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The Sword and Laser discussion
March Madness 2020 - Information Thread
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If you use Goodreads to keep track of what you read, here's a Goodreads list of the March Madness 2020 sweet sixteen...https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
Mark wrote: "If you use Goodreads to keep track of what you read, here's a Goodreads list of the March Madness 2020 sweet sixteen...https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1......"
thanks for the list!
It's interesting that this year a lot of the books are either on my Read or Want to Read Shelf.
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I'll post in both threads again when the polls are live.
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Hey Rob, a possible suggestion for next years FAQ thread. Maybe put a sentence or two in there about why the tournament is what it is, and why the voting is the way it is. This seems to be a subject that is brought up each year. And thank you for handling all of this as well as you do. As always, awesome job.
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Yeah that's probably a good idea. Assuming I remember it next year. I just always copy/paste from the previous year's FAQ.
Maybe I should add something now so it's there next year.
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Breakdown of round 2: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Rob wrote: "Maybe I should add something now so it's there next year."Now you're thinking. This is also why I make calendar events to myself like: "you had 100 kids show up for Halloween last year. Purchase an appropriate amount of candy or hide".
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and here is the breakdown of round 3: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
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Breakdown of the finals: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
This Is How You Lose the Time War (other topics)Authors mentioned in this topic
Amal El-Mohtar (other topics)Max Gladstone (other topics)
What is the Sword & Laser March Madness tournament you ask?
Each year we take nominations from our members for the Sci-Fi and Fantasy books they think the group should read and narrow it down to 16. We create two brackets, one for each genre. That means there are 8 Sword picks, and 8 Laser picks.
The 16 books are selected by our benevolent leaders based on your suggestions in the nomination thread and a super secret criteria of their own making for seeding etc.
Once the brackets are set we have 4 rounds of voting. Rounds 1-3 will take us from 8 Sword books and 8 Laser books down to 1 of each that will go head to head for our to be our pick for April.
This single elimination style tournament is inspired by some sporting event that takes place every year during the month of March. Does your nomination have what it takes to win 4 straight head-to-head matchups and become our April book pick? Let the madness begin!
This thread will serve as the main information center for the tournament and I'll be creating separate threads for each round.
Nominations thread
Bracket
Round 1 thread
Round 2 thread
Round 3 thread
Finals thread
Schedule & Details
Here is the schedule for this year's tournament:
Nominations: February 3rd-February 22nd 8pm EST
Round of 16: February 27th-March 3rd 11:59PM EST
Round of 8: March 4th-10th 11:59PM EST
Round of 4: March 11th-17th 11:59PM EST
Final Round: March 18-24th 11:59PM EST
Nomination FAQ
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How Many books can I nominate? One. You cannot nominate one book and second another. You cannot nominate both a Fantasy book and a Sci-Fi book. Just ONE book total. If you mention more than one, I'm going to pick one. Likely the first one you mention. Please be CLEAR about your nomination.
Can we nominate any book we want? The only criteria is that it's a Fantasy or Sci-Fi book we haven't read. That said, it's preferable that you also nominate a book by an author we haven't read as well. Those nominations will likely have a better chance of making the final bracket.
We also have a rule to prevent author's from nominating their own books. In addition we'd like to prevent people from nominating their friend's book etc. If I see you doing this, I will first warn you to pick another book, and later simply ignore your nomination all together.
This year we have a new rule that prevents authors from nominating their own books. In addition we'd like to prevent people from nominating their friend's book etc. If I see you doing this, I will first warn you to pick another book, and later simply ignore your nomination all together.
Can I change My Nomination? Yes, but if you do so, please specify which book you are changing it from, as I'm doing this by hand.
How many books will be selected? 16 (8 Fantasy, 8 Sci-Fi)
When do nominations close? Saturday, February 22nd 8:00 PM EST. This will give Tom & Veronica some time to make the final bracket.
Which books will be selected? Whichever books Tom & Veronica want. They will simply use the nominations in this thread for suggestions.
How will the books be seeded? This is entirely up to Tom & Veronica. They may take into account how many people have nominated a book, but there is no guarantee.
The book I want was already nominated. You can second a nomination made by someone else, and I'll count how many people have nominated that book and sort accordingly.
No one else is nominating my book, should I change my vote to something more popular? In my opinion, you're better off just nominating a book you're interested in us reading than hoping to game the nomination system by changing your vote. Most years some of the books in the final bracket had only a single nomination, while several books with multiple nominations didn't make it. Multiple nominations may help it get noticed or in the seeding, but really all of that is up to Tom & Veronica.
How are the Nominations Sorted? The numbering is based on number of nominations, followed by when they moved up the list (i.e. based on post order). This number will likely not reflect the actual seeding as that will be entirely up to Tom & Veronica.
My nomination is missing/wrong! Sorry about that. I'm doing this by hand. Please post again and yell at me for missing, or not grouping it with another nomination for the same book, or marking you down for the wrong book, etc. If you're not clear about your nomination (or you nominate 2) I may add the "wrong" book. Please be sure you're clear, and I can fix it.
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