|
TOOT BOOT posted:How much easier does it need to get? 99% of the time I can buy what I want with 1 click and read it on any of my devices. I suppose if you have personal issues with drm then yea it would be a pain in the rear end. As it is, I've bought so many books since I got my first Kindle many years ago, much more than I would have bought if it was all physical media.
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 03:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 18:57 |
|
|
TOOT BOOT posted:How much easier does it need to get? 99% of the time I can buy what I want with 1 click and read it on any of my devices. This whole crappy derail was started by me asking for a way to pay money for an electronic copy of Ninth Rain, which I would still love to be able to do. I have zero desire to fill my house up with more paper, and so physical copies of books I read for pleasure are right out. There’s significant room for improvement in digital access to books with payment for authors.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 04:59
|
|
|
Read Forty Thousand in Gehenna mostly because of this cover: Turns out it's a lot less goofy than the cover implies (even though it is 100% accurate). I liked how it dealt with questions like "what do you with a population that hasn't been in contact with the modern world. Do you help them? Leave them alone? Is it possible to study them without altering their culture? How do you remain your objectivity?" I also actually liked the genealogigal charts. They begin with clones who has no imagination so when the mother, who's name is Pia, have a daughter she calls her Pia 2. Then it becomes Pia Younger, Pia Youngest, Red Pia, Pia Now The Eldest and over the centuries it changes into Paeia.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 11:40
|
|
|
a foolish pianist posted:This whole crappy derail was started by me asking for a way to pay money for an electronic copy of Ninth Rain, which I would still love to be able to do. Even if an author is a big name in the SF/F world, we still see new books showing up in eg. UK first and in the US several months later (eg. Charlie Stross), and smaller/new names might only have a deal in one market or some books from big names only being available in one market due to old deals (two or three Culture books only available in Amazon UK). As a customer located in the International market (Denmark), I am forced to "cheat" the system to be able to buy the books I want to read: I need to create an address in my Amazon address book in both the US and UK, and using them when buying ebooks, otherwise I'm limited to books published under an International deal. When shopping that way, there is always the threat of being banned/locked out, even it's been a while since I've read of such a case (I believe a Norwegian woman got banned five years ago but don't remember the details). Before giving in and using these fake addresses, I often wrote to the publisher and/or author and asked them to make the book available for International customers, and most of the time it actually worked, but I guess it's often due to being the only rights holder to English language versions (either in the UK or US) most often also covers publishing that version to International markets (but not US/UK). But yeah, if you want to buy ebooks from Amazon, create a US/UK address, switch between them and buy the books you want.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 11:48
|
|
|
a foolish pianist posted:This whole crappy derail was started by me asking for a way to pay money for an electronic copy of Ninth Rain, which I would still love to be able to do. Buy a paper copy, pirate the electronic one, then donate the book to your local library or prison or other worthwhile organizations?
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 12:25
|
|
|
Fart of Presto posted:
It's not common, but there have been a few news articles about people getting their amazon accounts banned for doing this. Apparently it's a thing that happens. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...-asks-why.shtml
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 13:20
|
|
|
I did that and half of my account, ie everything I had under my 90210 zip code, just disappeared
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 13:22
|
|
|
silvergoose posted:this one is super weird and kind of fascinating There's a sequel novella due feb next year, I loved it, looking forward to more.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 14:06
|
|
|
The 1997 SFL Archives has started discussing how influential L. Sprague de Camp was/has been in SFF; especially the subgenre of SFF fiction now described as "portal fiction". Thought this would be of interest to this thread since L. Sprague de Camp got discussed here a month ago(?) with extremely different opinions of de Camps worth/legacy than 25 years ago. A bunch of IRL SFF authors that posted to the SFL Archives in 1997 chimed in to say how de Camp directly influenced them or directly influenced and worked with the authors they grew up with and actively try to emulate. Back to the Raymond Chandler influence on Roger Zelazny's AMBER books that also briefly got mentioned in SFL Archives 1996. After giving it some though, it's now hard for me not to see Corwin as a increasingly concussed Chandler-esque main character stumbling through events and seeing things that don't exist. Grayswandir probably isn't real, along with at least one or two of his siblings, and everything in cloudAmber, and almost everything in Corwin's final hellride. Meanwhile, in the cash-grab AMBER sequel series Merlin is just really loving dumb and unobservant before getting concussed and nobody else knows what he's talking about when he mentions Luke or Ghostwheel or power-rings.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 14:45
|
|
|
I have been wanting to read Cyteen for the last 5 years. It's insane that my only choice is STILL just buying a used paperback.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 16:03
|
|
|
