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Incorrect sub genre on Iron Druid Chronicles
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jman28
Posted 2012-10-10 6:06 AM (#4228)
Subject: Incorrect sub genre on Iron Druid Chronicles



Member

Posts: 6
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Hey,

I was looking up some of the books I really enjoyed to find its sub genre and in my opinion it is completely wrong. Kevin Hearne does the Iron Druid Chronicles which are Hounded, Hexed, Hammered and Tricked (not on your list yet) these books by your definitions fall under the sub genres Contemporary Fantasy and Mythic Fiction (Fantasy). It is currently under Vampires, sure don't get me wrong there are some vampires in the stories but as a very minor part.

The series deals with werewolves, vampires, demons, gods, faeries, druids, witches and many more fantasy creatures. Its wide variety easily makes the series very difficult to classify its sub genre. If you were to break it down into its base elements it would have to be a fantasy set in current times while encompassing all mythologies as its playbook.

Sorry to nitpick but this series is one of my favorites and i would hate for people to overlook it due to a small error.

Oh, almost forgot, absolutely love the site! I stumbled across it a few days ago and its exactly what I'm looking for, especially to sieve through my favorite genres for the book I'm in the mood for.

-Jed
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Administrator
Posted 2012-10-10 8:30 AM (#4229 - in reply to #4228)
Subject: RE: Incorrect sub genre on Iron Druid Chronicles



Admin

Posts: 3942
2000
Location: Dallas, Texas

Hello, jman28, welcome to WWEnd!  I'm glad you found us and that you have found us useful and I appreciate you jumping right in.

I can see why you don't like the sub-genre classification of Vampires as being only a small part of the Druid Chronicles.  The good news is that YOU can help change that.  When we enter books into our database the only classification we assign is whether, broadly speaking, it's SF, Fantasy or Horror.  We only do that so that we can give you guys 3 favorites lists for the main genres and we know it can be problematic for many books that cross those nebulous boundaries.

The sub-genres are determined by majority vote from all members and are out of our hands except that we're members ourselves and have the same influence as any other member when we tag the same book.  As a member you have the opportunity to assign up to 3 different sub-genres to each book you've read.  It's part of our Booktrackr feature.  We take those "votes" and display the top 3 selections from all members and use those as the basis for our sub-genre search.

Now, this works great if we have a lot of votes.  If a few people mislabel a book the majority votes will outweigh them and we'll get an accurate result.  The downside is obvious I'm sure.  When we only have a few votes for a novel, or in the case of the Druid Chronicles just 1 vote for each book, the result is much more suspect.  This is particularly obvious with the newer books since they tend to have fewer reads.  As more people tag those books the results will become more accurate.

I think most people who bother to select the sub-genres give it an honest effort but there is plenty of room for disagreement and even confusion on how to label a book.  There is also plenty of disagreement on the sub-genres themselves and we will from time to time adjust our definitions based on member feedback.  In this case the vampires stood out for our one voter so they were labeled that way.  They only used one label too instead of the 3 choices that are available.    If you go tag them now, you'll be directly influencing the result as the second reader and will get to determine the other 2 sub-genres for the series.  If other people come in after and don't tag vampires it could drop off entirely.

I hope that helps explain things a bit.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Dave

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jman28
Posted 2012-10-10 8:56 AM (#4230 - in reply to #4228)
Subject: Re: Incorrect sub genre on Iron Druid Chronicles



Member

Posts: 6
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Thanks for the prompt reply and taking the time to explain it to me. I've just got to say that I like the site even more now! Looks like its time to go on a voting binge and give some back to the site. I seriously love the sub genre browsing, I haven't found anything else out there that does the sub genre so well . This site is quickly becoming my one stop shop for my book choices.

Cheers,
-Jed
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Administrator
Posted 2012-10-10 9:36 AM (#4231 - in reply to #4230)
Subject: Re: Incorrect sub genre on Iron Druid Chronicles



Admin

Posts: 3942
2000
Location: Dallas, Texas

jman28 - 2012-10-10 8:56 AM Thanks for the prompt reply and taking the time to explain it to me. I've just got to say that I like the site even more now! Looks like its time to go on a voting binge and give some back to the site. I seriously love the sub genre browsing, I haven't found anything else out there that does the sub genre so well . This site is quickly becoming my one stop shop for my book choices. Cheers, -Jed

No problem at all.  There is much to discover on the site so click around!  Here are a couple pages that may be of interest:

- SF/F/H Series - Complete list of series on the site so you can look for a new series to try and see how you fare with the series you've started.  It's all color coded and there's a My Series link that will show you all the series you've read, started and added to your reading list.

- Author Videos - We've got over 300 author videos on the site that you can check out including interviews, lectures and book readings.

Be sure to check out the stats pages in your My World section and don't forget to rank the books you've read too so your avatar will show on the novel page and other people can see what you've read.  Oh, and tell your friends about us too.  More members make the site better for all.

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dustydigger
Posted 2012-10-10 9:54 AM (#4232 - in reply to #4230)
Subject: Re: Incorrect sub genre on Iron Druid Chronicles



Elite Veteran

Posts: 1004
1000
Location: UK
Hi Jed,and welcome! I see you are a Kevin Hearne fan! What do you think of the plot developments.I'm afraid I am a little disappointed.I loved Atticus shop and his friends and neighbours in the first book,so it was a bit disconcerting to have all that swept away in later books!
Watch out for that browsing though,it seriously leads to large increases in the to-be-read pile,which leads to poverty in the pocket.
Looking forward to seeing your reading tastes as you add more books.
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