Kindle sample
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.
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.