Lois’s answer to “Just a comment about the difference of reading a physical book vs an ebook. I purchased "The Curse …” > Likes and Comments
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I recall when I first got the book, that Lois had written a short blurb somewhere about trying to get it published. (Lois - please correct me if I got any of the details wrong). At the time, her Vorkosigan books were all published through Baen Books. She went around to other Publishers for the Chalion book, but nobody wanted to take the risk! When she went back to ask Baen about publishing it, Jim Baen cut her a check for $50K book unread. Guess that's how much he trusted her work. Great investment.
Wrong, sadly. That is a somewhat garbled account of what happened a decade earlier with my first fantasy effort, The Spirit Ring. The Curse of Chalion went to HarperCollins at a successful action (as, where one's agent shops a book to several publishers at once (don't try this at home, kids) for a much tidier sum. It was a 2-book 6-figure contract, iirc, second volume as yet undevised. (It became Paladin of Souls. They'd wanted to make it 3, doubtless hoping for a fantasy trilogy, but I didn't want to commit that far out. In the event they got a trilogy -- well, more of a trio -- later anyway, when I came up with the idea for The Hallowed Hunt.
Ta, L.
Same here. During the day, I wear contact lenses, but I can't see up close with them, so I enlarge the font size; in bed, without contact lenses, I have the e-reader two inches from my face, with smaller font size.
The even lighting of modern e-ink readers also works better for me than the glow of an external lamp on paper. As you grow older, you not only get presbyopia but also lose some of your ability to see clearly in low light.
Spoiler alert: Getting old sucks.
I’m sorry that you need large-print books, even with reading glasses. The Penric stories are an even more impressive achievement, given that you manage to write them despite this problem. At least there’s nothing wrong with your mind; other authors tend to lose their grip mentally as they get older.
I confess that I’ve read The Curse of Chalion only five times. Whereas I’ve read The Assassins of Thasalon ten times already; I wouldn’t nominate it as your best novel, but it’s a good one, and it sits in the Penric series, which I reread as a whole at the drop of a hat.
I’m not sure that I’ve read any book 40 times; but I don’t have a good record of what I read from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Writing is not actually a problem, given that my laptop also enlarges the print as much as I wish.
My main problem is not near- or far-sightedness, though I am very nearsighted, but macular pucker, aka epiretinal membrane, in my left eye (but not, fortunately, the right) which distorts the, as it were, horizontal and vertical hold (oh, there's an old-tech term that will soon be incomprehensible.) It can't be corrected by lenses, as the problem lies back on the retina. The life-hack that really rescued my reading was realizing I could paint the left lens of my reading glasses opaque with black nail polish, taking that eye off-line but leaving it relaxed and still with light coming in around the edges of the field of view. (Just closing the left eye was a strain, only good for a few minutes, and an eyepatch was uncomfortable.) It works quite well... until something happens to my right eye, I suppose.
Ta, L.
Thanks for the explanation; sorry again about the problem. The eyepatch would be piratical (you could get a toy parrot to go with it), but congratulations on finding a more comfortable solution.
A laptop’s built-in screen is of limited size, but you can attach one or more large separate monitors. I’m not keen on laptops myself, as I don’t need portability; my main computer is a tower system.
Yes, retina problems with eyesight can be very difficult to deal with. I love the ability to adjust font size on eBooks. Another, fortunately future potential issue is that my library of physical books is so large that if I ever have to downsize substantially, possibly even to one room in some sort of "home", I could never bring them all. But with an eReader and eBooks (and library resources to add to it) I have far less fear of a day when I can't read the books I love the most because of lack of access.
I have paper books that I’ve owned since the 1960s and 1970s. In some cases the pages are in danger of falling out by now. E-books are more durable, as long as software still exists that is capable of reading them.
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I recall when I first got the book, that Lois had written a short blurb somewhere about trying to get it published. (Lois - please correct me if I got any of the details wrong). At the time, her Vorkosigan books were all published through Baen Books. She went around to other Publishers for the Chalion book, but nobody wanted to take the risk! When she went back to ask Baen about publishing it, Jim Baen cut her a check for $50K book unread. Guess that's how much he trusted her work. Great investment.
Wrong, sadly. That is a somewhat garbled account of what happened a decade earlier with my first fantasy effort, The Spirit Ring. The Curse of Chalion went to HarperCollins at a successful action (as, where one's agent shops a book to several publishers at once (don't try this at home, kids) for a much tidier sum. It was a 2-book 6-figure contract, iirc, second volume as yet undevised. (It became Paladin of Souls. They'd wanted to make it 3, doubtless hoping for a fantasy trilogy, but I didn't want to commit that far out. In the event they got a trilogy -- well, more of a trio -- later anyway, when I came up with the idea for The Hallowed Hunt. Ta, L.
Same here. During the day, I wear contact lenses, but I can't see up close with them, so I enlarge the font size; in bed, without contact lenses, I have the e-reader two inches from my face, with smaller font size.The even lighting of modern e-ink readers also works better for me than the glow of an external lamp on paper. As you grow older, you not only get presbyopia but also lose some of your ability to see clearly in low light.
Spoiler alert: Getting old sucks.
I’m sorry that you need large-print books, even with reading glasses. The Penric stories are an even more impressive achievement, given that you manage to write them despite this problem. At least there’s nothing wrong with your mind; other authors tend to lose their grip mentally as they get older.I confess that I’ve read The Curse of Chalion only five times. Whereas I’ve read The Assassins of Thasalon ten times already; I wouldn’t nominate it as your best novel, but it’s a good one, and it sits in the Penric series, which I reread as a whole at the drop of a hat.
I’m not sure that I’ve read any book 40 times; but I don’t have a good record of what I read from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Writing is not actually a problem, given that my laptop also enlarges the print as much as I wish.My main problem is not near- or far-sightedness, though I am very nearsighted, but macular pucker, aka epiretinal membrane, in my left eye (but not, fortunately, the right) which distorts the, as it were, horizontal and vertical hold (oh, there's an old-tech term that will soon be incomprehensible.) It can't be corrected by lenses, as the problem lies back on the retina. The life-hack that really rescued my reading was realizing I could paint the left lens of my reading glasses opaque with black nail polish, taking that eye off-line but leaving it relaxed and still with light coming in around the edges of the field of view. (Just closing the left eye was a strain, only good for a few minutes, and an eyepatch was uncomfortable.) It works quite well... until something happens to my right eye, I suppose.
Ta, L.
Thanks for the explanation; sorry again about the problem. The eyepatch would be piratical (you could get a toy parrot to go with it), but congratulations on finding a more comfortable solution.A laptop’s built-in screen is of limited size, but you can attach one or more large separate monitors. I’m not keen on laptops myself, as I don’t need portability; my main computer is a tower system.
Yes, retina problems with eyesight can be very difficult to deal with. I love the ability to adjust font size on eBooks. Another, fortunately future potential issue is that my library of physical books is so large that if I ever have to downsize substantially, possibly even to one room in some sort of "home", I could never bring them all. But with an eReader and eBooks (and library resources to add to it) I have far less fear of a day when I can't read the books I love the most because of lack of access.
I have paper books that I’ve owned since the 1960s and 1970s. In some cases the pages are in danger of falling out by now. E-books are more durable, as long as software still exists that is capable of reading them.
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