Stieg Larsson, Verisimilitude, and Billy's Pan Pizzas

I know that many of you are reading Stieg Larsson's "Millenium" series of novels, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. The discussions about these books are endless. Some people are unhappy with the sex. Other people are happy about the sex, except for rape. Some say the characterization of this or that character is poor, or hollow. (That fits Bloomqvist. Maybe it's because Bloomqvist is Larsson?) Some say the police couldn't be that bumbling, or that Neidermann couldn't be that strong and Paulo Roberto wouldn't have shown up out of nowhere the way he did.

No matter how you feel about these or other issues, you probably enjoyed the books. They're great entertainment. I've yet to read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, but I liked the first two--particularly the realistic nature of the family background,* the screwups in the system, and the human greed and manipulation that put Salander where she was--in the position of ward of the state over whom a warped individual had absolute power. (And didn't we enjoy Lisbeth Salander getting her own back?)

But--oh, the product name-dropping! Larsson waved brand names in front of the reader to the point where it disrupted the reading. IKEA, Macintosh, 7-Eleven stores, MSIE, Billy's Pan Pizza--products of all sorts are firmly branded, over and over. In the typical popular novel, a character fires up her unnamed laptop when she needs to do a little hacking. It might be singled out as a Mac if the author is enthusiastic about Macs, but just once. She might pick up frozen pizzas at the minimart, or occasionally at a King Kwik. A motorcycle might be distinguished as a Kawasaki, and a car as a Camry, to help give the reader a picture. But when every market is a 7-Eleven and every snack is a Billy's Pan Pizza, and so many brand names are overemphasized by repetition, it wears on the reader.

At least, it wore on me to the point where I went looking to see whether Billy's Pan Pizza--which Bloomqvist and Salander seemed to live on--was a made-up product. It is real. I posted an image of the packaged product above. The maker is Gunnar Dafgård AB, and they crank out 80,000 rectangular pizzas a day. And then I went back to reading the novel.

Was Larsson paid for these mentions? Unlikely. And it's unlikely that he was such a huge Apple 7-Eleven Billy's fan-boy that he couldn't pass up the opportunity to mention any of his favorites. (Er...is 7-Eleven really that ubiquitous in Sweden? I know there are more than 36,000 7-Elevens around the world, but here in the U.S. I trade at a number of mini-marts that aren't 7-Eleven. Has 7-Eleven totally trampled its competition in Sweden?)

I think it's more likely that Stieg Larson subscribed to the verisimilitude school of fiction writing, which maintains that if you use brand names, your stories will be more believable. But, going back to the 1940s and 1950s, there was a school that felt that using specific product names left one open to some sort of defamation risk, or constituted a kind of unfair endorsement--or free advertising. (There's a tradition in newspapers that frowns on that--more about it in another posting.) Hence, authors would write Yamahonda or Tartus rather than Yamaha or Taurus. Even far-future tales disguised brand names, as Robert A. Heinlein did in The Man Who Sold the Moon, with Moka-Coka instead of Coca-Cola, and 6+ rather than 7UP.

So, was Larsson of the opinion that naming names a better story makes? Or could it be that his journalism background imprinted him with the habit of identifying specific brands?

Did he overdo it, or is it just me? Obviously, it wasn't fatal to sales, but...

Eva Gabrielsson, if you read this, let me know.

* I have a family like that.
Copyright © Michael A. Banks, 2010

Be Suspicious of Facts

Remember the 8-track stereo cartridge? 8-track (and 4-track) stereo cartridges and players were really hot consumer items throughout most of the 1960s. For the first time, you could listen to the music you wanted--without commercials, and without changing and scratching records. (In-car record players were hopelessly vulnerable to potholes.) Once you put the tape in, all you had to do was listen. A typical tape offered an entire album's worth of songs on an endless loop of quarter-inch tape. If you wanted to skip a song, you could move among program channels or just drive your way to the next tune (the Sixties' version of fast-forward).

The cartridge was eventually eased out of the picture by the cassette tape, but not before it made its mark on popular culture, and the music and automotive industries. The history of this technology is part of a project I have in the works--and a fascinating history it is, involving a surprising range of people and events. (And, no: Bill Lear didn't invent the technology.)

As I tracked the development of the stereo cartridge, I was reminded of how easy it is to change history without trying. All you have to do is not check facts. Go with the first source you consult, or the story that offers the most entertainment value. It's easier, takes less time, and most of your readers won't know the difference. (And if you don't check your facts, you won't know that you're repeating the mistakes of those whose work you copy.)

