Okay, since it's coming up on that time. . . who has suggestions for next year's challenge? (And if you suggested stuff in the challenge discussion threads, feel free to just repost.) What categories do you want next year? How many categories do you want next year? Are there any categories you want carried over from this year? Do you like the way the discussion was structured (by month) or would you rather have it structured differently (like by category, or have topics like "I'm reading" "I've finished" "I recommend" "I don't recommend" and "Questions," or something totally brilliant I haven't thought of)? And does anyone object to having it start in January 2011 and running through the end of the year?

I am excited about new challenge ideas, but I admit I don't have any good ones. 

How would you guys feel about a sequence of maybe five 10-book challenges?  For example, start with a 10-book major subgenre challenge, then a 10-book award challenge, then a 10-book author challenge, then a 10-book decade challenge, etc.  That way people with less time for reading sf would still have the fun of scrambling to complete a challenge, and those with more time could continue to participate after finishing.

-Tom Hl.

 maybe five 10-book challenges

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Sounds good.  It might lead to more discussion about the books, which would be great.  However, I don't want to be stuck reading for instance, an author I don't particularly like, or a subgenre I don't particularly enjoy.  So, if those 10-book challenges could be open to readers choice, that would be cool.

I like the way the 2010 discussion was structured.  I would wish for more book discussion (or critique) and I want to know if the reader would recommend the book.

Other 10-book challenges:

ten new authors you've never read before

ten anthologies

ten novellas

ten runner-ups to the Hugo Award (or the award of your choice)

I am slowly making my way into the Science Fiction genre. However, I do like where you guys are going. I enjoyed the monthly discussion threads but maybe we should tone down some of the challenges and make it 5 books but more categories. I like Alison's post about runner's up and so forth that could be fun. Some boards do an alphabet challenge but I can not say that is the most interesting concept in the world. I do like the decade idea. That could be interesting. Another idea might be have a communal list that everyone nominates one "must read" and the group reads that. I dunno just throwing some stuff out there. The categories last year were quite extensive and even though I did not finish the challenge yet (I still have time!) for a newbie it was a great resource to have in order to get a full perspective of the genre.

 maybe five 10-book challenges

Maybe some 5-book challenges 

I would love to participate in five 5-book challenges.  After 5 books I am wanting a new topic.  I realize that 10-books seems more of a "challenge" for some of us, so maybe there could be both types of challenges going......and lots of discussions of the books read.

Anybody want to throw out a number as to how many books (total) you want to count as "complete" for the challenge in 2011? Personally, I found 40 just a leeeetle bit too long, so I had to make use of my option to double-count five books. But I know that a couple people were finished months ago. . . so where do you all stand? And do you like the idea of having "tiers" to the challenge -- light, regular, super like the fantasy challenge -- or a smaller main challenge and a bunch of bonuses?

Yes, 40 was too many for me, since I do not read exclusively science fiction.  I do like the format of the fantasy challenge, but I'm not real picky about it.

During the year of our recent challenge, I read a total of 70 books.  I counted 56 in the challenge (40 basic, 11 overachiever, and 5 personal categories).  That left 14 that did not count at all, because they were either rereads (10), or non-sf (4).  I should mention that I counted any type of sf in the challenge, not just science fiction.

For me, 40-50 in a year's time seemed about right.

I like the idea of staged challenge for the year (10, 20, 30, etc.), but I also think we might consider shorter-term challenges (10 in 3 months, for example). 

Need to be careful not to make it so flexible that there is no challenge to it.  I enjoy the hunting/scrambling to fill a required category.

-Tom Hl.

Any thoughts on including categories sort of ancillary to the genre? For instance, a graphic novel category, or a non-genre novel by a genre author, or a "literary" SF novel (meaning one that is usually shelved in the Fiction/Literature section instead of in the SF/Fantasy section at bookstores), or a non-fiction book about science fiction? (Don't know if that last one would have enough options though. . .)

What exactly is the "SF Challenge"?  It sounds like an interesting concept, from what I'm reading here.  Monthly SF categories are posted, in which we need to read x amount of books inthat SF category during the allotted period?

There seems also to be more to it than that, and I'm not sure - can someone explain the Challenge to me?  (I went to read back on the 2010 Challenge to find out more what they are about, but there are about 100 Challenge discussion topics and I have NO CLUE which one to start with to begin to find out more Challenge mechanics/basics and rules.)

This year the challenge consisted of 40 categories, and you had to read one book (new to you) in each category within the span of 12 months (it actually ran from Nov. 1st, 2009 to Oct. 31st, 2010). If that was too many, or you *really* hated a category, you could double-count books (meaning count a single book in two categories) five times, so the minimum # of books you had to read was 35. Then somewhere around month 7 or 8 a few people were already DONE (overachievers!) so we came up with 11 bonus categories that people could also read a book in.

The challenge list can be found in the first post of the Tracking Thread; the definitions of the subgenres can be found in the first post of the October Discussion Thread.

I'm putting together another challenge for next year (meaning it will run from Jan. 1st, 2011 to Dec. 31st, 2011) -- after you've checked out what the challenge looked like this year, please come back and say what you'd like to see for next year! :)

Last couple days to get your suggestions/request in. . . I'll be posting the 2011 challenge Dec. 1st!

You mean we have to sit on this list for a month before we start? Awwww...!

Well, you *could* just ignore the thread for the month. . . ;)

All right, folks, we're off! List thread is here: http://www.paperbackswap.com/forum/topic.php?t=222596

Discussion thread, with explanations of all the categories is here: http://www.paperbackswap.com/forum/topic.php?t=222595

And this year to make things easier I will include links to the previous related posts at the top of each month's thread.

I repent! Filling out these lists is going to take me *at least* a month.