Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

Hello
I recently go a kindle. Bit I am finding it hard to find a good science fiction that is not aimed at children/young adults. What e-books have you read and what would you recommend?

All the fiction and most non-fiction I have read in the last 3 or 4 years are in ebook form so around 3/4 of the books on my goodreads shelves are ebooks. Almost every book we mentioned in this group, every one of our monthly group read, and every book I mentioned in comments in this group, have been published in some e-book form (not necessarily kindle). The last science fiction I read that is available on kindle is The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, and the last sf kindle e-book I bought is Life by Gwyneth Jones, which I have yet to read.

Also, personally I find the majority of the most popular sf books listed in kindle store books I've no intention to read, & I think they're there not because they're good sf but because they're cheap or free. On the other hand, usually when I search for a reasonably well known sf title there I can get it in more than half of the cases.

I disagree (respectfully!) with Xdyj, I like that most of the books you can get for Kindle are cheaper than their paper versions, and some are really cheap... like the John Carter collections that have 5 books for 99 cents (!) or the collections by old-timers like Andre Norton and Mack Reynolds that are even bigger (like 10 or 12 books for 99 cents). They're cheap because they're old and not "hot" anymore, but a lot of them are really fun.

I read a lot of fantasy too, right now I'm reading The Gamble of the Godless and really enjoying it, and I recently finished His Majesty's Dragon, which was excellent if you like dragons! And they're not for kids, they're serious fantasy books that have their own spin.

Anyway, if you want "serious" sci-fi, you can find William Gibson, Octavia Butler, Asimov, Ray Bradbury and all of them. And The Forever War is an awesome book! My bf suggested I read it and I thought I'd hate it but it was great. So I guess Xdyj and I can agree on that lol!

I would recommend the Agent Cormac series by Neal Asher (first book: Gridlinked)

Or the Commonwealth Saga (Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained) and the following Void trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton.

It depends on what you're after, really. If you're looking for indie SF authors, I've not come across any as yet that have caught my interest - not to say that there aren't any, just that most are hidden amongst all the dross (a bit like trying to find a needle in a wheat field).

I'd almost be cheeky enough to recommend myself, but my first book is fantasy, and although the next is a sci-fi thriller, it's a long way off from being finished!

Rylee wrote: "I disagree (respectfully!) with Xdyj, I like that most of the books you can get for Kindle are cheaper than their paper versions, and some are really cheap... like the John Carter collections that ..."

I also like Gibson, Butler, Bradbury etc. and Asimov is probably the 1st sf author I read:) And I like the world-building of His Majesty's Dragon.

Go to Book View Cafe (www.bookviewcafe.com) and scout around. We have masses of e books, all from veteran SF writers.

You can't go past Dune by Frank Herbert. What an amazing read. Also anything by Lois McMaster Bujoid.

If you aren't sure what you like, go to Baen's ebook free online library where each author puts one or two of their books up for free so you can try out an author before you spend any money. Baen have lots of great SF authors.

Second the recommendation of Bujold; if you find you like her stuff you will fall hard and become utterly addicted.

Fayley wrote: "If you aren't sure what you like, go to Baen's ebook free online library where each author puts one or two of their books up for free so you can try out an author before you spend any money. Baen h..."

That's how I started reading Weber's Honor Harrington series. I believe Weber has close to a dozen free novels there, but it certainly helped his sales with me. I've bought most of his books.

One of the things I really like about the proliferation of eBooks, aside from freebies, is that it has enabled some of my favorite authors to provide shorter works in the $1-$3 range. I like short fiction, sort of like a palate cleanser between the courses:

I just finished reading John Scalzi's short story After the Coup, a humorous side story in his serious military scifi Old Man's War universe. His more serious, slightly longer, and experimental novella The Sagan Diary had a similar eBook release (the latter was also released in a very limited edition hardcover.)

I very much enjoyed Elizabeth Bear's Bone and Jewel Creatures, a unique fantasy novella unrelated to her other writing.

