[jbcohen]

I would like to address Skylyn's second point about published novels. The only implied guidance here has been that are goals are books rather than magazines and according to what I learned in the retoric of argument class as an undergrad student all arguments should be made from definition and Mirriam and Webster is the arbitur of definitions. According to Mirrriam and Webster a book is: a set of written sheets of skin or paper or tablets of wood or ivory. This defintion never once mentions anything about publication so as long as the book that you have in mind meets two requirements: a) its written on either paper or skin; and 2) is bound together in some manner its a book and is therefore valid for this challenge. If for some reason the book comes appart and is sperated from its bindings in some way it is no longer a book but instead is a group of paper sheets. I have said this before to another forum member who asked if the book could be his own manuscript and according to the definition that Mirriam and Webster gave above yes that is allowed as well.

Personally I am not that scientific about the page numbers I have noticed that each time the percentage on the kindle goes up the number of pages, per my caluclations tends to go up as well by ten percent. Thus one percent tends to be approximatly ten pages, which varries by the book. Using this method I am endevoring to keep my ticker up todate on my progress, which I am proud to say is considerably ahead of where I need to be at this time of the year. Since I tend to read a lot of very big books my book count is laging, however in page count I am doing very well.

I have completed March to the Coast and instead of diving streight into volume three I was taken a side track to Eric Flint's the Baltic War which is slow going but seems to be holding my interest a good deal of the time. I still have the reaminder of the empire of man and the remainder of the polseen war to read through. So I have no shortage of things to hold me at the current junction.

Completed Baltic War yesturday and I am going through the third of the Empire of Man series, March to the Stars. I seem to be able to go through 2% of the book on my commute to the office and another 2% on the way home, so my progress will depend on how much I can get through on my lunch break and through out the day. March to the Stars is starting out real well. At the moment I am approximatly 10% into the book and it seems that the Marines have just gotten within site of land. I am anticpating the fight for a ship to take them home towards the end of the book. However for now I am going through a bit of diversions in the novel. It seems that they have been discussing religious bigotry of the past, our current time period. I will probably read the last of the series, We few directly after going through this book. I would imagine that that would probably be next month before I get to it as I have a Deathland and an Outlands books to read through this month, will have more next month as well.

I have been making a lot of headway in the current book - March to the Stars, as well as the Outland's book that I picked up in printed form, I have this real bias towards electronic books so much to my own disappointment none of the outlands books are available in electronic form as yet or via the Harlaquin/Golden Eagle/Worldwide Library readers service. I kind of wish they were available via the readers service. I am a bit over 25% read in that book.