The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing Septimus Heap: The Magykal Papers Reckless Crash Course The Borrowers Peter and the Starcatchers Graceling The Eyre Affair Fifty Shades of Grey Sandstorm Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea How to Train Your Dragon Firelight Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder The Amazing Spider-Man, Volume 1: Coming Home The Mysterious Benedict Society Unwind The Kill Order Pure Thirty Nights with a Highland Husband George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt The Passage Gregor the Overlander I Am Number Four Midnight for Charlie BoneThe Leviathan Chronicles Virals The Fairy-Tale Detectives One For The Money Ender's Game What's Left of Me Another Fine Myth Soulless Raising Dragons Carpe Jugulum Little Women
2 Point Books: Total: 21 x 2 = 42 points
Catching Fire Flyte Playing with Fire Pretties The Gift The Magician The Reptile Room The Son of Neptune The Throne of Fire Awakening The Scorch Trials Full Throttle Skybreaker James Potter and the Curse of the Gate Keeper Fifty Shades Darker Peter and the Shadow Thieves Insurgent
Fire Scarlet Charlie Bone and the Time Twister The Unusual Suspects Seizure
3 Point Books: Total: 16 x 3 = 48 points
Mockingjay Physik Specials The Faceless Ones The Fire The Wide Window Photo Finish The Death Cure The Serpent's Shadow Fifty Shades Freed Starclimber The Mark of Athena Bitterblue The Sorceress Peter and the Secret of Rundoon Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy
4 Point Books: Total: 7 x 4 = 28 points
Dark Days Queste The Miserable Mill A Feast for Crows Inheritance Extras The Necromancer
5 Point Books: Total: 7 x 5 = 35 points
Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter Skulduggery Pleasant: Mortal Coil The Austere Academy A Dance With Dragons Syren Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves The Warlock
6 Point Books: Total: 4 x 6 = 24 points
The Rings of Saturn Death Bringer The Ersatz Elevator Darke
7 Point Books: Total: 1 x 7 = 7 points
The Vile Village
8 Point Books: Total: 2 x 8 = 16 points
The Hostile Hospital The Last Guardian
9 Point Books: Total: 2 x 9 = 18 points
The Carnivorous Carnival How to Steal a Dragon's Sword
10 Point Books: Total: 2 x 10 = 20 points
The Slippery Slope How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel
>10 Point Books: Total: 187 points
The Grim Grotto - 11 points
The Penultimate Peril - 12 points
The End - 13 points
The Dolphins of Pern - 13 points
Dragonseye - 14 points
The Masterharper of Pern - 15 points
The Skies of Pern - 16 points
Dragon's Kin - 17 points
Dragonsblood - 18 points
Dragon's Fire - 19 points
Snuff - 39 points
TOTAL POINTS: 486
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Yes you can join and every book that you have read since 1 january 2012 counts. A book is only worth more than 1 point if you have read all the previous books in the series and I will be checking :)
Welcome and enjoy!
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Challenges are supposed to be fun and we depend on everyone's sense of fair play. Since we aren't there when other people read books, there is always an element of trust in these challenges. Because of this it is important to be as accurate as possible, when you have read a book and add it to your read list on goodreads. I will not check all the books read by people in the challenges I monitor, but I will check some books at random just to be sure everyone is still adhering to the rules.
In your case there were one or two books where it might have been a problem, but since that were books that got you only two points and so it won't affect your score too much and I can't even remember which ones it were, I will give you the benefit of the doubt :) But please make sure from now on to add all the data and be as accurate as you can.
I know what you mean by reading series out of order. I try not to do that because it confuses the hell out of me and I always feel I am missing something. Well, you have read what happened in the Choose Wisely challenge so you know I ended up reading 5 books for one task because it was the fourth book in a series and it had a prequel short story in an anthology book. And that was because I just don't like to read the books out of order.
Well once again welcome to the challenge and I am looking forward to having some competition. Not that it is a race but it is always nice to have the most points in a challenge :P
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Others are doing great! What a points some of you have been collecting! Wow, really nice!
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I wouldn't call her a slacker, but she is very busy and has had a lot on her mind but then again you know her better, so maybe I should just take your word for it :)
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Her computer is broken atm, so she can only go on her phone. And it is hard to update tons of things on your phone.
Hopefully the computer guys give it back soon!
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I'm in, but will probably also end up with mostly 1 point books (although I have to read some of the early Pratchett's for that challenge which may help).
1 point:
This Body of Death
The Colou..."
Hey Carolien, I have a question about the books with the higher points. I saw that you did have added the other books in the series they belong to, but that there is no date added as to when you have read them and that there is also no rating added for most of the books. How come?
For this challenge you only get full points for a book if you have read all the previous books in the series. If you haven't you will only get on point for the book. For now I have given you full marks.
Has anyone else read The Omen Machine by Terry Goodkind? I just want to make sure it really is The Sword of Truth #12, because on the cover it says "A Richard and Kahlan Novel", like perhaps it counts as a new series.
