Jumping the shark

Rico says Robert Fulghum has been at the "hey, look at me, I'm writing a book" game for a long time, with a lot of success. He's written literary classics like All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It, What On Earth Have I Done?, and the poignantly titled Uh-Oh. But with his latest, Third Wish, he may have outdone himself. (For those unfamiliar with the phrase 'jumping the shark', go here.)
This is how Amazon promoted the book via an email:

First published in the Czech Republic (where it quickly became a bestseller), Third Wish is a sweeping, lavishly plotted novel in five parts, bound together by a profound love story that spans the globe. It is at once a classic quest novel and a rich parable for our times, inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll, Milan Kundera, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, among others. Presented in a boxed set as two richly illustrated paperback volumes with an accompanying CD musical soundtrack, this is a true one-of-a-kind novel.

Rico says there's so much there in one little paragraph... "a bestseller in the Czech Republic"? Whee! Total population: ten million. Total bookbuying population: maybe a million? Numbers needed to become a bestseller? Not very many; figure a few thousand in that market. A "sweepingly, lavishly plotted novel in five parts"? Save us from that many words by this author... A "profound love story that spans the globe"? Profound isn't usually what we're looking for in a love story... "At once a classic quest novel and a rich parable for our times"? Sort of Lord of the Rings combined with, oh, some Biblical parable or other? Hardly. "Inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll, Milan Kundera, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, among others"? Rico says he cannot imagine three more disparate authors, among others... Plus it's got a CD, with gawd knows what sort of "musical soundtrack" on it...

Rico says he coined a new acronym yesterday that applies here: FdC, or fuque du clusteur. That's French (sort of; the proper translation would be baise de faisceau, according to Babelfish) for clusterfuck.

What we have here, in the immortal words of the late Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke, is "a failure to communicate"...