Respect Your Elders - A Nostalgic Journey through S&L Picks

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Tamahome and I were talking about what S&L book we started on, and when I went back to the list to find the title, I was reminded that I have not been with S&L since the beginning.

Here is the list according to the S&L store (I hope this is right). When did you start?

1. The Golden Compass
2. Ender's Game
3. American Gods
4. Neuromancer
5. Childhood's End
6. Unshapely Things
7. Watership Down
8. Anathem
9. Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
10. The Eye of the World
11. Dune
12. Daemon
13. A Game of Thrones
14. The Forever War
15. Mists of Avalon
16. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
17. The Windup Girl
18. Bitter Seeds
19a. World War Z
19b. The Blade Itself (alternate pick)
20. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
21. The Once and Future King
22. The Princess Bride
23. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
24. Good Omens
25. Shadow & Claw
26. Blindsight
27. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
28. The Hunger Games
29a. A Dance with Dragons
29b. Fuzzy Nation (alternate pick)
30. Flashforward
31a. Ready Player One
31b. Reamde (alternate pick)
32a. Elantris
32b. 1Q84 (alternate pick)
33a. Rule 34
33b. Empire State (alternate pick)
34. The Lies of Locke Lamora
35. The Magicians
36. Hyperion
37. Tigana

So, the smaller the number, the more elderly of a member you are. Cue nostalgia! I joined at #6, but have read #1-5!

[Tamahome]

I'm pretty sure I've listened to the podcast since the first episode with 4. - Neuromancer, and I think I've posted on Ning before Goodreads, although I can't find proof on the Wayback Machine. So, get off my lawn!

http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http...

[[deleted user]]

I joined the group at 18, then started reading(sporadically) with 20.

edit: fixed numbers

[Kim]

I became aware of S&L somewhere around book 24 and I joined but then left again. I only just rejoined and Tigana will be my first read with the group as I had already read Hyperion.

[Sean]

#5. 6-10 weren't selections that I can remember -- I think they may've been the losers in a vote that Unshapely Things won, so everyone over 11 can subtract five places.

[Tamahome]

I vaguely remember something about Elfpunk, but I didn't read it.

[JRush]

I started listening during Flashback but first read was Reamde. I've gone back and listened to most of the backlog in the last 6 months though.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Sean wrote: "#5. 6-10 weren't selections that I can remember -- I think they may've been the losers in a vote that Unshapely Things won, so everyone over 11 can subtract five places."
Some of them seemed like maybe they were mentioned in passing instead of discussed, but I didn't know what to do.

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

A few of those books weren't S&L reads.
1. Was only The Golden Compass
5. Was only Childhood's End
We never read 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 18, 19, 23, 25, 34 & 35 for the book club.
Edit: List is correct now.

The full list of books we read is here:
http://swordandlaser.wikia.com/wiki/B...

I started with "The Eye of the World" but I have gone back and read the earlier book as well.

[Micah]

I started hanging out on ning (lurker) right at Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. I started reading along with the group (sporadically at best) with The Windup Girl.

What about favorite book so far? Mine would have to be Good Omens: the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, witch. Loved that book. And it is one that I now recommend to people all the time.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Tassie Dave wrote: "A few of those books weren't S&L reads.
1. Was only The Golden Compass
5. Was only Childhood's End
We never read 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 18, 19, 23, 25, 34 & 35 for the book club.

The full list of books w..."
Thanks Tassie, I'll update it, which just means your numbers will be wrong (sorry).

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Micah wrote: "What about favorite book so far? Mine would have to be Good Omens: the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, witch. Loved that book. And it is one that I now recommend to people all the time. "
While I wouldn't call it my favorite book from the list, my favorite reading experience with the group would have to be Shadow & Claw, and I think that's because we spent a lot more time discussing the book!

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

My favourite of the books I hadn't read before was Bitter Seeds closely followed by A Game of Thrones

(Dune is my number 1 Sci-Fi book ever. I have read it many times over the last 35 years)

The most surprising book that I enjoyed was Watership Down Who knew a book about bunnies could be so good.

The worst book was The Once and Future King, mind numbingly boring.

[Colin]

I believe i came in listening around Anathem, and the first book i joined in with was Eye of the World.
I have been pretty horrible with reading along. I think i have only read 4 books out of the list when we were actually supposed to be reading them.

I think i will have to blame Wheel of Time on that. After Eye of the World, i kept reading until book 4 or 5, then joined back up at Game of Thrones, then i read all 4 books in a row, then continued with wheel of time, because the next time i joined up was Good Omens, then Shadow and Claw.

