I’m a library addict, as I can’t fund the habit…I wonder how electronic media will change the face of public libraries?

I read at about 100 pages an hour. If I’ve never read a book before, I can’t start it without finishing it in the same night, which sometimes means two or three hours of sleep between of all the damned 800 page books some people are putting out nowdays and stupidly starting a book at 11 pm….

If I’m in a “Reading” phase, I’ll do two a night. Luckily, it comes and goes- if a good video game is out, I can go weeks with just one or two re-reads from my collection.

What kind of luck is it that the only thing I do with any efficiency is something that takes money instead of makes money?

It’s really telling that publishers seem to be dropping books and authours that seem like sure-bets. They’re in trouble. Mike’s analogy about Bantam producing a glossy free magazine to promote (non-existent) online content in Second Life being like hitching a horse to a Ferrari was hilarious.

The reading journal is also a great way to keep track of your reading speed, i.e. books per month, or — more accurately if you keep work out how many words are in each book you read — words per month. I think it is fair — these days especially — to include online and audio fiction in your reading list.

On another note; the Library segment. We always hear about printed books, never about online or podcast fiction. I’d like to hear more about online books, especially considering how much Mike Stackpole is telling us all that online fiction is the new delivery system for fiction and that the purveyors of dead wood are fast becoming a thing of the past. The only hardcopy fiction I read comes from the library these days, it’s just not economically viable for me to go out to a bookstore and buy a big wedge of paper anymore.

I think it’s time we saw this change in the industry reflected in Dragon Page’s Library Segment… er, perhaps this is another comment that I should copy over to the forums…

darcy

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/officialgaiman/445325.html
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/officialgaiman/446045.html
http://syndicated.livejournal.com/officialgaiman/446306.html

I actually couldn’t believe it when a voicemail caller mentioned the Rapture as if it were fact in a call-in about christian-friendly fiction, and then no-one commented on it. In the UK such a caller would be seen as cultist or deluded.

This raises some serious issues in my mind about how the perception of any particular work of fiction varies from country to country around the world. Perhaps another incident similar to what happened with Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” is always ready to happen.

I dislike the notion of “safe” fiction but agree that anything that stretches a person’s mind and broadens his horizons is a good thing. I would like to think that any dedicated Christian would be able to read anything without fear of losing her faith. I dislike the avoidance of knowledge. Tolerance and understanding are the order of the day, especially now people from different religions and cultures are being brought closer by technology.

The fact is, Steve created it to be a refrence guide. Something that people could use to understand and organize Jo’s world with. Did you forget who Theodore Nott was now that he’s been mentioned here in book seven? Well, don’t bother skimming six previous books, I’ll just pop open this encyclopedic guide and find out. Don’t remember what a specific spell or potion does, because you aren’t obsessive enough to take time to memorize it all? Well, by all means don’t hang your head in shame! Just open this book.

But what I find particularly interesting is the fact that Jo criticizes quite a lot for incorrect etymologies. Steve had marked ‘Alohomora’ as being derived from the Hawaiin word ‘Aloha’ meaning both hello and goodbye. Yet, she says, it is really derived from a Sidiki (sic) word meaning ‘favorable to theives’. First off, this is Steve’s own work, he isnt’ channeling the author or her inspirations. Simply because he got something wrong doesn’t make his ideas any less important. And secondly, even knowing the origins of the word (Sikidi, the ‘d’ and ‘k’ are inverted on the Court transcripts) it is quite hard to track down that word origin. In fact, I’ve not been able to find anything on the Sikidi language at all. The fact of the matter is that it is Steve’s work, whether aligned with the authors intentions or not, that are going into that book. And, even if his thoughts are not accurate, they are still his thoughts and research that are going in.

I found this amazing link on ebookreaders:
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix

C2C seems to be a little bit like waiting for a bus this week; none for ages and then two show up at once. I guess there’s a post-processing delay between the recording date and the date each show is posted up to the site and added to the feed. I’m just too eager!

Adam

I like that the reader can buy more for their money by cutting out the middle-man, the publisher. One concern I do have though is this: How can the consumer get an assurance of quality when an authour sell his own work? I guess that comes over time with user-feedback and experience.

If I didn’t know or trust an authour I’d prefer to buy e-books from sites like amazon or a publisher’s own website - depending on the price - which, for me, would give the books sold there a stamp of approval. The buyer would know that the books would have to be properly edited and have passed through the regular sanity-checks — a standard professional process — before being released to the public. Another option would be for authours to provide free samples.

I fear it would be all to easy for an authour to turn around and say, “Yeah, the book has typos and editing problems, but what do you expect for $2?”

Also, while I’m keenly following the changes in the book-publishing industry and looking forward to the e-book revolution, I still think that there is something inherently more valuable in a printed book. Perhaps this is because I am used to paper books, or because I can’t afford a good e-book reader. I want one, but perhaps the majority of readers only read occasionally and can’t justify the initial outlay. Perhaps all these things will change with time. Perhaps the only question is, how much time?

darcy

However, is there something new to be imagined as far as technology? Well, in real life, we still haven’t completely realized manned space travel. We still haven’t cracked true artificial intelligence. We’re still driving cars that roll on the ground. We still, much to our dismay, use non-renewable fuels for energy. We still haven’t cured cancer. I think no matter how far we progress, there will always be ways to dream of different futures.

I read extensively in fantasy, romance and occasionally sci fi genres and rarely Christian fic, even though I’d be considered a Bible-thumper by most of the C2C crowd. While I’ve read some very good fiction sold as Christian fic, there is a lot of pretty bad stuff out there too. Maybe Christian publishers can’t be as selective as other genre publishers, but then again, there is plenty of trash in every genre.

I certainly don’t see anything wrong with Christians writing fiction in mainstream genres. I firmly believe that all writers write their worldview, and hence this means that all books have some kind of religious bias, whether it be Christian, atheism or some other religion. I don’t like preachy books any more than the next reader, and, from my experience, a book doesn’t have to be Christian to be preachy. We vote by what we read, and there definitely isn’t any reason to restrict certain worldviews from any of the available genres if people buy them and read them.

While I agree that SF will always have much to say about society I disagree strongly that all the great ideas have been used up and that the pace of real-world technological advances makes it near impossible to write hard-SF stories that don’t date within a few years. I understand that such stories can no longer be based on general scienctific ideas though because leading-edge science is now conducted in specialist fields.

As a professional computer programmer, in such a specialist field, I have many stories ideas based on computers that I know we won’t see become reality for many years to come, if ever. I think the challenge for any hard-SF authour today is in bringing such specialist knowledge to a wider audience in a way that is accessible.