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Krakatoa Go Go


Members
��Alysa
��Megan
��Erin *Proud Book Hoarder*
��Mary, Mary, Just a bit contrary

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Good Morning!

(just thought I'd post these here as an alternate viewing option from the spreadsheet)

10 first published on the 10th of a month
9 with at least nine characters (need to have a speaking part, do not need to be main characters)
8 that has a carnivorous animal on the cover
7 written by an author who has published at least seven books (as listed on ŷ������)
6 that is number six in the series
5 that was first published in the 1950s
4 where the audio version has at least four narrators
3 that is part of what was originally a planned trilogy, but became a longer series (can include .5 books added later)
2 that has two authors (as credited on ŷ������)
1 which is the author's debut novel

So this ends 2 days after I am getting married. I don't know how much I'll contribute that last 2 weeks. It will really depend on the tasks for that round. I should be able to find some shorter books to cover a task or two and then I might not be much help on the spell outs.

It's a 2nd marriage for both of us and we are just having an indoor BBQ and the whole thing is pretty much planned and set other than a few minor details. Plus we already live together. So I should at least have audio book or a little reading time.

ETA: I'm in Massachusetts on EST.

OK, so far I have a potential book for every task but 3 & 4. I could probably find something for 4, I haven't looked yet. I know I have a couple but they are Audible freebies that were only produced on audio and so no usable page count.

#3 has me stumped. How do you even look for that one?

Congrats on getting married, Mary!

I'm going to wait until closer to the challenge start date to do much planning since I'm not sure what I'll be reading between now and then yet.

I feel like I have recently come across something that would fit #3. I need to try to figure out what it was...

Sorry I am a little MIA until I get back from vacation!
Normally I am in NYC (EST) but I am in France until 4 Aug :)

The 1950s one will be tricky for me. There is not much I would like to read from those days.

Mary, Mary, Just a bit contrary wrote: "OK, so far I have a potential book for every task but 3 & 4. I could probably find something for 4, I haven't looked yet. I know I have a couple but they are Audible freebies that were only produce..."

Mary... spy on the other I mean check out the other team threads. I believe Sonia made a couple of suggestions in our thread.

OH I always troll other teams. But since I don't have to read all of these, I probably won't unless I have to.

I'll lay dibs on the 1950's task. I like books from that era.

Should I claim it on the spreadsheet? How are going to handle that? Everyone updates or just one person?

I think it’ll be good if everyone can update. There’s only 4 of us so it won’t get crazy.
We could maybe create a separate planning spreadsheet too, for claims and ideas and whatnot.

Most don't look that difficult, although this one is going to take a little research

3 that is part of what was originally a planned trilogy, but became a longer series (can include .5 books added later)


I can do this one though. Ilona Andrew's Hidden Legacy series was originally meant to be a trilogy but in the second book they decided to continue it, and the fourth book in that series is coming out August 27. They have come out with a .5 book already last year too for it.

Hm, BUT it won't be until the 27th release which may be too late to use that series. Hm. All of these tasks need to be done the first week, correct?

I think they just need to be done, period, before we can move into the Safezone? I need to reread the rules.

I am also wondering: we cannot do any of the Safezones until we finish the initial 10 tasks, but I assume this just means we cannot *finish* books for the safezones until we have logged all 10 initial tasks. Like, say for example we have completed 8 out of the 10, with me (Alysa) and Megan still finishing up the final 2, while Erin and Mary go on ahead with reading for the LAVA spell-it-out.
We might need some clarification.

Re Task #3: it may have been Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series I was thinking of?

I'm still a little confused on the rules.

I think the planning spreadsheet is a great idea. You could even just copy the one we have that we can put our books into and then someone can put the info in the main one. Unless someone has a better idea for a planning sheet layout. I'm good at using spreadsheets but no so much at setting them up. I know how, I just can never decide how to lay them out.

LOL, I just reread the rules and I am still confused. But mostly just on the spell out and bonus "safe zone" stuff. But I think Alysa is right in that we can't read the safe zone stuff until all of the tasks are done. So it's definitely beneficial to get the 10 tasks done quickly so there's more time to the safe zone stuff for spell outs.

I already own some books set in the 1950's and they're fairly short. So I have no problem taking that one.

What level did we sign up for? How many books as a group do we need to read? I normally average 2-3 books a week and 5-6/week when doing these types of team challenges. Especially if I can use shorter books. I am feeling a bit of team challenge burnout but that probably won't last long. I probably won't read in the few days off between Wheel ending and this one starting.

We signed up for Crater. I added some #s to the 2nd tab of our spreadsheet.
We have until the end of Round 1 to change levels if need be.

