Flights of Fantasy discussion

Beginning in January 2015, we're playing catch up! This will be a freebit month to allow members time to catch their breath, or to squeeze in some group books that they missed in our first year.

I'll be setting this up as a challenge for the group, and it will be ongoing for the year, even as we add new books to the TBR shelves.

Everyone that participates will have the option of setting a personal goal for 2015. You can set any number up to 93. This will be the number of FoF books you'd like to read (or re-read) in 2015. That number includes the 49 books from 2014 along with the projected 44 books in 2015. That number will be adjusted as necessary, as in the case of a tie in voting.

The quickest way to see our bookshelf is to go directly to it here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...

This morning I made myself a spreadsheet where I logged in all 49 books from 2014. Then I made columns to get my stats.

Of the 49 group reads from 2014,

I read 14 of them with the group, with 2 of those being re-reads. (sad)
I attempted 2 more that I DNF'd.
I had already read 5 books, so skipped those.

That leaves me with needing to read 28 of the remaining 49.

I'll adjust these numbers if/when I finish any of the books before December is over.

Oooh, a spreadsheet. I should create one of those. :)

Homeinmyshoes wrote: "Oooh, a spreadsheet. I should create one of those. :)"

LOL

I know you can't resist a spreadsheet...

Done. I've read one of them. :(

To be fair though, I try to avoid series like the plague and 26/49 are book one and 1/49 is book two so that cuts my reading target down quite a bit. :)

Homeinmyshoes wrote: "Done. I've read one of them. :(

To be fair though, I try to avoid series like the plague and 26/49 are book one and 1/49 is book two so that cuts my reading target down quite a bit. :)"

lol!

I even looked through the list again, there's about ten that will make it onto my potential reads, otherwise, there was a lot of "meh" when I read the synopsis.

Howl's Moving Castle
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
The Minority Report
Ready Player One
The Martian
The Great and Secret Show
The Girl with all the Gifts
The Goblin Emperor
The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart
Swan Song
Dealing with Dragons

I should actually be able to read a few of these next year or maybe even this year.

I read 24 of them. Pretty good!

Once Removing all horror books:

I've read 15/36



My possible "TO Read" List:

Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding (Tales of the Ketty Jay, #1) - DNF
The Dark Lord of Derkholm
Dust (Jacob's Ladder, #1)
The Girl with All the Gifts - DNF
Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)
Deadweather and Sunrise (The Chronicles of Egg, #1)
Pandora's Star by (Commonwealth Saga, #1)
The Painted Boy - DNF
Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1)
Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Red Rising Trilogy, #1) - DNF
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
The Amulet of Samarkand (Bartimaeus, #1)
The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)
The Martian - DNF
Blood Song (Raven's Shadow, #1) - DNF
Shards of Honor (Vorkosigan Saga, #1) - DNF
Seraphina (Seraphina, #1) - DNF
Ready Player One - DNF
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1) - DNF

If y'all want to create your own tracking threads in this folder, go 'head. I'm thinking I might do it.

Dang, that's a lot of DNF.

Chris wrote: "If y'all want to create your own tracking threads in this folder, go 'head. I'm thinking I might do it."

I think I will!

Chris wrote: "Dang, that's a lot of DNF."

Yeah.

But some were time based - Library books, you know?

This is a cool idea... that I'm totally not going to participate in. ;)

Have fun y'all!

^Yep. My library sucks for that. Three weeks for paper books, but only two weeks for eBooks which can be a might short sometimes. I just borrowed Swan Song as an eBook. Let's see if I can finish that.

Nicki wrote: "...
Deadweather and Sunrise (about 50% my fault and 50% the book's)
..."

There's a story there I might like to hear. :)

Swan Song is 956 pages?!? No wonder it was the only one available as an ebook from my library. The probability of me finishing it in two weeks is about 0%.

Wow! GMTA - This was already a part of my own persoanal 2015 Challenge !!!

So 3 books from the bookshelf (and my FoF TBR) just went on sale or dropped in price on Amazon: Red Rising - $1.99, The Madman's Daughter - $1.99 and [drum roll please] The Martian - $3.00 !!

I think the universe is trying to tell me something! :)

Hahaha, cool..

Nyssa wrote: "So 3 books from the bookshelf (and my FoF TBR) just went on sale or dropped in price on Amazon: Red Rising - $1.99, The Madman's Daughter - $1.99 and [drum roll plea..."

Someone better get to reading. :-)

Ikr!! :)

Just an observation: Of the 49 books chosen last year, ummm I mean this year (looks like I'm ready to start 2015 lol) only 18 of them were Standalones - Thats a lot of "new series" to start!

Anyone trying to read all of the book club selections, would have a difficult time keeping up with a series challenge as well.

More power to whoever managed both!! :)

I'll be the first to admit that I don't even think about reading all the book club selections. If I'm interested in something I'll read it - if I'm not, I don't.

That said, I will say that there have been times where I've been on the fence and the fact that it's the start of a series has turned me off.

On the other hand, it's nigh impossible to find books in the SFF milieu if we had to limit ourselves to stand-alones.

When I'm picking my nomination choices, I do try to find decent stand alones. Or at least books that can stand alone, even if there are sequels.

It was just an observation...

It is difficult to find standalone Speculative Fiction, other than horror and short stories it seems. Even then, many of the short stories are bonus stories for larger bodies of work.

very true

It's a terrible trend and I certainly avoid books that have '#' anywhere in the title or at least step very lightly around them.

Homeinmyshoes wrote: "It's a terrible trend and I certainly avoid books that have '#' anywhere in the title or at least step very lightly around them."

That's almost impossible now.

It is getting harder. I had been buying up all the copies of standalones I could find and now I am holed up in the shelter I built in the backyard. I hear those series books rustling their pages outside the door at night. It is starting to creep me out.

Yes, but over time how many of those standalones turn into series #1's while your back is turned.

Those sneaks. We have ways of dealing with them.

*dies*

Amazon has the Kindle version of Bird Box on sale right now for $1.99 if anyone needs/wants it.

Merry Christmas! :)

The Bird Box ebook is also $1.99 in the Kobo store.



For Americans...



ARGH! They charge me € 12.09!! It is insane! Who cares where I live?

The Last Policeman just dropped in price, on Amazon US, to $1.99

Happy New Year! :)

I've decided to start tracking the group reads from our brand new sister group After Earth on my personal Tracking List as well.
I'm super excited about the expansion of our family! :)

That's a good idea, Nyssa...

Chris wrote: "That's a good idea, Nyssa..."

Thanks! :)

I've just added post for AE, and simplified things a bit. I'm hoping to keep the thread as uncluttered and uncomplicated as possible, so I'm not sure how I'm going to show that I've made updates.

Maybe just do: January Reads, February Reads .. etc.