Take the plunge! Okay! posted:I did that and half of my account, ie everything I had under my 90210 zip code, just disappeared Yeah, as soon as the book I bought is in my Amazon library I also download it manually and add it to my Calibre library.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 18:18
|
|
|
I'm in the mood for some fantasy. Help me decide which of these two I should read next: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington Both are completed trilogies. So, if I start one and like it (3/5), I'll probably continue with the series.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 18:23
|
|
|
minema posted:Yeah my fears were completely unfounded, I've read the whole book now and it was just that PoV character's thoughts and not repeated again, when seen from other characters PoV it's much more balanced Yep, but that first chapter really sticks with you. Years after I read the trilogy, it's one of the clearest scenes in my memory. I seem to remember it being very sensuous prose and of course the main action is practically a climax despite being just fifteen pages into the book.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 18:42
|
|
|
TOOT BOOT posted:How much easier does it need to get? 99% of the time I can buy what I want with 1 click and read it on any of my devices.  or nothing. Unless it's something I really really want to read I usually don't bother though; I just pass over that book if it's not on the kobo store.It's pretty silly that things work this way, but distribution agreements probably aren't free, I guess, and every device vendor wants a storefront monopoly for themselves. e: welp, just as I posted that I noticed that Bujold's latest (The Assassins of Thasalon) isn't on the kobo store. so much for established authors 
TheFluff fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Jun 26, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 18:58
|
|
|
TOOT BOOT posted:How much easier does it need to get? 99% of the time I can buy what I want with 1 click and read it on any of my devices. It can get much easier? Let me read my book in the application of my choice and let me organize my books in the application of my choice. Some sellers allow this and are great, but amazon, google books, barnes & noble are all total crap. I live in the EU if that makes a difference. And I often read on a windows laptop.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 19:40
|
|
|
people who can read books on a computer/phone screen amaze me. It drives me crazy just reading a long short story on them
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 19:58
|
|
|
Aardvark! posted:people who can read books on a computer/phone screen amaze me. It drives me crazy just reading a long short story on them I find it easier than reading print these days, just because on a device I can control the font size.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 19:59
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I find it easier than reading print these days, just because on a device I can control the font size. This plus having dark mode makes things so much easier for me
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 20:01
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I find it easier than reading print these days, just because on a device I can control the font size. Now that I can relate to. I finally upped the font size on my Kindle last year, after 10+ years. I'm on font size 5 now 
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 20:04
|
|
|
Armauk posted:I'm in the mood for some fantasy. Help me decide... The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie Do it, I bounced off some random Abercrombie a couple years ago, then picked this up when I read it was gonna be Sam Raimi’s post-Spider-Man series movie. That didn’t happen but now I’ve ripped through all of his books since quarantine.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 20:12
|
|
|
Armauk posted:I'm in the mood for some fantasy. Help me decide which of these two I should read next: I'm a big Abercrombie fan so I'd definitely recommend The Blade Itself. Word of warning that some people think it takes a while to get anywhere. It definitely is the first in a trilogy, so don't expect any grand arcs to conclude in the first one, a lot of it is getting the pieces set up. Still, I find it incredibly enjoyable to read. If you bounce off it and want a self contained Abercrombie to get used to his world, Best Served Cold is a good option. Remulak posted:The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie Funnily enough, even though it was reported that it was Joe's The Blade Itself that was getting the adaption, the actual book that was optioned was for a crime novel also called The Blade Itself, set it Chicago. Journalists just saw "The Blade Itself", googled the book, came across the fantasy novel, and assumed that was the correct one, especially since one could see Raimi directing a fantasy series after his experience with vfx heavy superhero movies. Ccs fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jun 26, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 20:40
|
|
|
https://www.amazon.com/Cthulhu-Reloaded-Collected-Harrison-Stories-ebook/dp/B093G7SS37/ New collections! I love these stories, and the Peel character. It's nice to have a protag who isn't "cursed into gibbering madness" by meeting an elder god or just plain old dead by said elder god. It's the complete collection across 3 books with new stories, and if they sell well, we get more of them! One of the few instant buys I do for books. Dude's a great author.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 20:57
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:https://www.amazon.com/Cthulhu-Reloaded-Collected-Harrison-Stories-ebook/dp/B093G7SS37/ Also on the Kobo store for £1.99 for us Amazon-avoiders, so I'll give it a go. The next two are available for pre-order there too. https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/cthulhu-reloaded
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 21:36
|
|
|
.
