Gary A. Braunbeck's collection Graveyard People: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories, Volume 1 arrived yesterday, so I'm hoping I'll be able to start it sometime today after I finish Laird Barron's The Imago Sequence, which I plan to blog about soon.
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I don't know if it's me, the books, or the technology, but I've started reading two books on my Palm and finished neither.
I don't think it's the books. I started Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and James Patrick Kelly's Burn. Both of these guys are fine writers and I've greatly enjoyed their short work in the past. I don't think it's the fault of the novels (or novella in Kelly's case), I think it's a case of me vs. the screen. The reading area is just too small.
I've tried to tell myself that what I'm looking at is pretty much the same size a newspaper type, but my subconscious isn't buying it. I got about a fourth of the way through both works, so we're talking at least a few hundred screens' worth of text, which probably should be enough to adjust to. Somehow I didn't.
Maybe I should try a few short stories before I tackle another novel. Or maybe I should just do what I used to do: carry at least one book around all the time.
3 comments:
I would like an e-book reader so that I can take the things I want to read that appear online and read them later, preferably somewhere that is not at my desk. I don't think I can ever give up books, not only because that's what I'm used to, but because the physical book is a pretty efficient technology for what it's supposed to do. I saw a picture of the new Amazon reader--it looks like a TI calculator c. 1978.
No, I'll never give up books either, but it's nice to have something in an electronic format - so I don't have to worry about spills, rain (hopefully), heat, etc. Well, not as much, anyway.
I own a couple of the old Rocket eBooks from a few years ago -- found them pleasant enough to use and made me feel like I was a little closer to the technology in my 29th century SF stories.
I've also used the Windows Reader on PocketPC PDAs and also on "real" PCs. Not a bad technology and you adjust fonts and sizes for readibility.
The Sony eBook looks very usable. But on a Palm? Not sure there's enough real estate for viewing.
Dr. Phil
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