[Linguana]

I started listening to the Podcast around pick 31 - Ready Player One.
Tigana is the first book I can read along, though. Because the other picks in between either didn't appeal enough to me or I had already read them.

Thanks for this list, it's actually a really good selection. Go S&L!

[Nick]

I started with 26 - Blindsight . Some of the first forum posts I read were complaining about the book supposedly being hard scifi and having a vampire in it.

[Marz]

I feel new. I started watching the show/listening to podcast at 35, but I staretd reading at 36 since I'd read the Magicians before. But, I have started going back to read some of the older picks that I haven't read. I just finished The Lies of Locke Lamora.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Nick wrote: "I started with 26 - Blindsight . Some of the first forum posts I read were complaining about the book supposedly being hard scifi and having a vampire in it."
I remember that conversation extending into the next pick, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I still remember that book as having vampires, ha!

[terpkristin]

I originally found out about S&L when I still listened to TWiT, when S&L was a glimmer in Veronica and Tom's eyes, so I've been here from the start.

I started with book 1, The Golden Compass. I've skipped a few, ones that because of work I didn't have time for, or because they really sounded terrible to me, or when I've read it before (such as Neuromancer, though I joined in the conversations). My first lem was Watership Down, before we called it "Lem." I don't know why everybody seems to like those bunnies. Oddly, I skipped Memoirs Found in a Bathtub so I never had the chance to lem that (though I do like Solaris so I do like A book by Stanisław Lem).

I haven't liked EVERY book we've done. Actually I think, looking back, I felt more "meh" about most of them than not. This was especially true for some beloved S&L books like Daemon and Bitter Seeds. But that's why I love this group. I can honestly say that I probably wouldn't have read most of these books if left to my own devices.

[Joseph]

32a like a boss. :D

Can't remember when I joined the goodreads shiz though. Must have been a few weeks after.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

terpkristin wrote: "I originally found out about S&L when I still listened to TWiT, when S&L was a glimmer in Veronica and Tom's eyes, so I've been here from the start. ...

My first lem was Watership Down, before we called it "Lem." I don't know why everybody seems to like those bunnies'..."

Woohoo, true elder! I bow before you....

I also hated Watership Down but didn't even lem it... I've skipped a few, but might go back to at least catch the lasers....

[terpkristin]

[Kevin]

I found the podcast back in May of 2009 around the same time I jointed Goodreads, but I did not become active on here until a year and a half later. I also joined whatever thing they had back in May 2009 on the Sword and Lazer website.

[Micah]

@Tassie Dave - I still have yet to read Bitter Seeds but it is very very high on my TBR list. Nice to hear that it was good.

@Nick - I still think Blindsight counts as "hard sci-fi" :) if only because the vampires were explained nicely.

[Jlawrence, S&L Moderator]

I followed along since the ancient, dusty ning-forum beginning, when there wasn't even a podcast. Of the alternate picks, I only read Reamde, but I've read all the main selections with the group except Eye of the World and Once & Future King (both lemmed in weariness) and Elantris (didn't start). I did not lem Lem. :)

[Alterjess]

I've been a podcast listener from the beginning, but Hyperion is the first time I've been able to read along with the group! Most of the others I'd either read before or went back and read later. (Still haven't caught up with Memoirs, mostly because there's no e-version and I'm lazy.)

[Jlawrence, S&L Moderator]

Jenny wrote: "Micah wrote: "What about favorite book so far? Mine would have to be Good Omens: the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, witch. Loved that book. And it is one that I now recommend to people all the time."

While I wouldn't call it my favorite book from the list, my favorite reading experience with the group would have to be Shadow & Claw, and I think that's because we spent a lot more time discussing the book!

Woot! Yeah, the discussions here helped me see many things I hadn't before in Shadow & Claw, and re-reading that series for S&L was interesting: I ended up appreciating certain aspects of the the four New Sun books more, but some other reconsidered aspects bumped them a bit out of my all-time-favorite place (though I still find them excellent). And I ended up *loving* the fifth "epilogue" book The Urth of the New Sun during that re-read, I had previously found it mediocre.

My favorite of the other main selections would probably be Ender's Game, with a tie for second place between Daemon and The Windup Girl. Dune is always a favorite, but I leave it out because I've read it like five times (unfair advantage). ;)

[Tamahome]

Jlawrence wrote: "I followed along since the ancient, dusty ning-forum beginning, when there wasn't even a podcast. Of the alternate picks, I only read Reamde, but I've read all the main selections with the group e..."

