Really, Steve? Really?

Oh, for Pete's sake.

Wesley Smith buys an Amazon Kindle to keep his mind off his recent nasty breakup, but he finds that his version is no ordinary e-reading device. Smith's Kindle has a special Ur option, which reveals the future and all the works his favorite authors have written in parallel dimensions. However, when the Ur delivers news of terrible events on the way, Smith must decide if he should interfere in fate. While King can certainly spin a good story, the Amazon Kindle focus (the story was written exclusively for and can only be read on an Amazon Kindle) keeps this one feeling like an advertising gimmick.

Let's see--why, do you think?  Maybe because...it is one?  I mean, I like the Kindle and all, but this is really a step beyond that U2-branded iPod.


The funny thing is, my Kindle also has an Ur option, which enables me to predict exactly what kind of book Stephen King is going to write next.  It's going to be about an educated guy in a creative profession, who nevertheless possesses considerable working-class street cred, and who discovers some kind of evil lurking in a small town, and must confront his own fears to defeat it.


Ah, I should leave the poor guy alone--he probably needed the dough.

Zadie Smith's On Beauty... and Amazon

I just finished On Beauty and have to say I loved every page of it. I kept looking up from the book as I was reading to tell JRL about something I thought was particularly great. But this afternoon, when I was thinking about blogging about the book, I decided to check out what Amazon had to say about it. YIPES! On Beauty gets a mere three stars out five, considerably less than the typical four to four-and-a-half out of five. Even the book that currently qualifies as The Worst Book I Ever Read (a "cozy" mystery that shall remain nameless) gets a full five.

Why? I was staggered by Smith's ability to fully inhabit so many different characters so convincingly. She can snap a scene into full color with just a sentence or two -- she has a faultless ear for the way people speak and an eye for the detail that makes everything real. Her depiction of a teenager working at a Virgin record store was perfect -- I don't need to get a job there now; I know what it's like. And a scene between a middle-aged Englishman and his elderly father was just as spot-on.

What? Did you say something about plot? Oh, yeah. Well, there was an affair. Hmm... let's see... Okay, so there's not much in the way of a conventional plot. But did I miss it? No, actually; I didn't even notice until I read the Amazon reviews. The constantly shifting relationships between the characters kept me riveted. Zadie Smith is very, very smart (I don't even want to think about how much younger than me she is) and it was just a pleasure to spend some time in her mind.

I don't know whether to despair at the book's relatively low Amazon rating or to just shrug my shoulders -- after all, according to the tenets of popularity McDonald's is a great restaurant, and anyway, it's not like On Beauty didn't win about 9,000 awards.

But won't that low score prevent some people from buying the book? It will, and that's a shame.