I can’t do much spreadsheeting until after the vacation, but Erin is a Spreadsheet queen. ;)

Ha, I wish! I'm happy to help out though, love spreadsheets ;)

This sounds good to me:
Crater: 21-40 books

So we need to each average 10 books in 2 weeks. That's very doable for me. I've been speed reading a lot of door stoppers lately. It will be nice to read some shorties.

If we went up to the next level, we'd have to read 60 for a chance at the top spot. I could pull off more than 10 books in 2 weeks if I needed to but probably not the last round. I also don't think I want the pressure of that. Of course, I'll feel the opposite if we knock out our max books quickly. Then I'll be next level up! Lets go for it!

Do the page numbers count for these books like other team challenges?

Not that I can see. Just has be at least 100 pages. If this was a points based on book length challenge, I probably would have skipped playing.

It was confirmed in the questions thread that safe zone books cannot be started until the tasks are done. So probably a good idea to avoid any big door stoppers for the 10 tasks unless the person knows they can get through it fairly quickly. Also no books started before Aug 12.

Just scrolled through my audible stash and found one that has 3 narrators but not 4.

I just listened to one that had a full cast recording, American Gods. If only I had known.

eta: I found a book for task #4. So at this point I have a potential for all but #3. I'll wait and see what you need me to cover.

Bummer on not even *starting* safezone books until initial tasks are done. BUT this means more fancy teamwork which is kinda cool!
Not all of us read at the same pace, and not all of us are necessarily good at finding short books (or fast books, which is not always the same thing 😉) so we will definitely need to coordinate well.

BTW, I changed the spreadsheet permissions to “anyone with the link can edit�� —sorry I did not realize that that wasn’t set up before.
If we don’t want it “public�� like that because the link is right there on our team thread, the rest of you can PM me with your email addies and I will add you individually instead... Or, if you now have sharing permissions too, add yourself individually, and when you are all done we can turn off the “anyone with the link can edit�� thingy.

Sounds good Alysa.

It will be nice to have a challenge to look forward to once Wheel ends.

I'm sure we can coordinate well between the four of us.

I’m here! Didn’t know team posts had been created.

Here's an explanation given in the questions thread about how to read books for this.

From the Mod account:

You start the countdown stage. You must complete 10-1 before starting any books for the safezone stage. After all, you are in Lava.
You jump out of the lava and hit the safezone. So now you can start books for any of the safe zone groups ; but you can't complete them concurrently. So you can start a book for safezone group 1 and 2 at the same time, but provided your team complete safezone group 1 before you complete your book for safezone group 2. That is perfectly fine to then use that book for group 2.

They also confirmed that books cannot be carried over to the next round. So if you start a book for a safe zone task and don't finish it, you can't then finish reading it for a round 2 lava or safe zone task.

Okay, got it. I remember the old couch game avoiding lava, so it does make sense to have to finish getting out of the lava first. Still I have the bad habit of reading several at once so will have to be sure not to start ones I planned until the right time.

megan wrote: "I’m here! Didn’t know team posts had been created."

Hi! *waves*
Sorry if my PM did not come through w/my spotty internet this week!

Erin, I do the same thing with reading multiple books at once. At least we can read multiple books for the first task set at once and then multiple safe zone books at once.

After Wheel of Brown I am looking forward reading some shorter books. We got classics this week. Ugh.

We got Space Opera, which made one of our teammates happy, but isn't something I normally read.

My team is all giddy about classics. I would have been happy with Space Opera. I think. I didn't mind psychological at all until I started looking at books that were on the first 25 pages of the shelf but then the shelf wasn't on the first 100 genres list for the book.

In general I’m not a big fan of fantasy. I can do science fiction, but need a break because I get worlds and universes mixed up. Especially with so many made up places and creatures and names. With shifters twice, retellings, alien and now space opera, I have read more fantasy these last two months than I did the 12 months prior.

I read this rule wrong. We do have to completely spell out LAVA and as craters 2 of those books need to have been either read for this game for another team or be a BOM.

Mary, Mary, Just a bit contrary wrote: "I missed this about safe zone 1: looks like if we do crater level then we only need to read 2 books for safe zone 1 but they both have to be ones that either another team read for this game or a cu..."

Is it that we only HAVE TO do 2 books for safe zone 1, or could we choose to do 4 and still get the points if we wanted to?

That I do not know. I don't really understand safe zone 3. But I think we get to pick any word from on of the initial 10 tasks to spell out.

This if from the rules and if I read it right, we can jump right to safe zone 3.

