Amazon's "Best of 2011" Fantasy and Sci-Fi List

I suspect I will be posting a lot of these in the next few days, so get used to it. I'm having a brain freeze when it comes to topics to post. What I do have right now is a lot of time to surf the web, and there are a lot of these lists popping up lately.

Not sure how long Amazon's list will stay up since they're not a site with static pages, so I'm going to link to each of the books they list in their top 10.

• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• The Magician King by Lev Grossman
• Inheritance by Christopher Paolini
• A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
• Embassytown by China Mieville
• Among Others by Jo Walton
• Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
• Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
• The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
• Vortex by Robert Charles Wilson

I don't have any idea how they came up with this list, and there are some items that undoubtedly do deserve to be included on the list.  But let's just take a couple of examples.

Inheritance: This is a solid 3 stars according to customer reviews on Amazon.  There are nearly as many 3-star reviews as 5-star reviews, and overall, and about the same number of 1- and 2-star reviews as there are 4- and 5-star reviews.  I have never seen a more even spread of reviews.  People have really mixed opinions on this.  I suspect this might have been chosen simply because of popularity, and not because of quality.  (I'll be honest, I haven't read any of Paolini's books, nor do I intend to, though I did see the Eragon movie and thought it wasn't that great.)

A Dance with Dragons: I do have this, and fully intend to read it.  I have enjoyed reading this product's forums on Amazon, including an active one about bogus 5-star reviews.  But it's another solid 3 star book, based on customer reviews.  (Careful about going to the forums as sometimes you run across spoilers.)  It's another one that may have been chosen based on sales.

To be fair, Amazon is in the business of selling books.  And if these are the books that are selling, and that's how they want to make their lists, that's fine.  I just wish they would say.  (I prefer lists where there is some discussion, even short, about why the books were chosen.  Then I know they're based on the opinions of people who have actually READ them.)