Kindle sample

[prog]

Needing a break, I opened my phone's Kindle app to see what it recommended for me. Unsurprisingly, there was more Stross: The Android's Dream. OK, it's been a couple of months since my last thing by Charlie, so noting a "Try a Sample" button, I tapped it, and settled down to enjoy the novel's first chapter.

It was entirely about butts and farts. It was clearly butts and farts as written by one of my favorite contemporary SF authors, mind you, but I couldn't help but wonder if Amazon was now in the habit of editing books' sample chapters so that they centered on topics known to be of interest to the sampling customer, perhaps based on their own blogging history or something.

Anyway: sold.

Edit: cnoocy correctly points out that the novel is by Scalzi, not Stross. He happens to be another one of my favorite modern SF writers, and while both mix a lot of humor into their stories, I'm now embarrassed to not be able to tell one from another after a whole chapter of text.

I bought the book while very sleepy (still am), but this is definitely an error that could only happen with online book buying. Interesting. Kinda.

Comments

[cnoocy]

The Android's Dream is by John Scalzi, not Charlie Stross. And the rest of it is less about butts and farts, but it does stay pretty wacky throughout.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, how embarrassing. Noted, thanks.

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

Android's Dream is one Scalzi that I've never read, although he cops often to the butt/fart aspect of it. I am surprised that you can't tell them apart as I think they each have a distinctive style, although maybe the Stross ones about the lovecraftian government agency do have that silly vibe.

I've been using Stanza for my ipod touch, and am thrilled at how just plain readable things are, although so far I have not paid for any content (which leaves me with a lot of stross, doctorow and rucker)

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I get them confused too, but I've never read any fiction by either.

[katre50.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, Android's Dream gets better.

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

Honestly I thought it started off pretty strong. There's nothing shameful about a well-placed fart joke. And I'm not just saying that because Zero Punctuation has been mentioned twice this week in my blogo-periphery.