The Sword and Laser discussion

Conal wrote: "
Ben Aaronovitch 49
Donald Hamilton 42
Don Pendleton 36

Mack Bolan and Matt Helm?"

Yes. My Dad was a big fan of both, so I wound up reading them too.

I am going to chime in here to reiterate that this post is meant to focus more on author binges, not just your most read authors*. I know the subject line makes it sound that way (so, edited slightly).

*There is a post for that topic here (that I also happen to make). → Most Read Authors

If we're talking binges, on first run there are two:

Terry Pratchett: On introduction to Discworld I spent about two years working through the series. It wasn't the only thing I read but was about every second book during that period.

Jim Butcher: My library had six book collections of the first twelve Dresden Files books. Blazed through the first one and after a few other books, got the second. Then I got whatever else was available. That included a quick run to the library to get book 15 before they closed.

For rereads, hands down Anne McCaffrey. I read her entire run of Pern about two years back. Love that series.

Definitely my biggest (and most recent) binge was Lois McMaster Bujold’s stuff. First I did all but one of the Vorkosigan series in 2019, which was 23 books, followed by 6 books in the Penric series in 2020, plus a short story collection and the second Chalion book.

So over the space of +- one year, that’s 31 books by one author.

I suspect only my initial deep dive into Asimov’s books back in the mid-80s is its equal.

I wonder if most authors even have that many books?

For me it kind of ties back to some of my most read authors. I've binged all of Dresden on a reread, which was like probably 13-15 books at the time.

I also will do all 7 Harry Potter books every few years.

I did a big re-listen of 14 Wheel of Time books a few years back as well.

I'm planning to binge the Expanse books 1-8 before Leviathan Falls comes out. In fact, given how slow I've been at listening to books lately, I should maybe start that soon/next.

There isn't a release date yet, but it's been finished so maybe later this year or early next year. Ideally I'd love to time it perfectly and do all 9 back to back, but likely to do that I'll have to postpone reading the final book right when it comes out.

Rob wrote: "For me it kind of ties back to some of my most read authors. I've binged all of Dresden on a reread, which was like probably 13-15 books at the time.

I also will do all 7 Harry Potter books every ..."

Release date on Leviathan Falls is 11/16/21

https://www.audible.com/pd/Leviathan-...

I'm not sure if that's an official date or just a guess on Amazon's part.

Update: Looks like it is: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/tit...

Ah, my youth and Piers Anthony. Most of those are 'cringey' now

Anthony, Piers 33
Pratchett, Terry 32
Chalker, Jack L. 23
Niven, Larry 20
Drake, David 19
Asprin, Robert 16
Saberhagen, Fred 15
Jordan, Robert 14
Sanderson, Brandon 14
Burroughs, Edgar Rice 13
Zelazny, Roger 13
Moore, Christopher 13
Hamilton, Peter F. 13
Williams, Tad 12
Scalzi, John 11
Feist, Raymond E. 10
Martin, George R.R. 9
Corey, James S.A. 9
Campbell, Jack 9
Keyes, Greg 8
Duncan, Dave 8
Gaiman, Neil 7
McCaffrey, Anne 7
May, Julian 7
Leiber, Fritz 7
Vardeman, Robert E. 6
Card, Orson Scott 6
Brett, Peter V. 6
Moorcock, Michael 6
Salvatore, R.A. 6
Asimov, Isaac 6
Cameron, Miles 6
Brin, David 6
Simmons, Dan 5
Adams, Douglas 5
Clines, Peter 5
Eddings, David 5

Robin Hobb's Realm of Elderlings takes first place. I think I blazed through all except the last trilogy in one go.

Joe Abercrombie's first six First Law books came second and GRRM's ASoIAF is the third, with me going through the first five books in two weeks back in 2011.

Hyena wrote: "Ah, my youth and Piers Anthony. Most of those are 'cringey' now

Anthony, Piers 33
Pratchett, Terry 32
Chalker, Jack L. 23
Niven, Larry 20
Drake, David 19
Asprin, Robert 16
Saberhagen, Fred 15
J..."

Ditto on the Piers Anthony. Mostly filed under 'I enjoyed it at the time, but I was young and didn't know any better'!

With all the talk earlier about export from Goodreads and most read, I had to do it as well. My results:

Daniel Pinkwater, 91
RA Salvatore, 59
Agatha Christie, 49
Stephen King, 35
Raymond Feist, 32
John Scalzi, 30
Michael J. Sullivan, 26
Brian K. Vaughan, 24

These didn't surprise me that much. Seems about right.

Colin wrote: "Hyena wrote: "Ah, my youth and Piers Anthony. Most of those are 'cringey' now

[snip...]

Ditto on the Piers Anthony. Mostly filed under 'I enjoyed it at the time, but I was young and didn't know any better'!

Yeah, I recently tried re-reading the Xanth series based on my fond memories and started to get really frustrated with the misogynistic themes. I gave up after a couple books because it didn't seem to be getting any better.

I’ve binged on:
H.G. Wells
Edgar Rice Burroughs
J.R.R. Tolkien
Agatha Christie
Arthur Conan Doyle
J.K.Rowling
Alexander McCall Smith (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series)
Ann Cleeves (Vera and Shetland mystery series)
Frank Herbert (Dune)

I’m just starting through James Herriot’s “All Creatures Great and Small” series, which is great on audiobook.

For people who know how to parse the Goodreads data, is there a way of finding the number of 'likes' you have on a particular review? I don't see that info in the download.

AndrewP wrote: "For people who know how to parse the Goodreads data, is there a way of finding the number of 'likes' you have on a particular review? I don't see that info in the download."

