Statistically Improbable Meme

[erikred]

Pick ten of your favorite books, look them up on Amazon.com, and find the list of Statistically Improbable Phrases for those novels. Pick a few SIPs from each book, list them here, and then have people guess what books they are. (Obviously, using Google or Amazon to figure it out is cheating.).

For your consideration:

1. clam beer, eternal rainbow, cloud wall
2. hundred piastres, retired baker, dear viscount
3. folding bedroom, old orrery, imaginary study
4. tormented writer, productive writer, gathering shadow [If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino, identified by missludmilla]
5. pirate city, haunted quarter, possibility mining [The Scar by China Mieville, identified by alfvaen]
6. unicorn skull, chubby granddaughter, shuffled data [Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, identified by abazureonna]
7. tangents paper, rarefying engine, cabinet noir
8. purring voice, little revolver
9. terrible island, zero winter, fabulous thing
10. pale suit, buffalo man, coin tricks [American Gods by Neil Gaiman, identified by ronebofh]

Go get 'em.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

10 is Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

I know 3, 5 and 8 from others' instantiations of this meme, but i haven't read any of them, so i won't guess.

[erikred.livejournal.com]

[abazureonna.livejournal.com]

six is murakami's hardboiled wonderland and the end of the world, but the rest i don't know.

how are "purring voice" and "little revolver" statistically improbable phrases? i'd go out on a limb and guess dashiell hammit or something, but which hammit?

[abazureonna.livejournal.com]

ah, i just read how it works on amazon... still, man, that's a hard one.

[erikred.livejournal.com]

You're right, it is kind of hard. Still, those were the only SIPs listed.

[erikred.livejournal.com]

[narwhale.livejournal.com]

I knew 10!

And 5 is a Meiville book I'm pretty damned sure, but I can't remember which one possibility mining was in. I don't this it was PSS.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

#2: Steven Brust, 'The Viscount of Adrilankha'.

[erikred.livejournal.com]

[palecur.livejournal.com]

#7: China Mieville, Perdido Street Station

[erikred.livejournal.com]

[missludmilla.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing #4 is "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler"...

[erikred.livejournal.com]

[alfvaen]

You know, I thought #5 was "The Scar" when I first read this, so I hope it's not cheating that I confirmed it when I was searching it for my own contribution to the SIP meme.

[erikred.livejournal.com]

I think that counts.