Thursday 19 July 2001

Pic of the day: Cassie does it again! (Cassie is, of course, my Cassiopeia E-125 pocket PC. And the screen is a lot more readable than this photo shows. Honestly.)

More e-books! More, more!

I'm up to my third paid e-book! What do you say? Can you say "fad"? FAD! FAD! FAD! And it is likely to be at least 5 before it peters out, because I've started on a trilogy and I like it. I sure like it better than the first two books, not that this says much, since they were rather blah. This one, however, is something I would have been proud to write myself. It's called Soothsayer and is written by one Resnick. Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound like a name to inspire confidence. It sounds like someone who snuck off the Soviet Union during a tennis tournament. Actually, since the name is Mike Resnick, he sounds like someone whose parent snuck off during a tennis tournament, but you get the point. Anyway, the man can write.

Evidently he wrote this a decade ago, but it's lately been available to tree-hugging gadget lovers everywhere through the sweetness of Fictionwise. Although, despite my claims to intellect, I must admit that I bought this one at Barnes and Noble. What can I say? Well, I already had an account there and knew that it worked. Yes, it is 10% cheaper at Amazon.com. Isn't everything? But I didn't know that Amazon.com did e-books until after I had started buying at B&N. And I definitely did not know that Fictionwise sold e-books directly. How could I imagine they would do that when B&N sold Fictionwise books? This is the Net, for crying out loud! It's like setting up a supermarket next door to the factory selling the factory's goods. For the same price, admittedly. (It is 10% off at Amazon.com. Go figure.)

But ironically I did not know that Fictionwise was a .com at all until I accidentally jumped to the end of Soothsayer. Well, actually I didn't. I had put the pocket computer in my carrying bag without turning it off, and when I retrieved it a few minutes later it was at the end of the tail advertisements, which told me that I could get the rest of the books heavily discounted at fictionwise.com. Duh. Uh. Uh. "My pocket computer was smarter than me." Not words you want to have on your tombstone. (If any.)

***

Oh yes, the book. It is typical "science fantasy", with virtually impossible technology mixed with 20th century culture, with aliens and mutants and that kind of stuff. But the people are believable, and there is always something happening. And the premise, of a person being able to see many different futures and act accordingly, is a good one. I think this is a natural extension of precognition: If you can see the future, you can also change it, in so far as you see a part of the future that involves yourself or the results of your actions. I haven't finished the book yet, not by a long shot, but it looks cool so far.

Next on my buying list would be a short story called Boobs. It is about a female werewolf, where "that time of the month" takes on a rather sinister meaning. Sounds like a feminist's wet dream. Wet and slick with blood, that is. I also noticed Witness, a book about superheroes which is strikingly similar to a GURPS campaign I read about some weeks ago. (Or months?) Not sure if that book is compatible with pocket PC though, and the writing was less riveting. But superheroes and alternate history sounds like my kind of mix. And of course there's the rest of this trilogy. We'll just have to see how far I come before the fad runs out. But I have to say that e-books are definitely starting to catch on.

Oh yeah, I saw a lower court decision in the USA support the notion that an author could publish an e-book on a different publisher than the one who bought all rights to the book prior to the invention of e-books. I think this is logically wrong: E-books are books. Old dictionary entries be darned. (Or mended. Whatever.) But it is definitely good news for all us gadget-loving treehuggers with limited shelf space. Yay e-books!

And now a message from my right hand, wrist and arm: Goodnight! :)