Sorry, just saw this now. I don't believe that's included with the CSV export unfortunately.

Most recently I have binged my way though Marko Kloos Frontline series. I started the first book Terms of Enlistment at the start of June 2021, and finished the 5th in the series on the 30th. I am taking a brief pause to, ahem, catch up on my book club books before finishing the last 2 in the series off.

The individual stories themselves are "okay", but I think the real strength of the series is 1. the high level story arcs which I am enjoying watching unfold, and 2. the world building / feel of life in the near future society & military

@John, Frontlines is a fun series, I really need to pick it back up (I left off at the end of book 4 Chains of Command). Marko is also a super cool guy.
If you haven't seen Love, Death + Robots on Netflix, they turned 2 of his short stories (one of them from the Frontlines universe, Lucky Thirteen) into episodes.

Once I get a light spot in my reading load, I fully intend to binge his Palladium Wars series starting with Aftershocks.

@aaron thanks for the suggestion. I will add LDR to my watch list :-)

I had never heard of the Twilight series until the final book was released. It was so nice to read all of them quickly in succession. I have read that series several times now. I have read everything that Charlaine Harris has written. Absolutely love The True Blood series and also Aurora Teagarden. I have read every Jenniene Frost book too. I have probably read most if not all of JR Ward’s books. The Black Dagger Brotherhood series is my favorite of hers. Obviously I have a thing about paranormal romance! But my ultimate author binge (I know Carolyn Keene was really several different authors) is the series that started my love of reading long ago, Nancy Drew. I still have all of the first 100 Nancy Drew books. Some of my books were published in the 1920s, no I am not that old! They are like old friends. I’ll probably have them when I die. I have also read all of Jane Austen’s books many times.

I did the whole Malazan Book for the Fallen series in audio by Steven Erikson pretty much consecutively. I'm not sure it's the most books I've read by an author at once, but it's probably the most hours spent....

Speaking of Marko Kloos, I've read all the Palladium Wars series. I still don't know what a gyrofoil is.

Tamahome wrote: "Speaking of Marko Kloos, I've read all the Palladium Wars series. I still don't know what a gyrofoil is."

It’s the foil around a gyro, of course.

I’m obviously unusual in this group because I don’t think I’ve ever binged an author’s back catalogue. I think the most I’ve ever read in a row by the same author was 3-4 books, and that’s always been a trilogy or other series. I just get bored of being in the same writer’s head and crave variety. Even authors I love I rarely read all their output (unless they’re super unprolific but that hardly counts) and I will often read the first 1 or 2 books in a series and then not bother with the rest. Call it book ADHD if you want.

The last author that I binged after reading 1 book is Brandon Sanderson. Some how I stumbled across Mistborn: The Final Empire and then searched out and read all the Cosmere books in time to catch the release of Rhythm of War.

Hmmm... While checking on the book titles I see that two more books came out since I binged...

I went through a phase where I read all of Peter F. Hamilton because of Steve Gibson on the Security Now podcast. I started Pandora's Star, but it was slow at the beginning, so I ended up reading some of the standalone books first. But then once I finally finished Pandora's Star, I decided it was my favorite, even over book 2 in the duology.

Stephen King most likely, or if not him, Joe Abercrombie.

Nico wrote: "Stephen King most likely, or if not him, Joe Abercrombie."

I came close to binging Abercrombie. I read all the First Law books, but I stumbled on the Shattered Sea trilogy.

Dana wrote: "I had never heard of the Twilight series until the final book was released. It was so nice to read all of them quickly in succession. I have read that series several times now. I have read everythi..."

I should have included Stephenie Meyer in my binge list. After I saw Eclipse, I read everything I could. I recently listened to Midnight Sun too!

I have read all of the Sookie Stackhouse books, but that is all the Harris I've read. I started binging them after watching the 1st season of True Blood.

A few years ago I read my first Neal Stephenson book and proceeded to read about 3 more in a row. I also devoured every book in the Elderlings series after reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb.

Dara sighting!

Five points to Dara!

John (Taloni) wrote: "Five points to Dara!"

Hey! *I* saw her! She *is* her all the time. That’s not fair.

5 points off Trike for complaining 😉

Fair.

I exist! I sporadically return like some mythical forest creature of legend.

Dara wrote: "A few years ago I read my first Neal Stephenson book and proceeded to read about 3 more in a row. I also devoured every book in the Elderlings series after reading [book:Assassin's App..."

Stephenson is one of those authors whose books are so big that just reading one counts as a binge all by itself.

Hahah yes they’re all big books. My favorite was Anathem.

The authors that come to mind for me are Clive Barker, Margaret Atwood, Andrea K. Host, Tracy Chevalier, and Victoria/V.E. Schwab.

To a lesser extent, Tana French and Ruth Ware.

When I discovered Nnedi Okorafor with the Book of Phoenix, I proceed to read her Binti series and Who Fears Death within a month. And then I got to meet her at the Des Moines book festival where I picked up the rest of her books available at the time. I’ve since read Lagoon and Remote Control. Amazing writer.

When I was young (and had more time to read because Netflix and the Internet hadn't been invented yet), the binge was my preferred style of reading -- I'd pick an author (Michael Moorcock, C.J. Cherryh, Tanith Lee, Edgar Rice Burroughs, etc.) and just plow through as many of their books as I could lay hands on, as rapidly as I could.

I actually came close to repeating that last month when I read the entire Horatio Hornblower series by C.S. Forester in about three weeks.

Prior to that, my last major don't-come-up-for-air binge may have been 20-ish years ago when I finally clicked with Discworld, and went on to read 21 Discworld books in 25 days. Or maybe 25 books in 21 days.