I was planning on going through my list of reading challenges, see how I’m doing, update them, etc. even before I knew it was the Weekly Geeks challenge for this week. I notice that a lot of other people have said that, too. I think this is coming at a perfect time: June is almost over and that means that half of the year is almost gone (eek… where does the time go?). So, it makes sense to review these, no?

I haven’t been so good about doing updates on these. I’ll count this as an update for all of them, then start working on keeping more up-to-date with these.

Here are the challenges that I’m in right now:

The biggest challenge that I’m in is to read 100 books this year. I’m about to finish 48. I’ll have 50 read by the end of June, which makes me happy. Also, after reviewing the answers everyone gave when I asked “What counts?”, I’ll be expanding what I’m counting for that challenge. I’ll start including all the non-fiction that I read, as well. (Thanks for all the thoughts/suggestions on that one, btw. I posed that question on my blog and a few communities I’m in. It was helpful to get so many different perspectives, especially since a lot of them said much the same thing.)

The Herding Cats challenge is probably the one that I’m doing the most poorly on. I’ve only read one of the three books. I have until November 30th (my wedding anniversary, btw) so I’ve got enough time to get the other two in.

I read all of my books for the Spring Reading Thing 2008 – a lot more quickly than I’d thought, actually. Next time, I’ll have to try for more.

And, finally, we have Weekly Geeks. It’s not required that you participate every week, which is good. I was sick for a while there then got busy and didn’t really have time to do much. But I’m posting this week, aren’t I?

What does the future hold? I really enjoy these challenges, so I hope to join more.

I first came across this series a handful of years back and quickly devoured them. The books are, as you can probably tell, science fiction but they’re not “high” science fiction. I personally don’t enjoy sci-fi that is too into the technology. Don’t get me wrong, fantastic gadgets are… well, fantastic, but I don’t want to read something where I can barely remember what each piece of technology does. I want something that seems believable.

I could actually see all of this happening. It features many major landmarks and addresses things that I have wondered about, as have many others: How is it that there are pyramids not just in Egypt but also in far-away places like Central America? Who made the statues on Easter Island and how did they get there? Why are so many ancient written languages so similar when there’s no way they originated or were even influenced by the same source? What about Stonehenge? How was it created? What was it for? There are many “Atlantis” style stories – how is it that they’re so similar? Did such a place really exist? What about the face on Mars? Are UFOs real? Have we been visited by aliens? If so, why don’t we know about it?

The answer? Not only do aliens exist, but they visited Earth five thousand years ago – at least, that’s how it happened in these books. It was this alien species, the Airlia, who created the pyramids, the face on Mars, the Great Wall of China. Robert Doherty does an excellent job of weaving all of these bits and pieces together with bits of human history.

But are the Airlia really the good guys? Do they want to befriend earth, destroy it, conquer it, or just finally get off of this wretched rock? Each book is fantastic and keeps me wanting to read more. I finished the second book, The Reply, today and plan on finishing the series (although I’m going to probably rotate one of those books at a time with a book outside of the series).

If you have reviewed this book as well, please feel free to email me at thisredheadreads@gmail.com with the link to your review and I will add the link to this post.

I’ve decided to join the Spring Reading Thing 2008. The challenge runs from March 20th to June 19th 2008. I’m a little late in joining but that’s alright. My list probably won’t include EVERYTHING I’ll read during that time. Just some of them.

The list:

• Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
• Enchanted by Nancy Madore
• Leonardo’s Shadow: Or, My Astonishing Life as Leonardo Da Vinci’s Servant by Christopher Grey
• A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb
• Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
• Nobody’s Princess by Esther Friesner
• The Sphinx by Robert Doherty
• The Mission by Robert Doherty
• The Reply by Robert Doherty