Brandon Sanderson's quirky scifi/fantasy novella Legion had a similar low-cost eBook release after a limited hardcover (that was rather pricey for under one hundred pages.)

And Kristine Kathryn Rusch has published a couple of eBook-only novellas, such as The Spires of Denon, set in the same far future spacefaring universe as her Diving Into the Wreck books. (These previously appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.)

I bought my first couple of short eBooks before I got my Kindle, reading them on my desktop.

G33z3r wrote: "One of the things I really like about the proliferation of eBooks, aside from freebies, is that it has enabled some of my favorite authors to provide shorter works in the $1-$3 range. I like short ..."

You are so right about the freedom from specific lengths. That is so cool. I've read so many stories that were obviously forced to a specific length for the publisher & it often ruined them. Now, that's no longer a problem. Awesome.

Only hours after typing my previous post, I discovered Brandon Sanderson's recent novella, The Emperor's Soul, set in the same world as his Elantris novel, was now on sale as an eBook. The hardcover edition was a bit pricey for 175 pages, but at $5, I expect the eBook to be well worth the purchase.

Short fiction isn't new to Science Fiction and fantasy, of course. There have always been various compilations and anthologies (fewer, these days). And at the start of each month I get several eMagazines (Asimov's, Analog, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Lightspeed), these days delivered directly to my Kindle. (For some reason, Amazon doesn't deliver eMagazines to the Kindle desktop reader applications.) Those magazines contain plenty of short stories and novellas of varied length, for my amusement.

Don't forget the old Ace doubles, too. I think it was in one of those that I read George R.R. Martin for the first time.

Horace wrote: "Don't forget the old Ace doubles, too. I think it was in one of those that I read George R.R. Martin for the first time."

Ah, yes! Those doubles had many imitators, too. (For those who don't go back that far, the "doubles" contained two novellas back-to-back, cleverly printed so that you turned the book upside down to find an entirely different cover for a different novella.)

I believe Robinson started his Red Mars trilogy as the flip side of a Clarke A Meeting With Medusa/Green Mars double. And I definietly recall Binary Star #5 not for the George RR Martin story "Nightflyers" (which I'd quite forgotten was there), but for Vernor Vinge's seminal cyberpunk novella "True Names". (I'll also complain that these books are harder for me to find on my author-alphabetized bookshelf. There's no telling which author I alphabetized it under, or which side I put up! )

I guess that's a big plus for eBooks: easier to search the shelves!

Much harder to browse the shelves :-)

Evgeny wrote: "Much harder to browse the shelves :-)"

Really? I've only had my Kindle for six months or so, and I'm still reading more dead-tree books than eBooks, so my eShelf isn't all that crowded, yet. My current scheme is simple: "if it's actually on my Kindle, it's ' to be read'." (Since the Kindle downloads new purchases almost instantly, I don't have a big pile of "to be read" books like I do in the physical world.) What I've read, and the unfortunately too numerous freebies I've "purchased" but probably won't read, are all lying around in the Cloud someplace. I'm using Goodreads to sort books into an eBook eShelf, in the hope that when I forget “where is that book?” Goodreads will clue me in that I should be checking the Kindle and not my bookshelves.

Evgeny wrote: "Much harder to browse the shelves :-)"

I agree. I have very neatly laid out directories of books by author names & it leaves me cold. Scanning one of my many bookshelves is like chatting with a bunch of old friends, though.

I'll add to the recommendations for the Baen Free Library ("First taste is always free, kid"), and also tell you to buy everything by Lois McMaster Bujold. She's the best sf writer active today that I know of.

Stephen wrote: "... and also tell you to buy everything by Lois McMaster Bujold. She's the best sf writer active today th..."

Stephen -I could not agree more on Bujold! For those who have not yet enjoyed her Vorkosigan series but like the electronic format, check out the hard back of Cryoburn. At least some versions have a disc in back with most/all of that series in various electronic formats. Very cool, even though I already had them all (I'm a re-reader of her stuff, again and again.)