breadnsucc fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Aug 21, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 21:37
|
|
|
i'll read on my phone if i'm making GBS threads on the clock, otherwise no thanks.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 21:40
|
|
|
Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:https://www.amazon.com/Cthulhu-Reloaded-Collected-Harrison-Stories-ebook/dp/B093G7SS37/ Never heard of this guy before, yeah I'll drop 3$ on a sampler set. Thanks for the heads-up!
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 21:42
|
|
|
uber_stoat posted:i'll read on my phone if i'm making GBS threads on the clock, otherwise no thanks. And I can’t pretend I am handling important communications at my desk via my phone if I have a book in my hand.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 21:51
|
|
|
quantumfoam posted:The 1997 SFL Archives has started discussing how influential L. Sprague de Camp was/has been in SFF; especially the subgenre of SFF fiction now described as "portal fiction". Thought this would be of interest to this thread since L. Sprague de Camp got discussed here a month ago(?) with extremely different opinions of de Camps worth/legacy than 25 years ago. de Camp was definitely an important author--not top-tier, but a solid second-rank author--with some notable spikes for things like the birth of portal fiction and his influence on Conan's legacy. It's just that SF is a relatively young genre, and only now are hitting the great levelling that comes with all literature, where we see what stands the test of time and what was once important but falls away. de Camp's generation has died off, and so has most of the two that followed it and were most influenced by it, and that's when the winnowing really begins. You're seeing that with all sorts of authors that used to matter: Clifford Simak, A. E. van Vogt, Murray Leinster, Jack Williamson, Theodore Sturgeon, Hal Clement, and so on. Some of them being relegated to footnotes are ultimately no big loss, but people like Sturgeon fading away is unfortunate.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 21:57
|
|
|
Ccs posted:Cool stuff
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 22:12
|
|
|
Remulak posted:After some review it was the first few pages of Best Served Cold that left me uninterested in Abercrombie for a couple of years, and I while I later finished and enjoyed it, I think it’s actually his least interesting book, even though he usually improves visibly at each publication. I like it for the amount of places it goes and how it introduces a new part of the world, since the first trilogy covered the Union and the North pretty heavily. The Heroes is probably his best book but can’t really be read as a stand alone without losing a ton of context.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 23:11
|
|
|
One of the thing about ebooks and piracy is that frequently an ebook will be of really low quality, and the only way to fix it yourself is to crack the DRM, because it's extremely unlikely that the publishers will ever issue an update (in fact I'm not aware that it's even possible to issue error-fixing updates on any major platform, and Amazon actively prevents you from doing so). Music and movies rarely have this problem because people who sell music do in fact want the music to sound good.
