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> I'm probably never going to read again, because I have absolutely no metric, however bad any more, for guessing about the quality of a the book.

Really? This might be the laziest thing I've read on HN. 30 seconds of Googling (DuckDuckGoing?)

https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/

https://nebulas.sfwa.org

https://www.sfadb.com

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g39358054/best-s... (and tons of other lists like this)

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/19341.Best_Science_Ficti... (etc...)

Yes, searching on Amazon might not be the best discovery method anymore, but there are also institutions that curate.

Ah yes, the Hugo award, known for such quality and revered works like “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” by Chuck Tingle.

How can I trust any award as a standard of quality that has ridiculous stuff like that getting nominated?

Nominations aren't awards...?

I've read a number of books from those lists in the past and they're not really what I'm looking for, and a lot of the books I really enjoyed are not in the circles those lists select from.

But I guess more to the point in the past I've grabbed books with interesting covers or titles off the shelves at a library and enjoyed them, and I don't feel confident in that method working today. Or at least, I feel like there was a time when the rankings on Amazon were probably a lot closer to what you'd see in libraries.

This is definitely a case where you are much better served by information curated by enthusiasts and communities. For science fiction and fantasy, there are a bunch of images out there with flow charts and recommended entry points which should help you figure out what you like¹. And of course other actual people often have their own recommendations, as do independent book stores.

1: Here's a blog post reposting an older one with a lot of the common classics: https://blog.zog.org/2017/06/nprs-guide-through-the-top-100-...

"The Amazon algorithm didn't show me the best book in the world as the first search result so I'm never going to read again".

Something tells me you just aren't interested in reading (which is fine) and are trying to find excuses for it.

Kind of a weird reason to not read anymore. 1) I never even thought about sorting by Amazon ratings and 2) I never paid to the cover myself.

While I am sure it shares metrics, I have usually had success looking at past books I have read in goodreads and their related recommendations.

I do this for blog posts, articles, emails, etc. If i suspect in any way they are AI created I close it immediately.

The only reader AI deserves is another AI for the marketing side.

I read lots of sci-fi and this story doesn't sound right.

Are you sure they weren't just modern sci-fi authors you haven't heard of?

Sci-fi has never been stronger and it makes sense the most popular wouldn't be what you read way back when.

That's doesn't mean they are written by bots.

> I kind of use the effort put into the cover as a way to gauge how much the author and publisher themselves think the work is worth

If only there were some sort of short and catchy idiom that encapsulates some wisdom about the potential folly of judging the interior contents of a book just from looking at the exterior coverings.

AI generated book covers are also a thing at this point, which reinforces that age old idiom. Even legitimate writers will still find value in generating their covers.

as a tangent, I think the issue with Amazon goes way beyond just books. At this point it's just the American version of Wish imo.