Friday open thread: internet serendipity

[dolorosa_12]

This week’s prompt is brought to you by the utterly surreal situation surrounding This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone’s co-written novella.

Everything about this story is such an utter delight. A fan of the Trigun reboot posted a throwaway recommendation on Twitter for the novella (published four years ago), and somehow this led to the book climbing until it was (last time I checked), the current third-highest-selling book on Amazon. Not third-highest science fiction book, or third-highest epistolary LGBTQ time-travel spy romance novella, or any other such niche categorisation: third-highest-selling of ALL books on Amazon. There are now multiple think pieces and articles about the whole thing, of which this interview is just one example. The producer of the anime whose fan launched this massive uptick in sales has now announced an intention to read the book. The authors are going to watch the anime.

The fact that the recommendation that kicked all this off came from a Twitter user who goes by the name of ‘bigolas dickolas wolfwood’ is just the icing on the very surreal cake. It reminds me of what I loved about the internet when I first became part of online communities: just a bunch of strangers enthusing earnestly and sincerely about the things they found interesting, or the things that brought them joy, making connections with each other.

So my question is this: do you have any similar moments of joyful, surreal internet serendipity — in which a bunch of seemingly unconnected things collided with one another in such a way that something wonderful happened?

Comments

[thawrecka]

It makes me think of how, when I was trying to get published, a lot of the advice on marketing said that the best way to get your book selling was word of mouth but you could never create that or control that on your own. Certainly can't imagine anyone involved in the making of this book imagining this turn of circumstances 😂

[dolorosa_12]

I know, right? And it's a situation that is impossible to replicate, because it relied on such a specific, weird conjunction of circumstances.

[chestnut_pod]

And now will we finally get the collection of Amal El-Mohtar's short fiction that we deserve? Please?! That's what I hope for most out of all this!

This is probably not quite what you were looking for in answer to your question, but the fact that the DestielPutinlection ended with Biden's election really makes it one of the giddiest, most surreal happy Internet happenings of my life.

[dolorosa_12]

I hope for that too! Her short stories are wonderful. And have you read her poetry collection (The Honey Month)? That's fantastic too.

This is probably not quite what you were looking for in answer to your question, but the fact that the DestielPutinlection ended with Biden's election really makes it one of the giddiest, most surreal happy Internet happenings of my life.

That's a totally valid answer!

[dolorosa_12]

You were saying?

(I'm mildly irritated that it's Tor, because it means the books will be a) astronomically expensive as ebooks and b) unavailable in any format in the public libraries around here, but it's good news in general and well deserved.)

[chestnut_pod]

Oh my gosh!!! \o/

(Wow — is the library restriction the case for all Macmillan books? They tried something similar here in the States but were forced to recant.)

[dolorosa_12]

I'm possibly exaggerating the library thing — I've just noticed that it's really hard to get Tor books from the libraries here, and always has been. I remember Macmillan doing that in the US back in the day, but I'm not sure if that's exactly what's going on here, or just a lack of prioritisation of getting their books into libraries here. It's hard to tell because a lot of the time people who are published with Tor in the US have a different UK publisher.

[trepkos]

I can't think of any right now, but I really loved this book!

[dolorosa_12]

It's a great book, and both authors seem like genuinely lovely people, so I'm really happy that this incredible good fortune happened to them.

[blackcatofmisery]

I have never had such an experience, and it's kind of a let down. I love when stuff like this happens.

=^..^=~

[dolorosa_12]

It's just beautiful when it happens. I've had it happen to me on a smaller scale, and it's really wonderful!