Wow that beats me. At the next S&L Thanksgiving dinner, you get the head chair.

[terpkristin]

Tamahome wrote: "Wow that beats me. At the next S&L Thanksgiving dinner, you get the head chair. "

Yeah, I guess he wins over me since he's read more of the main picks than I have...but I've been here as long as Josh has!

[terpkristin]

For your viewing pleasure, the results of the first-ever "Recommend future picks" discussion we had at the Ning forum. At the time, it was just a php-like thing, so there was no way to sort/cull. So I went through and tallied all the votes, threw 'em into a text file (and apparently added my commentary), and hosted it.

Interesting to see now how many of those picks (from March 16, 2008) we've since done... http://kristin.seidelmann-owners.com/... (look at my comments on Stephen King entries and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell).

[Jlawrence, S&L Moderator]

terpkristin wrote: "Tamahome wrote: "Wow that beats me. At the next S&L Thanksgiving dinner, you get the head chair. "

Yeah, I guess he wins over me since he's read more of the main picks than I have...but I've been here as long as Josh has! ."

You can have the head chair because I'd mess up carving the turkey. ;) Just give this elder extra pumpkin pie.

That's fun to see the list of initial suggestions - we have hit a good number of them - Tigana's even in there! Also made me realize I missed Game of Thrones when glancing over Jenny's list of all the official picks - I'd have to revise my S&L first place to a tie between Game of Thrones & Ender's Game. (see? Sword y Laser!)

[aldenoneil]

Golden Compass for me, though I didn't read along because I had done so already; I just joined in the discussions of how disappointing the movie was.

[Kris]

Since Necromancer and I posted some in the ning forums also. I don't always read the selection but I love the Goodreads forums and all the discussion about so many interesting topics and books.

[AndrewP]

I think I joined at about #18 but had already read a few of them. The first one I read with the group was #26.

[Nick]

I thought the club had read one of Patrick Rothfuss novels. Am I wrong? I'm not seeing any of his novels on the list. This would have been before I joined the club. Maybe we only had a subforum for his series but it was never a pick.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

Nick wrote: "I thought the club had read one of Patrick Rothfuss novels. Am I wrong? I'm not seeing any of his novels on the list. This would have been before I joined the club. Maybe we only had a subforum..."
Yeah, Veronica and a lot of the members were really into him but it was never official, I don't think.

[Micah]

Jenny wrote: "Yeah, Veronica and a lot of the members were really into him but it was never official, I don't think. "

Like so many relationships I had during high school. *sigh*

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

Nick wrote: "I thought the club had read one of Patrick Rothfuss novels. Am I wrong? I'm not seeing any of his novels on the list. This would have been before I joined the club. Maybe we only had a subforum for his series but it was never a pick"

It was never an official pick. A lot of us were reading them at the same time (T&V included) so it got a discussion forum.

[AndrewP]

How many have people read? I've read 14 on the list and am now reading Tigana, which will make 15.

EDIT - I have 5 more available on my physical 'to be read' shelf.

[Tassie Dave, S&L Historian]

AndrewP wrote: "How many have people read? I've read 14 on the list and am now reading Tigana, which will make 15."

40 of 42. I haven't read 1Q84 or Fuzzy Nation yet. Both were alternate selections. I'll knock them over sometime in the future.

I've read all 37 of the official S&L book club picks.

[Kim]

18 so far and working on the 19th. Another 5 are already on my shelf to be read.

[Tamahome]

I actually don't read along that often, lol. But I did read Tigana part one. And I have read these on my own:

2 4 8 11 12 13 14 16 1/2 of 25 29b 30 36 37

[aldenoneil]

Tamahome wrote: "I actually don't read along that often, lol."

Yeah, I'm a fair-weather S&L'er, too, as far as reading along goes. Fits and starts.

I can't believe how long this thing's been around. Other communities I've been active in have died early deaths, so perhaps I'm just happy to have one that survived as long as my interest. So I can't leave, now. Ever.

[kvon]

I've read 31 of them (including a couple lems). I joined back around 28. It helps to have been a reader for the past 25 years.

[Micah]

Tamahome wrote: "I actually don't read along that often, lol."

same here. I have been using S&L more as a discovery tool than a "read along book club" and it has led me to some great great finds. Plus the side bar discussions with you all are great.

[Richard]

Tigana is my first, but over the years I have read independently #s 2, 4, 5, 11, 20, 22, 29b, & I lemmed 21 (The author's footnotes offended me in the first 2 pages) & 15 (I just wasn't in the mood for it at the time). Neuromancer is my top pick of the ones I've read.