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 23:36
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:One of the thing about ebooks and piracy is that frequently an ebook will be of really low quality, and the only way to fix it yourself is to crack the DRM, because it's extremely unlikely that the publishers will ever issue an update (in fact I'm not aware that it's even possible to issue error-fixing updates on any major platform, and Amazon actively prevents you from doing so). Amazon updates Kindle books all the time. I think you have to opt-in to receiving the updated versions though. I'm looking at a list of my Kindle purchases and 10-15 have 'Update Available'
|
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2021 23:52
|
|
|
Ccs posted:Funnily enough, even though it was reported that it was Joe's The Blade Itself that was getting the adaption, the actual book that was optioned was for a crime novel also called The Blade Itself, set it Chicago. Journalists just saw "The Blade Itself", googled the book, came across the fantasy novel, and assumed that was the correct one, especially since one could see Raimi directing a fantasy series after his experience with vfx heavy superhero movies. There was also someone who walked by a tv studio in the LA area and found Abercrombie's The Blade Itself being planned out on white boards a couple of years ago. https://imgur.com/gallery/P5gyS
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 00:22
|
|
|
TOOT BOOT posted:Amazon updates Kindle books all the time. I think you have to opt-in to receiving the updated versions though. I'm looking at a list of my Kindle purchases and 10-15 have 'Update Available' iBooks also. The primary use case by publishers seems to be inserting ads for new books in the end matter.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 01:01
|
|
|
the blade itself felt like an instant classic at the time it was written, but theres some misogynistic stuff in it and logan ninefingers feels like a lot less compelling of a character now than he does then. joe abercrombie has definitely become a better writer as he's worked on his craft. i think his newest trilogy is a lot better than his first works and hes given interviews about how he regrets how he wrote some of the female characters in his first novels and how hes worked on writing women better and writing his favourite trope of "the violent man who regrets his violence" with a little bit more nuance.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 03:00
|
|
|
Xotl posted:de Camp was definitely an important author--not top-tier, but a solid second-rank author--with some notable spikes for things like the birth of portal fiction and his influence on Conan's legacy. It's just that SF is a relatively young genre, and only now are hitting the great levelling that comes with all literature, where we see what stands the test of time and what was once important but falls away. de Camp's generation has died off, and so has most of the two that followed it and were most influenced by it, and that's when the winnowing really begins. You're seeing that with all sorts of authors that used to matter: Clifford Simak, A. E. van Vogt, Murray Leinster, Jack Williamson, Theodore Sturgeon, Hal Clement, and so on. Some of them being relegated to footnotes are ultimately no big loss, but people like Sturgeon fading away is unfortunate. Agree on de Camp, soft disagree on calling SF a relatively young genre. The issue isn't the age of SF as a genre (it's pushing 90+ yrs old), it's that the SF fanbase overall has a insane churn rate compared to other literary genres and historical memory carry-over worse than goldfish...this got commented on a few times in the earliest SFL Archives. Back in the 1980's having a memory span of SF over 5 yrs old was considered uncommon and seemed to automatically made you a wizened elder of SFF relating tales of tying onions to your belt; and this was all decades before social-media attention sucking landmines like twitter/tiktok/facebook/instagram/clicker games existed. SFLer's of 1997 also started discussing Ray Bradbury and why he was so disliked by the hardest elements of SF fandom. Either it was hating on Bradbury for rising up from SFF fandom to become a professional writer that sold gangbusters in "mundane" non-SFF magazines as well as every single SFF magazine in existence that drove hardcore SF fans berserk, or it was Bradbury not including nods to SF fandom in his work like other risen from SF fans-turned pro-writers did, or Bradbury's best selling work having comparatively little SFF in it that drove hardcore SF fandom insane; or it was that Ray Bradbury as a young SF fan was brash in local/regional SFF fandom get-togethers and alleged gave people hotfoots when really bored at SFF get-togethers. FYI: I bolded what really seemed to drive hardcore SF fandom berserk.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 03:03
|
|
|
quantumfoam posted:it was Bradbury not including nods to SF fandom in his work like other risen from SF fans-turned pro-writers did This struck me as an extremely petty thing to get made about, but then it occurred to me that it could be symbolic of what really does rub some people the wrong way about Bradbury. Ray Bradbury posted:First of all, I don't write science fiction. I've only done one science fiction book and that's Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy. It couldn't happen, you see? That's the reason it's going to be around a long time—because it's a Greek myth, and myths have staying power. I can see how that attitude would irritate a lot of SF fans; it's bad enough (from their point of view) when MWoSFs like Margaret Atwood say things like "I don't write science fiction," but it's even worse when an SF-fan-turned-pro talks like that for mainstream cred. (To be fair, I'm not sure that fantasy was much more mainstream than sci-fi when Bradbury said that.) Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jun 27, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 03:12
|
|
|
Abercrombie's near-constant lampshading of his own oh-so-clever "deconstruction" of fantasy tropes drove me up the wall
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 03:53
|
|
|
E-books are fairly easy to buy in whatever region, but I’ve given up on some movies/series. A few streaming sites are either unavailable or the specific content is blocked here (even with VPN in some cases, when they check where your credit card is from). E-books I find that just changing your region on Amazon or using a VPN does the trick.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 06:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 31, 2024 18:57 |
|
|
I'll go with The Blade Itself. Thanks, friends. I'll report back how it goes.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2021 07:17
|
|