This fast-track research seems to be very popular among those who write popular histories. I observed it when I was researching Crosley and Before Oprah: Ruth Lyons, the Woman Who Created Talk TV. Not to mention dozens of other subjects. And I'm seeing it now, as I research the evolution of the stereo tape cartridge. In the hands of short-cutting researchers, televisions morph into radios. Events that took place in 1940 flash forward to 1956. Toledo becomes Cleveland.

How do such transformations happen?

Consider the Toledo/Cleveland switch. The cities should be difficult to confuse: they're on opposite sides of Ohio, and Cleveland's the place where the river caught fire. But one can imagine an academic or freelance writer seated at her desk some time in the 1990s, surrounded by references, and jumping between notes and manuscript on the computer screen. The book she's writing includes passing mention of an engineer from Ohio named George Eash. (Eash came up with the first practical endless-loop audio tape cartridge--the template for radio station as well as auto stereo carts.) She remembers the name but can't remember the city. "Okay. He was from Ohio...but which city?"

She can't put her hands on the source immediately. Maybe she's up against a deadline. So she ponders for a moment more, hoping for a reliable memory. It was only last week that she'd read about Eash, after all...

"Cincinnati? No--nobody is from Cincinnati." Then she writes "Cleveland," because she's never been to Ohio but Cleveland pops right up because--well, because it's a name in the media. There's the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. And Drew Carey. Strong associations, those. "Yeah. If I remember it, it must be Cleveland. It's a big town. And it sounds good."

Three years later someone researching the same subject comes across her book. "Oh--he was from Cleveland! That saves me some digging." He doesn't bother checking other sources; the book he's reading is from a university press, and surely they must check all the facts--right? So he puts this "fact" into his notes and into his book. Several more writers duplicate and reinforce the error in books and magazines.

Oops! Before long, flawed memory becomes fact.

Nine years later I come along and take a quick look through their books and articles. As always, I'm checking multiple sources, and their info doesn't jibe with what I've seen elsewhere. "Cleveland?" I ask myself. "That doesn't seem right." I double-check my own notes and find that Eash told magazine and newspaper interviewers in the 1950s that he was from Toledo. Eash holds some patents and--by golly!--his residence is listed as Toledo in the patent records.

Now, maybe swapping Cleveland for Toledo isn't such a big deal. But it could be--especially if someone needs to know more about Eash and his activities. And there's the general point of Getting It Right. Isn't that what historians and journalists are supposed to do?

It is. But too many don't get it right for lack of checking a second (or third) source. Repeated often enough, erroneous information becomes historical fact--something "everybody knows" to be true. Like Henry Ford inventing the automobile or Powel Crosley inventing the FAX machine, neither of which is true.

Be suspicious of your sources. Even if you find two that agree, look for a third that doesn't. If you can't find a contrary source, you're probably okay--but if you find one, it's time for a real fact-finding expedition.
--Mike

Mindless Advertising

The article to the left really nails Wal-Mart's practice of discriminating against women (and others) to the wall. (Click here to read it.)

The box bordered in red is a segment of the same Web page's "sponsored links."

I ask you: how many people are going to read the condemnation of Wal-Mart and scramble for a chance to work for the company? How much is this like a series of Ford Motor Company sponsoring a documentary about the people killed by Pinto gas tank explosions? (And is a Web site really going to lead you to a job at Wal-Mart that pays fifty-six dollars per hour?)

In other words, how useful is mindless linking?

Has Blogging Peaked?

A recent piece on blogging in the Christian Science Monitor asks if blogging is on the decline. See the article for my views.

(Check out Blogging Heroes, too.)

Three Things that May Look Weird in a Novel Submission

Having your friend, cousin, or partner disguise themselves as an agent to submit your work. It’s very easy for an editor to learn that Eldred “Slick” Bitsko isn’t an agent--especially when he has no other clients, let alone a track record. To some editors, this might imply that the trappings of publishing (“my agent”) are more important to you than the quality of your work.

Explaining in your cover letter how your last novel really was great, but “my publisher, Simter & Schuson, screwed up the marketing, and that disappointed me.” The editor isn’t trying to decide whether to buy your last novel. This is the sort of thing you might discuss with an editor once you’ve established a working relationship, but it adds nothing to the current submission.

Your name is Beldon of Atvar, but when the editor pops up the Document Properties dialog box in Word to get a word count (because you didn’t provide it), the name in the Author field is “Becky Lee Treversole” (your old girlfriend, who let you copy MS Office). Or maybe “US Robots & Mechanical Men” (your employer, who has no idea that you’re writing a novel on company time).

Unrestrained Journalism

Yesterday (April 14) I was interviewed by an Australian broadcaster in connection with Blogging Heroes. It happened that the evening before I had seen an interview with Ted Koppel on BBC's American service. (Yes, he left Nightline for the Discovery Channel and the BBC.) The subject of the discussion was blogging--specifically, the legitimacy of news from blogs.

As expected, Koppel came out supporting mainstream media as superior to blogs. He didn't mount an attack on blogging, but he did make one good point, which I brought out during my interview. The big difference between conventional news media and blogs can be found in the fact that most blogs do not vet their news. It is true, of course, that non-vetted items make it through to newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV broadcasts. But blogs tend to go with far less verification than mainstream media. And "citizen journalists" often don't have the background necessary to see the story behind the story.

This being the state of things, it is a wise course to verify news with multiple sources. But that applies not just to blogs, but mainstream media, as well. Mainstream sources are known to to slant coverage and omit facts, which is sometimes more dangerous than getting the story wrong.

Apostrophes + Homonyms = Confusion

Misuses in writing that involve apostrophes (or the lack thereof) scream for attention, especially to editors. Oddly enough, most involve homonyms—words that sound the same but have different spellings.

Consider "I really like you're poem," for example. Or, "Its really tough to know which word to use."

The error of using "you're" for "your" is often committed in the heat of writing, in part because the words are homonyms. They sound the same, and the part of the brain that processes words to text sometimes just sends the first word that sounds right to your fingers. To complicate matters, when you reread what you’ve written there’s a good chance you’ll see "your" where you wrote "you're" (or vice-versa).

You may end up looking stupid when an editor reads your manuscript—or at least wincing when you discover the error later. You can cut down on this sort of problem by using fewer contractions.

A similar problem occurs with “its" versus "it's." If you’re one of the world’s many self-appointed proofreaders, you know that the wrong choice is made far too often in advertising, letters, or anywhere else someone is faced with the question, “Should I use an apostrophe here, or not?”

The problem can plague even experienced writers. It’s the homonym effect again, complicated by the fact that we are trained to use an apostrophe with almost every possessive.

Whatever Happened to Cloud Computing?

Whatever Happened to Cloud Computing? For a while it was getting big play in books and magazines, but the noise seems to have faded. Here's one take on it. (This entry is a replay of a piece I wrote for TechRepublic/CNET a while back.)

———————————————————————————————–

When I first heard about cloud computing in 2007, it was with a feeling of déjà vu. I had indeed been there and done that — with thousands of other personal computer users — as far back as 1983. That’s the year high-volume cloud computing was kicked off by the debut of the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100.

Portable, but lacking storage

You may not have seen or heard of the Tandy Model 100. TechRepublic has a Photo Gallery on it if you want to see what it looked like - - inside and out. It was a minimalist microcomputer, a not-quite two-inch thick slab that measured about 12 inches by 8-1/2 inches.

The Model 100 came with built-in firmware applications: text editor, calendar/scheduler with an alarm clock function, BASIC, an address book, and terminal program — plus a 300-bps modem. Four AA batteries powered it for about 20 hours. It could display 40 or 80 columns on a monitor or television set and had its own 40-character by 8-line LCD display.

This miracle machine’s only real shortcoming was storage, particularly if you traveled for work. Like most, my Model 100 had only the basic 8K of memory, which didn’t quite hold 12 pages of text. There was no slot in the side for a disk or card. I worked with a lot of files — articles, short stories, books — so I needed external storage. So did most other Model 100 owners. Many who spent hundreds of dollars for 24K of RAM still didn’t have enough memory.

A cassette interface made tape storage possible, but the medium wasn’t always perfect. Besides, that would have meant hauling along a tape player that weighed more than the computer, and the reason for the Model 100 was portability. A Model 100 disk drive presented the same lug-along problems as the cassette and cost lots more. (Cost aside, I would probably have lost, damaged, or forgotten the peripherals, cables, or media at some critical point.)

But a storage solution was built in to the little machine in the form of its modem. It was easy to get an account on an online service such as CompuServe or The Source. (In fact, I had free press accounts.) So before I left home on a trip I would upload my work files to CompuServe, using the service’s own data network. When I was at home and wanted to work somewhere other than my office, I transferred files between my laptop and desktop machines using my virtual disk drive.

In essence, I was doing what they now call cloud computing 25 years ago.

Granted, the applications weren’t on a server, but that could be an advantage. If you had no telephone link, you could still work with the data in the Model 100’s memory. And even in the early days you could use online applications to write or crunch numbers if you really wanted. In fact, according to CompuServe founder Jeff Wilkins, using applications and storing data online were the two major attractions of the service when it as opened as MicroNET in 1978. (Most microcomputer owners couldn’t afford a floppy drive anyway, and transferring data to and from a mainframe was about as fast as and more reliable than using a cassette tape.)

Going back to the future

Of course, people were cloud computing with dumb terminals and mainframe computers long before 1978. It was called “timesharing,” and General Electric opened the first commercial timesharing service in 1965. And today one prediction about cloud computing is that we’ll soon be using minimal terminals to run online apps and retrieve and store data — just like in the 1960s.

I wonder what else from those days hasn’t been reinvented yet.

—————————————————————————————

Michael Banks is the author of On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders (APress, 2008) in which he writes about the histories of timesharing services, databases like Dialog, and the consumer online services that paved the way for the Web: CompuServe, GEnie, The Source, Viewtron, AOL, Q-Link, Prodigy, Prestel, and many others around the world.

Bold, Brave Predictions of 1994

Those of you who have read On the Way to the Web know that Knight-Ridder was pretty busy with experiments in the online world in the 1980s, beginning with its Viewtron Videotext service. As I note in the book, Viewtron was an advanced system, much like the Web today. Its advanced graphics carred news, entertainment, and a host of interactive services, including email.

In 1994, ten years after it shut down Viewtron, Knight-Ridder produced the embedded video program above. It's worth taking a look at--and wondering where the hell all these wonderful ideas went. For many reasons, neither Knight-Ridder nor its competitors "got it," and failed to follow up on the developments of the era. Even though their own spokesman says, "It may be difficult to conceptualize the idea of a digital paper, but in fact we believe that's what's going to happen."

That had to have been a minority view, because Knight-Ridder failed to forge ahead with "digital paper." Again, watch the video--you'll see devices that showed up at last week's CES.
--Mike

Dumbing Down the Web

If the Web is going to replace print, get ready for some real dumbing down. Apprently some publishers who put reviews on the Web (among them a former print mag or two) figure that Web surfers are functionally illiterate, and in terms of text require nothing more than strings of characters next to images and ads. It's kind of an insult to those of us who grew up on real magazines and books.

I was browsing hardware reviews earlier today, and much of what I encountered made about as much sense as this:

"So, I got this thing, I'm cool, and you plug this gadget into your computer, and set your phone next unto it, plug in your refrigerator, initiate windowed XMODEM protocol and wait for the furnace to switch on your printer's FAX unit. So then the USB chukka boots plan nose hair down to the CCITT RS232C diagram."

Really.

New Ebook Line from Conventional Publisher

I note that Harlequin Enterprises, known for romance novels, will launch a new ebook line in April, 2010. This "imprint" will of course publish romance novels, and also science fiction, mystery, mainstream, fantasy, horror, thriller/suspense, and every other genre. I think this well-established publisher has the potential to create an effective presence for ebooks.

The publishing operation is called Carina Press. To submit manuscripts and for other info see http://www.carinapress.com/
--Mike

Your or You're? It's or Its?

Misuses in writing that involve apostrophes (or the lack thereof) scream for attention. "I really like you're poem," for example, or "Its really tough to know which word to use."

Lots of times, an error like using "you're" for "your" is committed in the heat of writing, in part because the two words are homonyms. When you, the writer, go back and edit you probably see "your" where you wrote "you're." (Or vice-versa.) You end up looking stupid when an editor reads your manuscript--or at least wincing when you catch the error later. One way to cut down on this sort of problem is to use fewer contractions. Statistically, you'll commit fewer errors involving contractions.

Misuse of 'its" or "it's" occurs because people forget which form they're supposed to use. There is an easy solution. Remember that a contraction always wins out over a possessive, like a flush over a straight. Then do a search in your manuscript for every occurrence of "its" and "it's" and make sure each fits the "winner" rule.
--Mike

Jules Verne Read-Aloud Stories

The categories-and-keywords antics over at Amazon continue. Today, the No.1 bestselling children's book for Baby through age 3 is Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. No. 2 is Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

More examples of what you get from literal-minded computers turned loose on large numbers of objects with only keyword guidance. Either that, or droves of new parents determined to make sure their children get that head-start in life by reading advanced books aloud to them. Forget The Little Engine that Could--Verne and Stevenson will make sure the kids turn into the prodigies that the parents are certain they are. Or might it backfire and result in children speaking stilted English?

Maybe the Dewey Decimal System is a good idea!
--Mike

The Island of Doctor Moreau, America's No.1 Home Computing Book?

I think Amazon's computers have problem: they act like literal-minded machines. Which they are--sometimes to a fault.

Examples: According to Amazon, The Island of Doctor Moreau, by Herbert George Wells is the No.1 bestselling book. My Man Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse is No. 17. I got these as a result of browsing Books> Computers & Internet >Home Computing at Amazon.

While H.G. Wells was amazingly predictive at times, I don't see that computer mavens are going to find an antiquated novel of such interest as to propel it to lofty heights on Amazon's computer list.

And I'm sure that Pelham Granville Wodehouse never gave home computing even a passing thought, back there in the 1920s. Nor did Jeeves. Radio was the leading-edge technology in their era.

No doubt a couple of Amazon keywords associated with computing accidentally occur in Verne's book. though I can't imagine which words they might be, offhand. "Jeeves" of course is connected with "computer" Amazon's in database, for its association with "Ask Jeeves."

Why is this sort of thing a problem? Because it gets in the way of finding the books one is really after. I enjoyed reading Verne years ago, and while I do enjoy Wodehouse and Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, I am not seeking any of these when I'm browsing computer books. The result of books such as the aforementioned and The Life of Abraham Lincoln appearing among the top 20 home computing books is that my search is interrupted by irrelevant results, and books that I might be interested in are knocked off the top 20 (or 50 or 100) list.

Yes, it's simply a literal-minded program pulling out anything that matches a category's list of keywords. But it's inefficient. One would think the program would be smart enough to do some exclusions. (And to think that one of the three largest corporations in America uses this system for its internal-- never mind.) Ah, well--at least it's entertaining a few people who get a laugh out of seeing Thus Spake Zarathustra presented as a computer book. (Hm ... that was the title of 2001: A Space Odyssey's theme music--and a computer was one of the film's stars ....)

A proper search will eliminate such problems. But how many people rely on browsing rather on searching? I am told by eBay that more of their buyers browse than search. Is the same true at Amazon?

Then again, maybe I'm being unreasonable in expecting the computers behind such an icon as Amazon to be more disciminating.
--Mike

Blogging Heroes Video Review in Korean

If you speak Korean, you may enjoy this video review of my book, Blogging Heroes, in Korean. The lady, Yunahana, is reviewing the translated version, which includes chapters not in the English edition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUsEwvdxM14

The Korean ISBN is 9788960770478. AcornLoft is the publisher.

Kindle for PC

I downloaded Amazon's Kindle for PC today. It's a fast transfer and setup. The screen offers sharp text, easy on the eye. The medium-dark gray side boundaries add to eye ease. The accompanying image doesn't do it justice.

Graphics within books are very good.

Text size and number of words per line are easily adjustable. The text is navigable, but the books I've downloaded are not searchable.

It's worth a try. A good number of free titles are offered, including classics such as Pride and Prejudice and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. You can find contemporary novels, too. Among those at the moment are Elizabeth Moon's Trading in Danger and The Black Sea Affair, by Don Brown. (Note that that last is Don Brown, and not Dan Brown. Given similar genres, I wonder if the byline is intentional.)

Kindle titles of course include some of my books. At the top of the list are On the Way to the Web and Blogging Heroes.

You can download a sample (the first few pages of a book) of any book free. Prices vary, and there are some real bargains in the Kindle Store--which is only a click away from the Kindle PC reader. I foresee lots of impulse buys
--Mike

One of Life's Minor Annoyances

If you spend much time listening to classical music on your car radio, you've probably had this experience. You're driving along, thinking your thoughts. The announcer murmurs softly, as hosts on classical radio do, and a symphony begins.

After a time you notice that the music has faded. In fact, the sound has stopped.

So you turn up the sound. Still nothing. You turn it up some more and--

BA-BA-BA-BUM-DA-DA!

"What the--!" You grab for the knob or stab at the button--anything to muffle that crashing crescendo of sound. Where in hell did that come from?

It was one of those lulling symphonic moments, some point where the composer decided that the bassoon should just exhale slightly, or the violins mutter a low note. But with the road noise, there's no way you'll hear it at normal volume. And probably not when you turn it up to the max. I've always wondered whether anyone else has encountered this ... and whether it's been used in a movie. I can imagine it as a gag that startles someone into driving off the road--say, Chevy Chase. But the setup would probably be so boring the scene would be cut.

Personalized Newspapers

Although hit hard by online news, printed newspapers don't seem to be exhibiting much creativity in restoring their advertiser and reader numbers. (I still believe that original material in the printed versions could help. If only there was a way to make it time-intensive.)

Next week, some German newspaper subscribers will start receiving custom newspapers every morning. Readers will go to a Web site operated by Niiu and select the kinds of news they want to received. Someone might select the politics or entertainment from the NY Times, the front page of a regional paper, and so forth, and combine it with material only available on the Web. Expanded features are also available.

The custom paper--printed in color--will be collated and delivered per subscriber specifications. Each copy is a one-shot newspaper, generated by a program designed to arrange all the subscribers' newspapers to be printed in one printing press run.

Cultural Cycles and a Bestseller

Cory Panshin, who has some interesting things to say on a variety of subjects, offers a theory on recurrent patterns in cultural evolution. It is more than interesting, but rather than try to interpret what she says here, I refer you to Trogholm, Cory Panshin's Web site.

I will note that one concept I picked up from Cory's writing is the idea that the frequency of the cycles of recurring cultural patterns increases as we move forward in time. In fact, we may be at the edge of a culture-wide mood-shift right now, as Cory posits. Perhaps a shift as big as we saw take hold in the Sixties, even though it's been just three decades since that one damped out.

A sequence of events and reading today directed my attention to Robert H. Rimmer's The Harrad Experiment. You may recall that the novel (and the film) concerned itself with overturning conventional concepts of monogamy, partnership, and family ... and expanding them into common households, with poolings of financial, emotional, and intellectual resources. The experiment of the title focused on sexual freedom, sex "... without fear, jealousy, repression, or inhibition ...."

The idea of recurrent cultural patterns and The Harrad Experiment collided in my thoughts and generated this question: would The Harrad Experiment be a hit today, as a contemporary novel? In a society in which many people look beyond their own biological families in favor of choosing "family" from among friends? A society in which blended families and single parents are nearly as common as traditional families? Would people even want to explore that aspect of "revolution" again? Is the sexual revolution a bit of unfinished business from which most young people back then withdrew when put to the test? Is failing that test the reason why large-group families aren't common today? Will it all come up again in the midst of a new cultural shift?

I have a feeling that such a novel would sell. A novel that focuses on odd, titillating, intellectually stimulating concepts hinging on sex, and told through tightly focused viewpoints, would have a good shot at bestsellerdom. If we are on the edge of a cultural shift, sex is going to be involved (right along with the arts and every other element of society)
--Mike

Ratings and Reviews

The one-to-four-star rating system has been around for a long, long time. The stars may be replaced by other symbols, or there may be three or five, but the idea is the same: to provide an at-a-glance, comparative valuation.

All other things being equal, most of us are drawn to the top-rated items--as long as the ratings are not manipulated in some way.

Ratings assigned books are probably less reliable as an objective indication of quality than they might be with hotels, restaurants, films, and other products. This is because the appeal of books is so very subjective, even more than music.

I noticed that Amazon provides a tally of ratings for all books that meet a given search critereon. There's no indication whether the tally is individualized--that is, whether the total number of books for each ranking includes books ranked higher, and the total number of reviews of books that met my search criteron is 95,500. Or if these numbers are breakouts from a total of 354,706 reviews.

So, I wonder about the significance of the numbers. Here's the tally for a search I did today:

* 4 Stars & Up (76,319)
* 3 Stars & Up (89,630)
* 2 Stars & Up (93,337)
* 1 Star & Up (95,500)

The tally for all books:

* 4 Stars & Up (1,017,183)
* 3 Stars & Up (1,166,103)
* 2 Stars & Up (1,206,310)
* 1 Star & Up (1,237,167)

If the tally is individualized, does this mean that more dislikable books are being published than likable? Are there more reviewers with agendas to torpedo specific books than there are straightforward reviewers? Perhaps dislike for a book strongly motivates reviews, so those who didn't enjoy a book are more likely to write a review. (As in, "I spent my money for this?")

Or, perhaps readers in general are simply very discerning and hold books to high standards.
--Mike