Stephen wrote: "...buy everything by Lois McMaster Bujold."

I've been meaning to get into Bujold for a while, but her large oeuvre is intimidating. Where to start?

I was thinking of starting with Cordelia's Honor, which is an omnibus collection of both Shards of Honor and the Hugo Award winning Barrayar. That, or The Warrior's Apprentice ?

Bujold herself, on Amazon's editorial review page suggests Shards of Honor for those who want to be sure of starting at the beginning. (That title sounds like it should be a David Weber book! :)

Amazon doesn't have an e-book version of that omnibus, though they do have the individual titles for Kindle, but Baen's online store does have it.

Anyone have any experience with Baen's eBook store ?

BTW, what's the deal with Tor's online store? They sent out a lot of press releases at the start of the year, but the landing page still says "Coming Summer of 2012!". Hello? November calling.

        Concerning Baen's online store, yes, I have much experience with it, and it is a fine e-bookstore, though it could use a few tweeks (such as making sample chapters easier to find).  The one thing that's really annoying about it is the author filter for searches, which does not default to 'all authors', and also doesn't call attention to itself.

        Once you get your account set up, and get used to the author filter, Baen is a real joy to buy from.  All books are DRM-free, all are available in multiple formats, all may be downloaded as many times as you wish in any format you wish, and some are free.  Jim Baen designed his e-book publishing around the twin ideas 'If I were a reader, how would I want e-book publishing to work?', and 'How do I hook the suckers victims customers into buying my e-books?'  (Before he died, he gave me permission to produce a t-shirt with the motto "Baen e-books: you will be e-similated" and a picture of him as a drug dealer handing a CD to a schoolchild, saying "First taste is always free, kiddies.")

        It's not terribly important what order you read the Vorkosigan series in, because Bujold carefully structures each one to stand alone, with a minimum of spoilerage.  I would definitely read Cordelia's Honor before The Warrior's Apprentice, but that's mostly because I'm a fanatic about doing a series in internal chronological order (I started with Falling Free, which takes place two centuries before Miles's birth).  There's a convenient internal chronology at the end of the books, which I'll reproduce below with some comments.  (Lois, btw, includes her own comments for each story or novel in the chronology, some of which describe the story, and some of which are somewhat eliptical.  My favorite is the comment for Memory: “Miles hits thirty; thirty hits back.”)  There are also collections that contain thematically related stories, which I'll list after the chronology.  Still, I do recommend chronological or mostly chronological order of reading, because if character X does something important and life-changing in novel P, you're likely to find out about that in novels Q, R, & S   For me at least that would diminish my enjoyment.

The tales:

Falling Free introduces the Quaddies, but it can be skipped until at least “Labyrinth”, as it has little to do directly with the rest of the series.  It takes place about two centuries before Miles Vorkosigan's birth.

Shards of Honor
Barrayar the preceding two books are really one long novel, but Bujold decided it was becoming too long for an unpublished author, so she found a convenient place and cut off the front as Shards of Honor.  Several years later, she pulled out the rest of the typescript, which starts the morning after Shards of Honor ends, and finished it as Barrayar.  This tells how Miles's parents meet, fall in love, marry, and procreate, and shape the future of Barrayar in very important ways.  It also shows how Miles ended up born with the horrendous disability that will shape his whole life.

The Warrior’s Apprentice introduces the 17-year old Miles, and tells how he ends up as Admiral of a mercenary fleet.

“The Mountains of Mourning” in Borders of Infinity show Miles acting as his father's 'Voice', i.e., standing in for his father as an investigator and judge in a case of suspected murder.

The Vor Game picks up Miles's mercenary career, among other things.

Cetaganda takes Miles and his cousin Ivan on a diplomatic mission to the homeworld of the Cetagandan Empire, which once invaded Barrayar.  Things get complicated.

