Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Using Robots to Define the Genre of Imaginary Jesus

It's a comedy.  It's a novel.  It's theology.  It's fiction. It's autobiographical.  What possible genre could this be? Let's turn to Amazon.com's rating system to discover what they think.
First, an overview of the three categories that Amazon thinks that IJ fits into:


Good.  Okay.  So our comedy theology novel falls into Science Fiction Adventure (no doubt because our hero chases Jesus through "time and space"), Religious Fiction (no doubt because it has Jesus in it and is fiction), and in Single Women's Fiction (no doubt because the chicks dig me).  Hmm.  Let's see what sort of books that puts Imaginary Jesus up against.
In the category of Sci-Fi adventure:



Yes, this, strangely, makes sense.  Notice the similarity in strange headgear between the jedi and the Jesus.  But since I have every intention of destroying the Star Wars novel which is more highly ranked than I does that mean I am... a Sith?  Brrrr.  Stay tuned to find out!
Now, let's look at Single Women's Fiction:



Again, this is an oddly appropriate place for my book.  "Misery Loves Cabernet" references wine in the title, and there is communion wine in Imaginary Jesus.  And the title below "We Interrupt This Date" infers a breakup. And Imaginary Jesus includes the story of one of the most hilarious and unbelievable break ups of all time.  It is a 7.8 on the John Cusack scale of break ups.  I think a single woman might enjoy hearing about my heart being crushed.  It's a beautiful moment.
Now, let's look at religious fiction:



Ah, C.S. Lewis.  Allow me to take a moment to say IN YOUR FACE, C.S. LEWIS! Imaginary Jesus is totally rocking The Screwtape Letters.  Oh, I know that you wrote your book 40 years ago and it's still selling ALMOST AS WELL as Imaginary Jesus, but I think it's time for you to acknowledge that victory is totally mine for at least 40 minutes until Amazon refreshes the ranking on their books!  In other news, I'm a big fan.  If we are allowed to do this in Heaven I will be asking for your autograph.  If there are pens.  And paper.  Also books.  I'm pretty sure there are at least scrolls, so I might just have you sign a scroll if you're cool with that.

And that, my Imaginary Friends, brings us to the end of this wonderful discussion of how the Amazon Robots have determined the genre of my Religious Single Women's Science-Fiction Adventure Novel!

Please feel free to add your own suggestions for possible genre inclusion in the comments!

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