Countdown Stage
At the start of round 1, all players start reading for the 10 tasks.
About half way through the round, the team has completed the 10 tasks and can now move to Safe Zone Stage.
The team decide to complete group 1 and spell out LAVA.
Once this is completed they don't have much time left, so they decide to move to group 3, and skip the group 2 bonus tasks.
Group 3 enables them to spell-it-out any of the words used in the tasks. They choose to spell out "C-O-V-E-R" (from task 8) and T-R-I-L-O-G-Y (from task 3) and then try to squeeze in A-N (from task 7), but won't make it in time, so instead change it to A (from task 8) which they finish before the end of the round. This gives them points for each letter.

If I'm right then if we do tasks 1 and 2 we have to follow the parameters set up for crater at minimum before we can move on to the next safezone. If we start a safezone, we cannot move on to another safe zone unless it's finished by those parameters. But we do not have to do the safe zones in order. We can choose to do 3 first. There's just penalties if a zone is started and not finished. Also it says you if you are reading for multiple zones at a time, you need to finish the books for one before finish books for another.

So if we start safe zone 1 and one of us starts a book for safe zone 2, they can't finish those zone 2 books before all the books in 1 are done.

In my thinking and please let me know if I am interpreting this wrong: For our category we can finish up to 40 books.

Tasks=10
Safe 1=4
Safe 2=4

That's 18 books. That leaves us with 22 letters for a spellout. The word we spell must be completed for any of the books to count.

We could spell carnivorous (11 letters). It's the only word I am spotting that has more than one of the higher point letters (V & U).

if we save 3 for last, then we can pick a shorter word based on how much time is left in the round. I have a book with a character named Xavier if we wanted to spell SIX.

I just read it again and we do have to completely spell out LAVA if we do that task. But as Craters we only need to make 2 of those books be previous BOM or books another team has read. For zone 2 the tasks need to be completed by at least 2 players.

Mary, Mary, Just a bit contrary wrote: "I just read it again and we do have to completely spell out LAVA if we do that task. But as Craters we only need to make 2 of those books be previous BOM or books another team has read. For zone 2 ..."

I'd gladly read a past BOM. My copy of Dry might just be available by then. lol.

Alysa wrote: "The 1950s one will be tricky for me. There is not much I would like to read from those days."

I think Lolita is from the 50's and it's been on my TBR list since 2015.

Mary, Mary, Just a bit contrary wrote: "In my thinking and please let me know if I am interpreting this wrong: For our category we can finish up to 40 books.

Tasks=10
Safe 1=4
Safe 2=4

That's 18 books. That leaves us with 22 letters ..."

This is all great math. For safe zone three, we could also potentially spell “text�� to get another X in there. I have a couple of X books (title or character) that I didn’t end up reading during Wheel.

If we don’t have to use BOMs and other teams�� books for all 4 of the “LAVA�� (safe zone 1), I have a V book that I am super excited to read ASAP :)

I think one of the biggest tricks will be to time the initial 10 tasks so that we are all finished at the same time. Once each of us knows what our best book options are for those tasks, we can plan by working backwards on the timeline of whatever our fastest and/or most prolific member of that zone thinks they will be covering (this person and/or their speed may change from round to round, too).

Does that make sense or am I half asleep?

Re safe zone 2:
Crater: at least 2 team members need to complete at least 1 task

This seems too easy, doesn’t it? Like, as long as one of us doesn’t read for all 4 tasks, we’re good? Easy.
If we are reading for safe zones concurrently (as long as we do not finish concurrently, I know!) we could have just 2 people reading shortish books for safe zone 2, while the other 2 people start chunksters for zone 3...

Lots of strategizing already! I haven't been able to get on until this evening but reading the comments.

The ones reading for safe zone 2 just can't finish before all the books for safe zone 1 are done.

OK, I see that we can spell out more than one word. So we could do Six, Text and another word: maybe Audio. Gives us a U and exactly 12 letters with the 3.

I had checked out a book from the 50's and just looked at it and it's over 700 pages. So go ahead and take the 50's task Megan.

The only task I have looked for is #3. I might have one and not realize it. I'll probably troll some threads unless someone else wants dibs on that one.

I trolled some other threads and picked up a tip for #3. Search goodreads for "trilogy #4" and it brought up a whole bunch of books. I own one.

So at this point I have at least one potential title for each of the initial 10. So I'll wait and see who calls dibs on which tasks. I can probably get 2 of them done within 4 days. Depending on what time it starts. I can't find that info.

And now I have done enough prep to let it go for now.

(I think I have some sort of weird form of OCD that compels me to over plan for things like this that have no impact on my actual life but not so much for big important things)

I paused my Audible romance account to cut back on expenses. But I just signed up for Kindle Unlimited because of this game. It's free for 3 months for Prime members. Should be a good source of short books.

Of interest for expanded “trilogies��: