Sex does not a recommendation make!

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

I found this amusing, and sad... and thought I'd post about it here.

I was browsing through my Amazon Recommendations last night because, well, I was bored and after having a really crappy day I like window shopping for books and whatnot. Sometimes the recommendations are pretty good, and I added a few things to my wishlist.

Then... further down the list... I was recommended The Harlequin by our least favourite author. Why was I recommended this piece of literastic greatness? Because I told them I owned the Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey.

I really wanted to blast off an email to the recommendation people to say ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKING MINDS?! JC writes in a more fantasy mode... not high-fantasy with magic and stuff, but all supernatural happenings come from deites (not dieties!), and it's much more of a renissance Europe time period than modern USA.

The only thing they really seem to have in common is the sex. Yes, JC writes sex. Hard sex. And yes, her books are somewhat sex centered... that's hard not to do when your first main character is a cortesan, and the entire realm your work is based in has as a golden rule "Love as thou wilt." But you know what? She writes the stuff LKH can't even DREAM of writing well. JC writes stuff that would make me squirm were I presented with it in real life, but she writes it in a way that makes it bearable for me to read, and not only bearable I actually ENJOY it. And... if her characters do have sex she doesn't ALWAYS describe it. She has mastered the "let the reader do the imagining" idea. She writes all the stuff that LKH can't handle. Bondage. Some homosexual encounters. Meanwhile, even the most vanilla of sex scenes in LKH has me cringing and skipping pages. I think if you were to count up the number of pages describing actual sex in all five of JCs Kushiel books so far, you still wouldn't come near the amount of pages devoted to sex in Incubus Dreams alone.

Plus, JC actually PROOFREADS her books. Not to mention there is so much plot in her books, I have to take notes to keep it all straight. I was actually somewhat offended that Amazon would recommend such a horrible author based on my new all-time favourite author, especially since one of the reasons I love JC is that she is everything LKH can't seem to be. Anyone else have any evil recommendations to share? (oh and this is even long long after I told Amazon to NOT recommend anything based on my past ownership/purchases of LKH even!) I am curious what else Amazon is using to recommend LKH with.

Comments

[kellyfaboo.livejournal.com]

Amazon recommendations are based on what other people buy. So if thousands of people buy both Alton Brown's cookbooks and books on cannibalism people who buy Alton Brown's books will be recommended books on cannibalism.

There is nobody at Amazon who reads all these books and makes recommendations based on that.

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

I know this. This is more about the falicies in the recommendations algorythm. In some ways, if it is going off of purchases, it should look at the time frames. I haven't bought LKH in years, even though she's been releasing books. I'd hope Amazon would take that into some consideration, even though I know that's flawed as well (ie, sure I'm not buying it from them but in theory I could be procuring it elsewhere). I'm just curious what else is being used to say that "Hey, you should read LKH!"

[kellyfaboo.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean your purchases.

Let's say 60% of all the people still reading LKH bought Kushiel books and the reverse proportion was 4 out of every 10 people who bought Kushiel's Chosen also bought an LKH book sometime in their buying history. Voila. There you have a recommendation based on the cross correlation. People who by Bloody Bones will be recommended a Kushiel book and some people (probably based on other correlating factors as well) who buy Kushiel's Chosen will be recommended LKH's latest. There is no taste factor in their recommendations, though your star history might play into it somewhat, but obviously not totally.

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

I understand how amazon recommendations work :) I do. I'm not trying to say they're infallable. I know there's a lot more than purchasing, or owning, or all that jazz. It's a semi-complicated thing. All I wanted to know is what ELSE is being recommended. I'm just curious!

[tylergrrls.livejournal.com]

I'm actually just finished my final project for a class in multimedia databases where I learned to hate trying to generate algorithms that take subjective criteria into consideration.

I actually was sort of interested in what, exactly, amazon does so I went and read an abstract written by one of the software engineers behind the rating system, and it looks like they use several methods to attempt to personalize reccomendations, including searches, purchase history, and clustering. My (mostly uneducated) guess would be that this result would be because of clustering.

Here's the abstract if you're interested: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/abs_free.jsp?arNumber=1167344

I have no idea how they weight these things (and I'm going to resist the temptation to wade through the paper when I have homework to do!) but I imagine the massive similarities in purchase history of people who buy urban fantasy and people who buy classical fantasy have more to do with this than actual book content.

[wyvernfriend.livejournal.com]

Librarything has both suggestions and unsuggestions:

top 20 unsuggestions for Guilty Pleasures are:
1 The joke by Milan Kundera
2 Don't waste your life by John Piper
3 Basics of biblical Greek : grammar by William D. Mounce
4 Desiring God : meditations of a Christian hedonist by John Piper
5 Identity by Milan Kundera
6 When I don't desire God : how to fight for joy by John Piper
7 God in the dock; essays on theology and ethics by C. S. Lewis
8 A generous or+hodoxy : why I am a missional, evangelical, post/Protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblic by Brian D. McLaren
9 Knowing God by J. I. Packer
10 The pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer
11 The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership : follow them and people will follow you by John C. Maxwell
12 How to read the Bible for all its worth : a guide to understanding the Bible by Gordon D. Fee
13 The Aleph and other stories, 1933-1969 together with commentaries and an autobiographical essay by Jorge Luis Borges
14 The society of the spectacle by Guy Debord
15 The cost of discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
16 An essay concerning human understanding by John Locke
17 Exegetical fallacies by D. A. Carson
18 The poetics of space by Gaston Bachelard
19 The ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
20 The Passion of Jesus Christ : fifty reasons why He came to die by John Piper

[http://users.livejournal.com/belladonna_/]

I really hate the Library Thing unsuggester. Either their algorithim is whack, or most people really *are* that one-dimensional.

Yes, I own books by Laurell K Hamilton *and* Jorge Luis Borges, *and* John Locke, *and* Milan Kundera. And Sherrilyn Kenyon, for that matter. :)

(Tho I should note, a friend gave me the Sherrilyn Kenyon, and I really only finished it because I was MST3K-ing it in my head. It was truly, truly, deeply and profoundly awful.)

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Yeaaaah, I don't trust Amazon Recommendations. Most of the time, it spits at me things I already have (and thus, I spend half an hour telling it, "I ALREADY OWN THIS!") or Totally Random Things.

I have to keep telling it, "no, I am not interested in Harry Potter!" *stabs*

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I hate that. Though with me, it's usually, "I see you bought the hardcover, perhaps you would like the paperback as well? Or how about the movie? The Ubar Edition? VHS? NINE DISCS OF UBARWANK???"

Meanwhile, I'm there clicking "I already have this, kthxdie."

My latest round of Amazon Rec have Harry Potter, lots of Christine Feehan and Sherrilyn Kenyon. GAG.

[katekat]

Christine Feehan!!! OMG. Sorry, hijack, but she is one of my favorite love to hate authors!! (well, ok, i've only read the one book, and only because a friend of mine handed it to me and said "here, read this, so you understand why I am trying to write a slash fanfic in the universe, because if anyone needs to be gayed up, its her!)

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

zomgfeehanandkenyonGACK. Stabbity. Those are the only books I've ever read that incited me to violent outbursts. Kenyon makes me think I should go dig up the tripe I wrote when I was 12, because it is obviously publishable. *headdesk*

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I know that feeling. I have a truly terrible book that I wrote back in high school, and from what I've perused of Feehan and Kenyon in the book stor, I have faith that I could make a fortune with my not-very-well-thought-out and poorly written high school badfic.

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

I keep wondering whether it would be worth it to attempt sending one of those awful things in and finding out if they'd publish it. If they don't, I'd actually be happy over a rejection slip, and if they did I'd be weeping...

[swiftgold.livejournal.com]

Well, if it's bad enough, apparently you don't even get a rejection slip even if you included a SASE - as my sister and I found out when we stupidly sent our Crap Book to a publisher when we were teenagers :P *embarrassed by youthful self*

[slayra.livejournal.com]

I don't really mind Amazon recs. I found a lot of books through that feature, but it makes me laugh sometimes. Once I was browsing through Jim Butcher's books and i clicked 'Storm Front'. I then procceeded to explore 'Similar Items'. And I had a fit of laughter when they recommended 'Danse Macabre'. I mean, Danse Macabre. If it was Guilty Pleasures, I'd buy it (no pun intended) but Danse Macabre???

And I've been wanting to read JC for a while but can never decide myself to buy the book... I'm guessing it's worth it then? ^___^

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

I love her books. They aren't for everyone though... mostly because there's a LOT of politics, and a lot of people to keep track of. It can get overwhelming and you do feel like you need a scorecard :) Unlike Anita's men, however, they're all very different, and they often surprise you. But she's a fabulous writer, I can't recommend her enough!!

[melaniedavidson.livejournal.com]

Heh... you could probably get it to stop by ticking "I already have this" and giving it one or zero stars (whichever's the lowest they allow).

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

I ticked "not interested" and called it a day :)

[queenettefallon.livejournal.com]

I kept getting recced the Stookie Stackhouse, or whatever it is called. Not sure why, exactly. I suppose it is because I read vampires and I read humor (or at least I think that's why), but I don't really liked those two things mixed. That's not to say I don't like my vampire stories with a bit of humor, but with vampire novels I tend to like dark humor better, certainly more than outright comedy. And yet almost every time I look at my recs it is there, even after clicking the "not interested" button.
(Though it may be that I'm getting recced different books in the series each time. So if I cared I guess I'd have to go in and click "not interested" for every book in the series - I've got better things to do, especially since I'd just have it recced again when a new book was released.)

I also get recced the other series of books by Hamilton (Merry), which I've never had an interest in. At one time, I liked her Anita series, but mostly because of the vampires and the action - the other series (I knew) before it was even released wouldn't be my thang.

Those are the only two things (I think) that get recced to me because I've purchased Anita novels from them before.

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

Sookie isn't a comedy series, really. They're lighter (as in there's a less-dark take and a lower death rate than Early Anita), but it's not a farce world. Then again I think humor in this genre and I think of Christopher Moore's You Suck: A Love Story. It's still a big fluffy around the edges, though, which is something that makes them really good for poolside reading or plane trips.

[charmed1ofdoom.livejournal.com]

Christopher Moore is just cool all around. I saw him at a convention and he became like my personal hero. He wrote, a piece about why he would not read at readings (which was written to piss off his publicist/editor, don't remember the specific one, after they started charging money to go to his reading)in a shirt that said fictional character. I think that just awesome above awesome.

[queenettefallon.livejournal.com]

To each their own. But I tried reading the first book (I got it as a "free" gift from some book company - offline) and I remember reading Chapter one was not fun and I gave up before I could get through the second one. *shrug* I still have the book, and I might try it again some day, but the first time I tried it was just to fluffy for my tastes.

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

Huh. I've never read the first book. Actually, I skipped the first three books, due to a habbit of starting several books in. By that time there's a lot of darker/weirder stuff that's happened and happening. I have to admit that I haven't had the inclination to read the earlier books at all.

[jeannette.livejournal.com]

If you like Jacqueline Carey, I recommend Anne Bishop's Dark Jewels Trilogy.

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

Read it ;) Before JC came out too... I was excited when JC's stuff came out because it was kind of like the Dark Jewels... but not quite as gothy and, well, psychotic :) But I did love the Black Jewels, even if I'm not overly fond of her Pillars of the World stuff.

[jeannette.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah, I haven't actually finished a Pillars of the World book yet.

But I just bought Sebastian yesterday. It looks quite delectable.

[terratheelf.livejournal.com]

There are 5 Kushiel books?! Damn, I thought there was only four. Time to pester the good ladies at Coles to order it in.

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

Fifth one comes out in June. I managed to score an Advance Reader Copy :)

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

Hunh. In Australia Coles is a supermarket.

[jeannette.livejournal.com]

heh, in the Midwest there's a mega-store called Khols. Pronounced the same way.

[brandiweed.livejournal.com]

Funny you mention that-- I saw a couple of Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville books lying around a friend's house and they had one of those "early Anita Blake" blurbs on them.

(Didn't borrow the books, though. Despite my hanging around here I'm not really sure the supernatural romance genre has anything to draw me in.)

[catskin.livejournal.com]

JC love. I adore her Kushiel books.

Amazon keeps recommending me different versions of Pan's Labyrinth, which baffles me, because I own it and I've rated it. "So you own Pan's Labyrinth, do you? Then perhaps you should buy ... ANOTHER VERSION OF PAN'S LABRYINTH! It's just the same as your version ... EXCEPT WITH A POSTCARD INSIDE!"

And I've been recommended the Whorelequin *shudders* LKH is in my Amazon recommendationz...