Ethan of Athos is more or less an offshoot of the series, though thoroughly enjoyable.  I'd read it after The Warrior’s Apprentice, since that's the book in which Eli Quinn is introduced.  The events that take place haven't affected the rest of the series much so far, but they will affect the Vorkosiverse in important ways in the future.  Miles does not appear in this novel.

“Labyrinth” in Borders of Infinity concerns a Quaddie (among other things), so Falling Free should probably be read first, as otherwise it would be a partial spoiler for the novel.

“The Borders of Infinity” in Borders of Infinity (and the collection Miles Errant) is my single favorite episode in Mile's mercenary career.  If you're pressed for time, read this first, because if you don't like it, you probably won't like anything concerning Miles Vorkosigan.  Miles infiltrates a prison camp on a mission, and has to improvise when the unexpected happens.

Brothers in Arms
Mirror Dance
Memory.  These three I think really should be read in order, as they introduce an important character who will figure in most of the rest of the novels, and cover two very important events in Miles's life, affecting his future in important ways.

Komarr
A Civil Campaign
“Winterfair Gifts” in Irresistible Forces.  These three should also be read in order, because (view spoiler)[we meet the woman who will become Mile's wife, watch his courtship, and see them married (hide spoiler)].  ACC is notable for featuring 'the dinner party from Hell', one of the funniest things I've ever read. (view spoiler)[“Mother, Father, let me introduce—she's getting away!”  Not the best first meeting between one's parents and one's fiancée. (hide spoiler)]

Diplomatic Immunity concerns the Quaddies at great length, and also the Cetagandans, so you'll probably enjoy it more if you've read Falling Free, Cetaganda, and “Labyrinth” first.

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance is the most recently published novel in the series, which I just finished reading for the third time.  It primarily concerns Miles's cousin Ivan, a somewhat lazier version of what Miles might have become if he hadn't been born crippled.  Ivan is roped into saving a damsel in distress, repeatedly, while juggling his duties to the Barrayaran Empire.

Cryoburn was the second to last published, and the last chronologically, so far.  It ends with another important event in Miles’s life, one which will affect his future strongly, so I’d read the other Miles novels before this.

Collections:
Cordelia’s Honor contains Shards of Honor and Barrayar, and an “Author's Afterword” written for the volume.  As noted this is really one long novel.

Young Miles contains The Warrior’s Apprentice, “The Mountains of Mourning”, The Vor Game and an “Author's Afterword” written for the volume.

Miles, Mystery, and Mayhem contains Cetaganda, Ethan of Athos, and “Labyrinth”, and an “Author's Afterword” written for the volume.

Miles Errant contains “ The Borders of Infinity”, Brothers in Arms, and Mirror Dance.

Miles, Mutants, and Microbes contains Falling Free, “Labyrinth”, and Diplomatic Immunity.

Stephen,
Thanks for all that information on Bujold. I will indeed start with Shards of Honor , just as soon as I finish a couple of other books I've committed to.

I'll give the Baen eBookstore a try. (I've picked up a few freebies there, before; I am, however, always wary of putting a credit card into a new, unknown eStore. It's not that I think the eStore is dishonest, I just worry if they understand both the necessity and means of protecting personal information and credit card numbers.)

Thanks!

        In my experience, they understand that necessity thoroughly.  My account is set up, and they have my card on file, but every order requires I enter that three digit security code.

        Bottom line: I've been buying e-books from Baen for years, and I've never had so much as a hint of security problem.

        Enjoy Shards of Honor.  I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but aside from Bujold's excellent style, she also slips a lot of humor into her novels.  For instance, in Shards of Honor, watch for the politician who's President of Beta Colony, and see what various people say about him.  I won't spoil the joke, but there are many of them in every novel.

G33z3r wrote: "I am always wary of putting a credit card into a new, unknown eStore. It's not that I think the eStore is dishonest..."

