NEW YORK — Western lecturer Mark A. Rayner’s satirical novel, The Fridgularity, was the winner of the first annual IndieReader Discovery Award (IRDA) in the humour category.
The awards were announced at BookExpo America (BEA), a major literary trade show in New York City. Judges for the awards included publishers, agents, publicists, reviewers, authors, bloggers and producers. The book was awarded five stars out of five.
“All of the winning titles were judged by top industry professionals — not as merely a great indie book — but as a great book, period,” said Amy Edelman, founder of IndieReader, a consumer guide to self-published books and the people who write them.
“The Fridgularity is a satire of Internet addiction, Internet culture and the concept of the technological singularity,” Rayner said. “It’s got a serious message, but it’s delivered in a humorous fashion. I was thrilled to win in a category with so many funny books.”
The novel asks the question: What would happen if the Internet became self-aware, locked all humans out of it, and then only wanted to talk to one guy via his web-enabled fridge?
Rayner is no stranger to the net. In addition to penning satirical novels, he teaches web design and information architecture to students in Western’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies.
The Fridgularity is available through The Book Store at Western, bookstores online, such as Indigo.ca or Amazon.ca, and may be custom ordered in any mortar-and-brick store as well.