Category: (Y-14)

Numbers: August 9, 2021

It is Monday once again, and I only have one question to myself.

Did you achieve this week’s goal?

And the answer

For the second week in a row my weekly reading goal, was really close, 1,009 of the 1,246 pages, those 237 pages put a dent on my total progress, nothing to be concern, but still, not how I like to finish the week.

But focusing on what I did achieved, the ninth book of the year, Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, first of the trilogy of the war against the thinking machines, some 10,000 years before the events of the original novel, it’s done, and the next book on the trilogy, Dune: The Machine Crusade is well under way, I am currently on page 210 of 701, its starting date is today, a good head start, not as big as the pass few weeks, but I’ll take any advantage.

Drama aside, it was a really good week, my current total is 11,966 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s 1,311 more than last week, sometimes this can be tricky, for example, I finish the Dune book early in the week, but the bulk of my reading was the week before, and with only the things that I finish go into the registered pages files, that total get registered later, I know, it’s somewhat complicated, that’s why I put and explanation on my about page. By the way, my total for August, with only 9 days, of 1,337 pages, that’s a quarter of the pages done .

The good thing is that my end of the year projection of total pages had a bit of a positive push forward, it’s now 68,431 pages, still way above the projected total for the year, and 1,194 more pages that last week’s projection. My reading schedule, much to my surprise, stayed ahead, only by 3 days , better than last week, a perfect sign of things moving forward in the big picture.

The best indicator of this steady, almost hum drum pace on my progress is the numbers of the broader picture, the thing that keeps me up at night reading, so I said to myself, well this fortunately since the beginning of the year has only move forward .The second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, the weekly average needed is now 1,933 with a daily average of 276 pages, little by little this has gone down from over 2,000 pages per week, more than 300 pages per day.

Now for the first 500,000 pages, I have only 137,460 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is June 22, 2026, 16 days sooner than last week, still my sights are pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, that gap narrowed by 13 days, and now I am only 1,191 days behind schedule.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 8,245 days away, a 36 day gain from the last week, making the end date is March 6, 2044, that’s 4,658 days after the original plan, 29 days less that the last projection, this marks the second week that I gained at least 1 month of time, this week’s crazy goal is to enter the year 2043, about 3 months of progress.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

  • Pages to reach 500,000: 137,460 pages
  • Days to reach 1,000,000: 8,245 days
  • Days behind schedule: 4,658 days

This turn out to be an surprising week, some celebratory drinks are in order.

Off to read.

azr.

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869 pages

With the risk of falling short on my reading for the second week in a row, I have decided to take this gargantuan task head on.

I am 869 pages away from thus week’s goal, that’s 435 pages each day, at least 70 of those pages must be from Dune: The Machine Crusade, still have a deadline to meet.

To help me along this monumental task, I’ll ask assistance from the Children of the Atom, in the now classic series Messiah Complex.

I am about 100 pages from the end of Messiah Complex. Messiah War and Second Coming are around 300 pages from each, more than enough for a really fun, paged filled weekend.

Off to read.

azr.

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9 down, 43 to go

As part of getting this week’s reading back on track, I just finished the ninth book of the year, Dune: The Butlerian Jihad.

The events depicted in this book happened 10,000 years before the original series by Frank Herbert, there’s an conflict between the sentient machines and the league of human planets.

Some of the coolest things in the story is the introduction of the League of the Nobles, the first glimpse into the famous houses we see later in the story,not to spoil anything, but the shock of seeing the origin of House Atreides still is roaming in my mind.

Also, the first hints of the use of Spice, with just a bit of the nomadic people of Arrakis, riding sandworms and all.

And lastly, the thinking machines from the ubiquitous Omnius, to the brutal Erasmus, and the war hungry Titans, knowed as cymeks which are humans minds transplanted to robotic bodies, the panoply of characters are the perfect menacing force.

To continue with this amazing series, written by the son of the late Frank Herbert, Brian, and Kevin J. Anderson, the author of the Saga of the Seven Suns, I’ll read thr next short story in the timeline, The Whipping Mek, published in the companion book The Road to Dune.

And then the next of the trilogy, Dune: The Machine Crusade.

And to make this weekend more interesting, and get back on track with my reading schedule, my task is to read at least 354 pages each day, this morning started with a good pace, 44 pages, let’s keep it up.

Off to read.

azr.

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Rocky start for week nine

The last two days have not been really productive. I have sum-up the staggering amount of 31 pages, Monday was particularly troublesome, with just 1 page of progress.

I started today 503 pages behind schedule, including today’s quota of 178 pages. The only thing that’s still right on schedule is this week’s book, just reading 30 pages per day, I’ll finish with it by Sunday

What’s life without a bit of a challenge, hopefully today my total will be more than 30. I predict an intense weekend filled with caffeine and late nights.

Off to read.

azr.

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Numbers: August 2, 2021

In spite my best efforts, this is not a completely happy Monday, and as you can see, I am a bit late with my post.

I just snapped a three week run of reaching my weekly reading goal, I was really close, 1,191 of the 1,246 pages, a measly 55 pages. But focusing on what I could achieve, the eight of the year Exhalación by Ted Chiang, was done with ages ago, as I posted last week, and this week’s book, Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, is well under way, I am currently on page 438 of 619, its starting date is today, so one positive thing to be happy about.

Now with all the drama behind, because honestly, it was a really good week, let’s get down to business, my current total is 10,655 of the 64,952 pages of this year’s goal, that’s 951 more than last week, as I said, it was a pretty solid week and end of the month, my total for July was 6,188 , that’s 670 pages over the projected total of 5,518, again I start a new month with positive numbers .