Stephen wrote: "I've been buying e-books from Baen for years, and I've never had so much as a hint of security problem."

As it turns out, when I finally got around to checking out at Bean's eBook eStore, they also take payment by PayPal or a check sent through the postal mail, so it's pretty easy not to use a credit card, after all.

So I have Shards of Honor on my kindle now.

As it turns out, when I finally got around to checking out at Bean's eBook eStore, they also take payment by PayPal or a check sent through the postal mail, so it's pretty easy not to use a credit card, after all."

        Ah, I'd forgotten that, but then as I said, Baen's e-marketing philosophy is 'Set it up the way you'd want it set up if you were a customer.'

        Happy reading.  Shards & Barrayar are great novels.  Just be a little wary of Xmas gifts from Cordelia.

The Kindle store has a free version of the first book in Michael Hicks series, "In Her name" and the first book of the Prequel "First Contact." It's a really good series but can be a bit dark and disturbing. There is an Omnibus of both theses series available through the Kindle store. I would only reccomend the series for adults though.

Stephen wrote: "Baen's e-marketing philosophy is 'Set it up the way you'd want it set up if you were a customer.'"

Looks like Baen has also decided selling eBooks through Amazon isn't a bad idea anymore: (Bean Press Release) Apparently, even when purchased through Amazon the Baen books will still be DRM-free. (I didn't know Amazon let you do that.) The PR also says they are raising author royalties 25% (they don't say if that means a price increase.)

I acquired almost all the Vorkosigan novels in e format by buying a hardback edition of CRYOBURN. It has a disc bound in the back, which has all the material listed above plus lots of other stuff. The only novel missing is MEMORY (and of course everything that has appeared since CRYOBURN's publication).

Brenda wrote: "I acquired almost all the Vorkosigan novels in e format by buying a hardback edition of CRYOBURN. It has a disc ."

I looked into this when you mentioned it previously. (It seemed like the cheapest way to pick up the whole series for the price of a single hardcover.) But, none of the online retailers currently mention the disk in the hardcover description. Perhaps it was a special early bird deal for the original 1/1/10 printing or something. (The local bricks and mortar B&N doesn't have a hardcover of CryoBurn on the shelves, so I couldn't check it out directly; not unusual once the paperback is published.)

I think publishers' views of e-books have changed in the last three years. One thought used to be a free e-book would drive sales of the dead tree editions, but these days with so many eReaders in use, the e-book simply substitutes for the printed version. (A lot of titles that used to be free on the Baen eBookstore aren't free anymore (though they are still less expensive than the printed versions.)

Yeah I noticed that when I went to download Redliner. It's becomeing very popular and it seems the baen free library has gotten a lot smaller than it used to be. As much as I enjoy my e-reader it's a bit difficult to pay the same price for an ebook that you would a hardcopy. I guess thats why I like a lot of the independants so much, :-) I've found a couple of pretty good ones over the last year like Tracy Falbe and Michael Hicks.

David wrote: "Yeah I noticed that when I went to download Redliner.  It's becomeing very popular and it seems the baen free library has gotten a lot smaller than it used to be.  As much as I enjoy my e-reader it..."

        According to Toni Weiskopf, the CDs were used as a tool to get people to start with eBooks, and to attract people to the series who wouldn't want to start in the middle. 'Here, buy this, you have the whole series.'  The first part has now been accomplished.  The second is too expensive as a way to promote, so they're looking for new ideas.

        The Free Library has shrunk because Baen has finally done a deal with Amazon to sell Baen's eBooks, and the Amazon webcrawling programs would find the Free Library, go back to Amazon, and set the books' prices to zero.  But that WON'T happen if the free book is a different edition than the one that costs.  So, Baen is trying to get 'director's cuts' of the books that were in the Free Library.  For instance, David Weber's Oath of Swords is in the Free Library, Oath of Swords plus Sword Brother, the same novel with an additional short novel is for sale at $6.99.  Eventually, as new editions are released for sale, the original editions will go back in the Free Library.

