An Introduction, or, How This Thing Is Going to Work

So, the new year has dawned at last, and I find myself staring down a long, daunting path. I made a promise to myself, way back in August, to read all 100 of NPR's top 100 sci-fi and fantasy books.

I also failed horribly at my first go, so I decided to start a blog and risk public humiliation if I failed this time around.

So as to further shame myself, I'm also going to lay down some ground rules:

1) Every Monday through Friday, I will read four different books for a minimum of one hour each. Four because four hours sounds challenging but doable with the right motivation. Also I expect that some of the books will fail to capture my fancy, and if I'm juggling a few then I'm more likely to have a small beacon of hope in the dark, unending slog.

2) I will then post my progress in each book for each day, along with a brief summary of my feelings towards what I read. And by brief I mean anywhere between one sentence and several paragraphs of ranting belligerence.

3) Over the weekend I'll create a kind of summary report, kind of the Reader's Digest version of my week. I'll also be sharing the other books I've been reading, which will probably be anything but sci-fi and fantasy unless I go really and truly nuts.

4) Yes, I will be reading sequels and prequels, up to a certain point. I realize this is crazy, but I do have reasons for including this rule. Sometimes a book ends up becoming a classic on the strength of the universe it spawns and not necessarily for its own quality. Sometimes it doesn't make sense to read only the first one. Sometimes the list names an entire series and I have no choice. And sometimes I really am just a masochist who likes making things harder for herself.

5) This project has a definite start date (that'd be tomorrow, Monday, 2 January 2012), but no definite end date. With the number of books I'm going to be reading, well, it's not getting finished in a year, that's for sure.

As for who the heck I am, well, my name is Victoria, and I'll be your entertainment for... as long as this takes. I have the privilege of leading a life of relative leisure, seeing as my husband is the breadwinner around here and doing housework in our apartment is kind of like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. I do try sometimes, but this place is a wreck and nothing I can do will change that. Really, the truth is just that I have quite a bit of discretionary time and not always a whole lot to fill it.

So, that about sums it up for now. If anyone other than spambots ends up reading this, I hope you come visit again soon, if only to laugh at me when I fail horribly again.