Being the not so productive week my projection for the total at the end of the year, which was 71,033 total pages last, went down to 67,237 pages, still way above the projected total for the year, but I must not get to comfortable. My reading schedule, much to my surprise, stay ahead, only by 1 day ahead, but better that start falling behind.

As always my main concern is that the broader picture, with this not so luscious weeks, will start to show some step backs, fortunately this was not the case. On the ever watchful numbers for the second part of the journey, or the other 500,000 pages, the weekly average needed is now 1,949 with a daily average of 278 pages, this year I’m averaging around 187 daily pages, hence the need to get those numbers down as much as possible.

Now for the first 500,000 pages, I have only 138, 7741 pages left, and the new date of reaching that goal is July 7, 2026, 6 days sooner than last week, still my sights are pointed at March 20, 2023 as the desired date to reach the first half of the challenge, and my new obsession is closing the gap on those 1,204 days behind schedule.

Now for the golden prize of 1,000,000 pages, to my delight, the projections puts it 8,281 days away, a 20 day gain from the last week, making the end date is April 5, 2044, that’s 4,687 days after the original plan, 13 days less that the last projection, this kind of steady momentum keeps me pushing to reach that coveted goal. The goal is to each and every week bring down the end date by at least 1 month.

To summary the numbers from my Journey Back.

  • Pages to reach 500,000: 138,771 pages
  • Days to reach 1,000,000: 8,281 days
  • Days behind schedule: 4,687 days

Now to get things back on track

Off to read.

azr.

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6 hours

With little under 6 hours to close-out the eight week of reading in the fourteen year of this project, I don’t want to snap the momentum of the last three week of getting pass the weekly reading goal.

I wanted to also finish the first book of the Prequel trilogy of the massive science fiction classic Dune, The Butlerian Jihad, since today was the last to finish the previous book, Exhalación by Ted Chiang, and tomorrow the starting date of the Dune book, the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge is perfectly cover, basically I am one week ahead schedule in that regard.

With this in mind, I will focus on getting the 1,246 weekly pages, right now the total sits at 1,014, a very doable 232 pages.

To help me along this first leg, I’ll continue with issues three and four of the really trippy Dark Knights: Death Metal, let’s see what Mr. Snyder has in store for us.

To that, I’ll add as much as I can from The Butlerian Jihad, the dream would be to finish it today, but 204 pages in 5 hours is quite the challenge.

Off to read.

azr.

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The impossible feat

This has been a very hectic day, and although I had a good reading session over my morning coffee, the numbers are not quite there.

With a few hours left on this Saturday this is how things are, on Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, I’m near at the halfway point , on page 280 of 619, and with the intention of finishing tomorrow, there’s a lot of ground to cover.

On the total of the week, there’s still 472 pages ahead of me, with a pretty decent pile of graphic novels to read this number can go down pretty fast.

It’s time to chip away on the book to try and be close to 200 pages left for tomorrow.

Off to read.

azr.

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52.16%

As I enter the weekend, my reading can be only describe as underwhelming.

I just read 650 of the 1,246 goal for the week, hence the 52.16%, and on this week’s book, Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, currently on page 177 of 614, the progress is not quite what it should be, close to 450 pages.

Considering that thanks to the other weeks amazing reading there’s almost a week of cushion to keep the 52 books in 52 weeks project in time, there’s still not a red flag, but for my vision and comfort, this book should be done my Sunday night.

Today I’ll close out as strong as I can, probably leave around 200 pages for each of the weekend days, and in between squeeze some of the new graphic novels from this week’s loot.

Let’s see how this day closes out.

Off to read.

azr.

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Fear is the mind killer

“I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Lithany against fear, Dune by Frank Herbert

I read the original novel around 2006, and although I loved it, as well all of its incarnations in the silver screen, the time was not right for me to jump into what us considered the Science Fiction counterpart of Lord of the Rings.

Well that time has arrived, and I have the full intention of going thru every single piece of story I can get my hands on .

For this particular endeavor my decision was to go chronologically, and with the help of a very handy list provided by the official website of the series, dune novels.

Image taken from https://dunenovels.com/chronological-order-of-dune-books/

As you can see in the picture above, my journey starts some 10,000 years before the original novel with the short story Hunting Harkonnens, in my case is contained in The Road to Dune, and the novel Butlerian Jihad, both written by the dynamic duo of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

Off to read.

azr.

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8 down, 44 to go

I was supposed to start reading the latest collection of stories by the brilliant Ted Chiang today, but as my reading has caught quite the rythm, I jumped right into the next task.

Needless to say this amazing collection just flow through my hands like water, and all the hype around it is, in my humble opinion, not even close what these beautiful stories are.

My first contact with a story by the highly awarded writer was thru the movie The Arrival, which consequently thus not appear in this particular collection, I was so intrigued by the use of time as one of the characters in the story that I had to read more.

I was not disappointed, and in a way the fact that Mr. Chiang has written so few stories is even more endearing, it makes them precious little rare jewels that shine brightly.

My personal favorite story was the Exhalación, which also give its name to the collection, the self awareness of fragility and hopefulness is not only for human beings, and that tough fills me with hope for the future.

To finish this book is even sweeter because thanks to it I just crossed the 10,000-page mark, and with a whole week of extra time for the next book, this year is only just started.

So what’s next for my reading?

I’ll literally, keep you post it.

Off to read.

azr.

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