        Amazon did insist the prices go up, so it now costs $6.99 to $9.99 for a Baen eBook.  (The $8.99 and $9.99 ones will come down in price when the MMPB is published).

        Over the past year or so, the eBook market has become such a large percentage of the total book market that things just had to change.

Are Bujold's books in the Baen CD's?
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/
Even if they're not, those are great to get. All sorts of extras. Most of the Honor Harrington series is free.

I got the zip versions & extracted them ages ago, but you might find it better to get the iso files & just mount them that way. Magic ISO CD is free & simple to use.
http://www.magiciso.com/index.htm
Just install it & you can make an ISO file look like a CD/DVD with a couple of clicks.

Jim wrote: "Are Bujold's books in the Baen CD's?
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/
Even if they're not, those are great to get. All sorts of extras. Most of the Honor Harrington series is free.

I got the ..."

If I remember correctly, there are two Bujold's books in Baen Free Library:
The Warrior's Apprentice and The Mountains Of Mourning.

Evgeny wrote: "If I remember correctly, there are two Bujold's books in Baen Free Library: The Warrior's Apprentice and The Mountains Of Mourning."

Sadly, it appears not anymore. The Warrior's Apprentice currently lists as $5 on Baen's site and "not available". The novella The Mountains Of Mourning is as $3 but at least is available from Baen. Young Miles, the omnibus that includes both those plus The Vor Game is also now listed on Baen as "Not available" (and $5.) (Nor do they appear to be on any of the currently-free CD downloads.)

Possibly that's because of the Amazon deal (both novels are already available from Amazon for Kindle at $6.99 each), or maybe it's just part of the steady shrinking of Baen's free library over the past year. (Possibly Baen will change the status on their site to "available" once they've adjusted pricing to match Amazon; for me it will be easier to just buy from Amazon if the prices are identical.)

(N.B.: Much as I like a bargain, I do not begrudge Baen for not giving away an author's work; just reporting. It does appear I missed my chance to get a lot of Bujold's books for a bargain price. So it goes.)

Stephen wrote: "Amazon did insist the prices go up, so it now costs $6.99 to $9.99 for a Baen eBook."

Ah, I did wonder if the deal was going to increase prices. Amazon typically doesn't like to be undercut by its own suppliers. The good news is the authors' royalties are going up, too.

On the other hand, I wasn't really looking forward to an eBook world where each publisher carried its own books on its own website; that would've made shopping inconvenient.

(On the other hand, a fractured seller markey could have been a business opportunity for GoodReads to act as an aggregator and recommendation engine. Being a one-stop location to look for eBooks and be directed to the appropriate publisher site.)

On the other hand (for those keeping count, this is my 4th hand in this post), sci-fi author Kristine Kathryn Rusch pointed out in a blog post earlier in the year on her Business Rusch blog that the freebie loss-leader eBooks aren't necessarily a good deal for authors: Authors who are paid royalties as a percentage of sale price don't get much out of it.

If I understand correctly what you mean about Baen's free books being loss-leaders, I'd say it was a pretty good deal for several of their authors, at least as far as I was concerned. I read the first Honor book that way & Weber has earned quite a few royalties from me since then. So have several other authors.

G33z3r wrote: Looks like Baen has also decided selling eBooks through Amazon isn't a bad idea a..."

        Back in 2006, Jim Baen started trying to get Baen eBooks sold on the Amazon site.  I know, because I was briefly his agent for the attempt.

        Then he died, and Toni Weiskopf did things her way.  She always wanted to get Baen into the Amazon bookstore, but getting Amazon to agree to a deal that Baen felt didn't screw over it's customers wasn't so easy!

        The price increase is an example.  Amazon pushed that.

G33z3r wrote: "Evgeny wrote: "If I remember correctly, there are two Bujold's books in Baen Free Library: The Warrior's Apprentice and The Mountains Of Mourning."