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I have no problems with you counting it as 12 points. I just see it as the story arc that was the focus in books 1-11 is now ended and they started a new one. There are several series out there, that have series within themselves. Even the Sword of Truth has that, since Chainfire, Phantom and Confessor form a trilogy within the series and no one is going to say that you should give those books 1, 2 and 3 points respectively instead of 9, 10 and 11 points. So you can count The Omen Machine as 12 points.
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I'm in, but will probably also end up with mostly 1 point books (although I have to read some of the early Pratchett's for that challenge which may help).
1 point:
This Body o..."
I've checked them and I have read all the books in those series. However I read a lot of them before I joined Goodreads so I don't have specific dates for them - some of them probably date back to the early 1990's! Where I know I am defintely missing some of them I marked them as 1 point like the Elizabeth George or on the Pratchett's I reread some of the earlier ones that I couldn't remember whether I read them on not. I was introduced to Pratchett at school which is a really long time ago. Hope that explains some of it. I only rate those if I really remember whether they were better or worse than the stuff I am currently reading.
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We always rely on every participants honesty, but I like to do some random checking and sometimes it gets confusing for challenges like this for the moderator to check if you have read the books or not. I myself am trying to get every book on this site that I remember reading. Other people only register the books they read since they started using Goodreads.
You are doing great BTW! I updated earlier today and I see that you are gaining on me. Not enough yet to get worried, especially since I am reading Snuff by Terry Pratchett which will give me 39 points, but enough to keep my eye on what you're reading. :)
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I still have lots of easy reads on my tbr pile which individually may not be much but will add a lot combined. Like the second and third series (each containing 6 books) of Erin Hunter and The How to train your dragon series by Cressida Cowell (books 1-9).
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Thanks!
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Barbara wrote: "I have been working on a spreadsheet to give you some interesting statistics when this challenge is over and I have found some discrepancies in a few of the updates. Could Emma, Claudia and Carolie..."Forgot to add a couple of 1 and 5 point books, my total is now 291. If that didn't fix it, can you point me in the right direction?
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Thanks!
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The only alternative that I can think of would be to build a series of ladders where if you read no3 in a series the next book must either be no4 (same or different series) or no2 (same or different series). That becomes horribly complicated however so this seems simpler to keep track.
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It is difficult to rethink a challenge and since this one was the result of a rethink I was just wondering if everyone was happy with it. Everyone seems to be happy with this format so we are going to keep it.
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In total 20 people said they would join in the challenge. 11 of those participated the whole year and the others didn’t, but I will take everyone’s scores in account when I tell you what we read for this challenge.
All together we read 796 books for this challenge and earned 2915 points. That is an average of 3,66 points per book. I myself read the most books (139) and earned the most points (567), however I was not the most clever reader. That honour goes to Carolien who read only 53 books, but her books earned an average of 9,13 points per book and that is the highest average and thus got a total score of 484 points. She accomplished this by rereading a lot of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Second highest average goes to Mohammed with 7,79 points per book, third highest goes to Crusader with 4,79 points per book. The rest of that list is:
Sonette 4,50
Barbara 4,08
Varla Fiona 3,63
Lindie 3,56
Naz 3,33
Claudia 3,25
Henri 2,78
Emma 2,50
Katherine 2,50
Lauren F 2,44
Liezel 2,17
Tamarin 1,50
Lu 1,35
Lauren S 1,21
Jestersinc 1
Claudi 1
Shelagh 0
All I can tell you know is the total books that earned 1, 2 etc points. So here goes:
Total books read that were worth 1 point: 343
Total books read that were worth 2 points: 134
Total books read that were worth 3 points: 90
Total books read that were worth 4 points: 49
Total books read that were worth 5 points: 43
Total books read that were worth 6 points: 29
Total books read that were worth 7 points: 16
Total books read that were worth 8 points: 15
Total books read that were worth 9 points: 15
Total books read that were worth 10 points: 12
Total books read that were worth 11 points: 8
Total books read that were worth 12 points: 8
Total books read that were worth 13 points: 5
Total books read that were worth 14 points: 5
Total books read that were worth 15 points: 2
Total books read that were worth 16 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 17 points: 2
Total books read that were worth 18 points: 2
Total books read that were worth 19 points: 2
Total books read that were worth 20 points:2
Total books read that were worth 22 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 23 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 24 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 27 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 28 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 30 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 32 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 34 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 35 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 38 points: 1
Total books read that were worth 39 points: 4
If I left something out that you are dying to know, then let me know and I will find the statistic and post it here. :D
SA Book & Challenge Lovers
Books mentioned in this topic
Death and the Girl Next Door (other topics)Stolen Nights (other topics)
Soulless (other topics)
Winter's Heart (other topics)
Kingdom of the Wicked (other topics)
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But there are so many more of these kind of books out there that I just wanted to ask the question. Harry Potter has 3 companion books (2 won't be admissable because of pagecount), discworld has also several companion books. It has the companion book itself, the wit and wisdom of discworld, nanny Oggs cookbook, where is my cow, several maps etc. (some of these are not admissable due to pagecount but still). Lord of the Rings also has several of these books. The inheritance cycle has one. And I think there are lots of series out there with these kind of books.
Most of them have no offical place in the series but are very fun to read anyway.
I won't mind if we leave them out but I thought the question had to be answered and that is why I am asking it.