The Sword and Laser discussion
March Madness 2021 - Information Thread
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Will Veronica be picking the books this year or will she still be on maternity leave? (just curious)
Mod
Not sure, My guess is no since Tom mentioned needing to find a guest host for April who wouldn't mind reading out March Madness winner.
Any chance of an Official "8 Other Books I might have nominated in March Madness" thread?This would be we list the 8 other books that we might have nominated in March Madness if we weren't restricted to just one.
No discussion or explanation just a list of 8 (a compromise between 5 and 10) of the other books that you considered nominating.
I think it would be good for people's TBRs
Possible other restrictions: -
No prequels or sequels to books we've read
Must be a book not a series
No more than 2 books per author (1 if the author has been a previous S&L pick)
Mod
It's hard enough to get clear nominations for a single book, I don't really want to mess around with a second thread that might confuse people where to nominate a book.
In general if people want to recommend books for consideration for the group to read, there are the Listopias:
Sword Listopia
Laser Listopia
Mod
I should probably also mention it was decided to do an all fantasy tournament this year since we've had so many Sci-Fi picks lately.
Unfortunately I didn't know this during nominations so I apologize to all of you who nominated a sci-fi book. If it makes anyone feel better, I nominated a sci-fi book too.
If you keep track of your books here on Goodreads, use this list to see which of the 2021 March Madness books are in your TBR.https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
Mark wrote: "If you keep track of your books here on Goodreads, use this list to see which of the 2021 March Madness books are in your TBR.https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1......"
Thanks, Mark! I found 3 of the books are already on my TBR list.
Mod
He's since made them on the main page so they should be easier to find now.
I've updated the links in my original post.
Go forth and vote!
Mark wrote: "If you keep track of your books here on Goodreads, use this list to see which of the 2021 March Madness books are in your TBR.https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1......"
Thanks, Mark!
I had a few of these already added to Want to Read.
I've read most of Stephen King's work, so of course I already read Eyes of the Dragon. I almost nominated it, myself!
After reading descriptions, I have now added the rest as Want to Read except Kiki's Delivery Service. I'm just not interested.
Rob wrote: "Unfortunately I didn't know this during nominations so I apologize to all of you who nominated a sci-fi book.Could we do an unofficial Laser poll?
The 9 Laser picks that had more than two nominations:
Before Mars
The Book of Koli
The Lives of Tao
Rosewater
All You Need Is Kill
Lagoon
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
The Dazzle of Day
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Mod
Jan wrote: "Rob wrote: "Unfortunately I didn't know this during nominations so I apologize to all of you who nominated a sci-fi book.Could we do an unofficial Laser poll?
The 9 Laser picks that had more th..."
Maybe create an extra post for a renegade read? I see the only sci-fi pick was already voted out.
Mod
Mod
and since I apparently forgot to link here earlier, here are the Results from Round 1 (if you missed them last week)
Round 3 voting has been delayed a bit. I'll post here again when the polls are sorted out.
Mod
Please use the links in my post and not Tom's. There looks to be something strange going on with Match 2 where there are 2 version of the poll.
Thanks.
Mod
Here is a detailed breakdown of this year's tournament
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 1st-February 20th 8pm EST
Round of 16: February 25th-March 2nd 11:59PM EST
Round of 8: March 3th-9th 11:59PM EST
Round of 4: March 10th-16th 11:59PM EST
Final Round: March 17th-23rd 11:59PM EST
Nomination FAQ
(view spoiler)[
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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