Sadly, it appears not anymore. The Warrior's App..."

        Lois Bujold has the rights to the electronic versions of her separate works.  She made her own deal with Amazon to sell them.

        Some of the books removed from Baen's Free Library are now back there.  Baen is selling electronic "second editions" with additional material (extra short stories, afterwards, other things).

        Amazon won't let it be undersold on a book, so anything in the Free Library can't be for sale on Amazon, unless it's free there too.  But with the new 'second editions' counting as different works, the first editions can go back to the Free Library.

        Whether Lois will choose to do this remains to be seen.  Meanwhile, read and enjoy.

I appreciate the fact that being able to self publish in ebook format led Goodkind to write another Sword of Truth book, specificalloy the one I wanted really bad: Magda Searus.

infael wrote: "I appreciate the fact that being able to self publish in ebook format led Goodkind to write another Sword of Truth book, specificalloy the one I wanted really bad: Magda Searus."

Hi, Infael. Welcome to the group.

I think I'd be surprised to learn that Terry Goodkind couldn't find a publisher for a project he wanted to write. He's an established author with a well-known series (that even had a TV show). But I gather he had a falling out with Tor over something(probably an interesting story hidden there), and if self-publishing let him create the book he wanted to, good for it.

Stephen wrote: " Amazon won't let it be undersold on a book, so anything in the Free Library can't be for sale on Amazon, unless it's free there too."

I noticed this morning that a few of the books that used to be in the Baen free library are now free on Amazon, including books by Andre Norton, David Drake, David Weber, and Eric Flint (links go to Amazon.)

Goodkind deliberately wanted to publish in ebook format to prove a point. It's been some time since I read what he said, but he explained it all in his ebook. He said he was relying heavily on his fan base to prove his point.

Baen just recently started allowing amazon and other booksellers to sell their ebook versions ( used to lways be only publisher direct)

At this moment Bujold's CURSE OF CHALION is a mere 99 cents in the Kindle edition. This cannot continue -- people should go take advantage of the deal.

Thank you!

I did thank you for the heads up.

I found this NY Times article on Barnes & Noble interesting. LS Riggio, its founder (sort of), largest stockholder, and chairman of the board, wants to purchase the brick and mortar retail business from the corporation (that would leave B&N with their Nook, website and textbook sales.) So, one old man at least believes in old-fashioned bookstores and books made of paper.

(One tidbit buried in the article is that B&N's Nook unit's sales actually fell year-over-year by 12% over the holidays. Given that tablet, e-reader and e-book sales as a whole continued to grow, that can't bode well.)

G33z3r wrote: "I found this NY Times article on Barnes & Noble interesting. LS Riggio, its founder (sort of), largest stockholder, and chairman of the board, wants to purchase the brick and mortar retail business..."

This is unfortunately true all over the world. Even here in India we are seeing a slowdown in the opening of new book stores and those that do exist are heavily diversifying into everything from movies to toys in order to survive. however this is often at the cost of what used to be their core business and can leave bibliophiles like me feeling neglected. Thank god for online book stores.

Online book stores are such a blessing. Back in the days before the Internet, I used to carry a list of books I wanted to get from used book stores or the library. Some would stay on the list for a decade or more. Now I have more money & pretty much instant gratification. If I like a book, I can look it up here or on Fantastic Fiction & see what others are in the series or by the author & often get them through a swap site.

There are still a few hold outs, though. The crazy long copyright periods are holding back a lot of older books from becoming available. I remembered reading Wilderness Champion: The Story of a Great Hound by Joseph Wharton Lippincott back when I was a kid & found it easily. The copyright was renewed in '72, & it was reissued, but the prior book, Wolf King, wasn't reissued then. A used copy of it is over $200. It will be a lot of years before it is legally in the public domain & until then, no one but the publisher can put it out there as an ebook. The same thing has happened with a lot of older authors. Some of REH's stories are tied up like that. It doesn't seem right when the author is long dead & gone.