A Stake Through the Heart of The Rules

Well, I try hard to learn from my mistakes.  I very often fail.

In an attempt to avoid the same problems I had in the 1980's with books like Cyteen, I made the hard decision to abandon yet another of my self-imposed rules.  The die that I have lived and died by for so long know, must depart.  The length of the Hugo Winners have been steadily increasing with the 1980's shaping up to be require of me more pages read than the 1970's despite the fact that I've only read five titles in print edition!  The 1990's are looking to do the same thing to me.

You know I've been working exhaustively to ensure I can finish this challenge in time.  Sadly,  to leave my reading schedule for the rest of the year up to the die, would be asking for failure.

Are you still reading or are you tearing up?

So, I had to do the unthinkable - plot in advance to break The Rules.  So I decided to plan ahead and choose my reading schedule based on the length of each title and the availablity of audiobook or print formats from my library (somehow no library in the area has Barrayar - WTF?!).  Premeditated, cold-blooded, wanton rule breaking.  So here's how it all worked out:

Week	Title	Format
1	The Vor Game	Audiobook
	A Fire Upon the Deep	Print
2	Doomsday Book	Print/Kindle
	Green Mars	Audiobook
3	Doomsday Book	Print/Kindle
	Green Mars	Audiobook
4	Green Mars
	Forever Peace	Print
5	To Say Nothing of the Dog	Print/Kindle
6	To Say Nothing of the Dog
	Hyperion	Audiobook
7	Blue Mars	Print/Kindle
	Hyperion	Audiobook
8	Blue Mars	Print/Kindle
9	Blue Mars
	Barrayar	Audiobook
10	Diamond Age	Print/Kindle
11	Diamond Age
	Mirror Dance	Audiobook

Once I had broken the rules, I guess I was pretty quickly desensitized to the brutality of the act and I did my nerd thing that I love to do (I hope you can see it better when you click it):

So that's that.  I've got about a week and a half to finish up the 80's and it's looking like it won't be a problem.  Just over two decades left.  How exciting right ;)

Oh, and the Space Coast Marathon falls on the beginning of Week 6 so I was happy I could take it easy in week 5.