Kevin's Watch

On Amazon, they have an interesting feature. They'll tell you how many people, in terms of %, purchased the item you're looking at, and then the four or five others of significance. Here's the layout for RotE:

60% buy A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) by George R.R. Martin $7.99

19% buy The Sword of Truth, Boxed Set I, Books 1-3: Wizard's First Rule, Blood of the Fold ,Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind $15.58

15% buy Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth, Book 1) by Terry Goodkind $7.99

3% buy The Unsuspecting Mage : Book One of the Morcyth Saga by Brian S Pratt $19.95

3% buy the item featured on this page:The Runes of the Earth (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Book 1) by Stephen R. Donaldson $26.95


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OK. Wizard's First Rule? Sword of Truth boxed set? Lord, those books are horrifying examples of fantasy. I get The Storm of Swords - that's a remarkable series. But Terry Goodkind? Sheesh. His philosophizing (granted, I only read one and a half books, and they got worse as I went along) is on par with a second grader. If I were Donaldson, I don't think I'd be able to sleep at night knowing this. At least Terry Brooks isn't also in the list. I think in that event I would start drinking Pinot Noir around 11:00am and continue until midnight.

That's a pretty horrifying page there. It's a wonder SRD hasn't given up in frustration years ago.

It is, but I should have qualified it. That was for the hardcover, which isn't selling much now anyway. (Still...Goodkind???)

The Trade paperback page is much more heartening.

72% buy the item featured on this page:The Runes of the Earth (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Book 1) by Stephen R. Donaldson
10% buy A Man Rides Through by Stephen R. Donaldson $11.16

8% buy Forbidden Knowledge : The Gap Into Vision (Forbidden Knowledge) by Stephen R. Donaldson $7.50

5% buy The Man Who Tried To Get Away by Stephen R. Donaldson $7.99

5% buy The Real Story : The Gap into Conflict (Gap) by Stephen R. Donaldson $7.99

Interestingly, Amazon.co.uk doesn't offer the same stats. Instead, we only get the usual "Customers who bought this item also bought...."

Hardcover:

# The Man Who Killed His Brother; Paperback ~ Stephen Donaldson
# The Man Who Fought Alone; Paperback ~ Stephen Donaldson
# The Man Who Risked His Partner; Paperback ~ Stephen Donaldson
# Ironcrown Moon (Boreal Moon Tale); Paperback ~ Julian May
# Reave the Just: And Other Tales; Paperback ~ Stephen Donaldson

Trade paperback:

# The Man Who Fought Alone; Paperback ~ Stephen Donaldson
# The Man Who Risked His Partner; Paperback ~ Stephen Donaldson
# Ironcrown Moon (Boreal Moon Tale); Paperback ~ Julian May
# Reave the Just: And Other Tales; Paperback ~ Stephen Donaldson
# The Power That Preserves (The Chronicles of Thiomas Covenant, the Unbeliever); Paperback ~ Stephen Donaldson

Mass market:

# Exile's Return (Conclave of Shadows S.); Paperback ~ Raymond E. Feist
# The Real Story (Gap S.); Paperback ~ Stephen Donaldson
# Ironcrown Moon (Boreal Moon Tale); Paperback ~ Julian May
# The Man Who Killed His Brother; Paperback ~ Stephen Donaldson
# Straken (High Druid of Shannara S); Paperback ~ Terry Brooks

Audiobook:

# Eragon; Audio CD ~ Christopher Paolini
# The Time Traveler's Wife; Audio CD ~ Audrey Niffenegger
# Deception Point; Audio CD ~ Dan Brown
# The Algebraist; Paperback ~ Iain M. Banks
# The Da Vinci Code; Audio CD ~ Dan Brown, Jeff Harding (Narrator)

That's what Amazon US used to do. This is relatively new. Pretty cool.

burgs wrote:Terry Goodkind? Sheesh. His philosophizing (granted, I only read one and a half books, and they got worse as I went along) is on par with a second grader.

Only if it's an exceptionally dull second grader who should have been left back.

LOL. Great point. I'll never forget the "poem" he wrote in the first book, I believe. Well, I guess I have forgotten it, because the words escape me, but it had something to do with wizards dancing around a child I think.

Anyway, I reread it and reread it and reread it, and finally just cracked up. I kept thinking, while rereading, that I *had* to be missing something. Nobody would publish anything that bad. After rereading...I realized that it actually sucked. Some idiot allowed that to be printed.

I wanted to show a friend of mine that particular passage, and I thumbed through the pages of the first and second book over and over again, and couldn't find it. Apparently the paperback editors had a bit more sense. Goodkind is an awful writer of fantasy (albeit a rather wealthy one), but that "poem" was worse than anything he ever wrote. My two-day old nephew could write better than that.

It's my theory that Goodkind's books were actually written by an infinite number of monkeys . . . in about 10 minutes flat.

Good theory. Let's find some monkeys and become millionaires.