Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

Hey there, fellow Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy peeps! I thought that it might be fun to run our own NCAA Tournament-style game matching up Sci-fi/Fantasy novels (or series) head-to-head in order to crown our own Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy Champion!

For those who may be unfamiliar with the NCAA Basketball Tournament, how it would work is that I would set up brackets with 64 Sci-fi/Fantasy books or series, each one matched up head-to-head with another book or series. Each week, the group would vote for one or the other in each match-up and the field would be divided in half each week until only 1 was left standing.

I have found several Top Sci-fi/Fantasy lists that I am combining together into 1 master list with which to select my 64. I'm not sure if this is the best method to use, but it's what I came up with at this point in time anyway.

If this is something that you all think might be fun, I'll get the brackets put together and we'll start the first round on Friday, March 1.

Voting would then take place from Friday to Thursday with the next round being posted on Friday again. SO, the tournament would work out as follows:

Round 1 (64) - March 1-7
Round 2 (32) - March 8-14
Round 3 (Sweet 16) - March 15-21
Round 4 (Elite 8) - March 22-28
Round 5 (Final 4) - March 29-April 4
Round 6 (Championship) - April 5-11

Let me know what you all think and I'll get to work on putting the bracket together.

Sounds good. Just pair like with like (i.e, sword wielders vs sword wielders, not magic-users or technology users)

Not sure how that would quite work. I was just going to get a compiled list of Top 64 and pair 1 vs 64, 2 vs 63, 3 vs 62, etc. The same setup of the actual tourney.

Oh, you mean group v. group. That would be interesting.

infael wrote: "Oh, you mean group v. group."

I think he means book vs book. For example, which do you like best, "Lord of the Rings" v "John Carter of Mars".

(While Gandalf makes a sturdy center, and he has both inside power and outside shooting at forward, his guards are just too slow and lack height. My money's on the ballhandling of those four-armed Tharks and Carter's spectacular dunking. Martians by 7.5, 205 o/u :)

Excellent analysis for an Old Guy!

G33z3r wrote: "infael wrote: "Oh, you mean group v. group."

I think he means book vs book. For example, which do you like best, "Lord of the Rings" v "John Carter of Mars".

(While Gandalf makes a sturdy cente..."

Given that Frodo does have some mastery of the ring and those Eagles can fly so it would definitely be a close one...

I am in.

I'm curious how you plan to manage the voting? Your first brackets going to be 32 matches, right?

Yep. I haven't quite figured all that out yet, but I'm sure that there's a way.

Stefan wrote: "Yep. I haven't quite figured all that out yet, but I'm sure that there's a way."

Well, you could create some Goodreads Polls in the group. The results would be easy to tally, but you might find setting up 32 of them tedious. Or, you could post the bracket here and allow free-form voting; the difficulty is everyone will respond slightly differently and your vote counting might be tedious. There may be some external website that can manage that sort of thing, but it's a little specialized, I think.

I look forward to see what you creatively decide! :)

Ok, I've got a bracket put together. Now we need to figure out how to run the voting. Any ideas?? I don't think that I have the power to create actual polls myself.

Edit: Yes, I do have the power. I'll play with it and see what kind of options that gives me.

Stefan wrote: "Ok, I've got a bracket put together. Now we need to figure out how to run the voting. Any ideas?? I don't think that I have the power to create actual polls myself."

Theoretically, the group settings allow you to create polls. Click "polls" up at the top right of this page, and you should find a "create a poll" button just below those same options in the top right of the polls page. Setting up 32 may be tedious.) Let me know if that's what you want to do and it doesn't work for you.

You might also consider signing up for a site like Survey Monkey. I tried making a multi-question, multiple(=2)-choice (only one answer) survey, and it seemed to work out okay with the free account, but it limits you to 10 questions per survey with the free account.. You can then post the links to the surveys here, and it will tally the results for you.

I can set up the polls, just don't know if we really want 32 for week one. I'll give survey monkey a shot.

For those interested, here's a link to the completed bracket: http://betterbracketmaker.com/#!/4fca... Link no longer works see below.

I surmise you found the logistics of this impractical?

(By the way, I can't seem to access that "betterbracketmaker" website anymore; not sure if it collapsed under the traffic load now that it's March, or just vanished back to whatever primordial state Internet websites go to when they fade away.)

Good thing I did it in a couple of different places. Here's the other one that I put together. A little harder to follow, but all the same matchups and progressions. Still not too sure what the best way is to run it, but if we have the interest, I'm willing to figure it out.

http://challonge.com/Sci_Fi_Fantasy_M...

Stefan wrote: "Still not too sure what the best way is to run it, but if we have the interest, I'm willing to figure it out..."

If you figure out how to determine what people here are interested in, I hope you'll publish a research paper! :)

But whether you decide to poll the brackets or not, I'm curious how you derived your list of 64. (I thought I'd wait until after the results were in before asking.)

Oooh, tough choices. I think this would be interesting...far more interesting than that other March Madness thing, although I'm not sure I like the concept of a "best" SF&F book.

Well, I took several lists of best of and combined them together to get an average rating. It was all pretty random really.

As for a "best" SF&F, that's really not what this is. It's just a fun game to play in the spirit of the tourney. I fully expect some upsets. I thought it was really odd how the 1 vs. 16 matches worked out.

Well, I'm in.