Jerrod's comments (member since Jul 09, 2008)

Jerrod's comments from the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club group.

Hilary wrote: "An absolutely unenviable task; stepping into the shoes of a man like Robert Jordan and attempting to not only gather in all the threads of the Wheel of Time story but bring them to a final conclusi..."

Remember, Jordan knew he was dying and was planning accordingly, but with the fan base that is out there, you know that their will be plenty of people who are disappointed. I for one don't care, I just want conclusion. If it's what I vision or not is irrelevant. Thanks for the link, I'll look at the reviews.

Just finishing One by Conrad Williams, it's a pretty good Apocalyptic novel.

I liked both, the mini series encompasses more of the book IMO, but does take some snapshots from the others. I'll always like the Lynch version too.

if the option to download to PC is still available then you should be able to convert it to the mobi format, which other devices support.

Sounds like Amazon will fight for their DRM, a few months ago [reported by Maximum PC:] a website was suited to remove the instructions on how to convert the Kindle DRM to another format. The process isn't fully automated yet but it shows that Amazon is probably going to try to make their format the standard.

*EDIT*
looks like color e-ink is going to be spendy, I've been following this reader for awhile, now if it would go state side officially it could be good.

The world’s first color e-paper mobile terminal, as the FLEPia is called by Fujitsu, will carry a price tag of around $1,000. It’s going to be released in Japan on April 20 (in white and black), but Fujitsu hasn’t said anything yet about bringing the FLEPia to other markets as well.

The e-book features an 8-inch XGA touchscreen (260,000 colors), 4GB memory via SD card(storing the equivalent of 5,000 paper-based books), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, WiFi, and a USB port. Fujitsu promises a battery lifespan of around 40 hours. The Japanese version of the FLEPia is equipped with Windows CE 5.0 so you can work with MS Office documents (Fujitsu explicitly states this is a Japan-only OS).

The FLEPia is sized at 158mm×240mm× 12.5mm (thinnest section: 11.3mm, weight: 385g), while the Kindle 2 measures 203mmx135mmx9mm and weighs 290g (screen size: 6 inches). Fujitsu hopes to sell 50,000 units by 2010

Poking around they have found a way to circumvent the Kindle DRM so that you can use it in other e-reader devices, ironically you need a Kindle to do so since Amazon will not let you download a Kindle book unless you've got one registered on your account. So you either have to own one or find someone who will help you out that has one.

it would be nice if some places offered a trade in for electronic books. I have a few that I would enjoy having in digital, but overall most of my books are becoming LTDHC or have been signed by the author or are hard-to-find 1st/1st editions.

same here, but when I die, my kids can get some money out of my books.

Basically anything electronic is for ease of use and convince and doesn't really add any value to the area it's servicing.

*edit*
I was making the point that e-books hold no value overall. No one with any intelligence would use it as a portfolio, but some people like buying stuff that isn't as worthless as the paper money they spent on it.

but Lara, people will not pay a premium for a used first release of an e-book. They will on the other hand, pay good money for a low printing number of their favorite author in many different printed formats.

I use PrimoPDF, another freeware program that does the same thing. Being a technophile I believe that it should come preloaded on all machines and a feature added to all OS'.

Old habits are definitley one major reason why paper usage actually increased when PC systems started to dominate the way we do things. What good are banks of servers with high capacity drives that are backed up religiously if people print out every little thing? I'm big on using either portable HDD or flash/jump drives to carry data that you want all the time. I find that most people from 30ish + have the hardest time not using paper for applications that don't really need it. It's just a matter of time before the usage drops dramatically, old users will give up the horse and new ideas and concepts can be pushed through. Example was our shop trimmed down a few employees, one was the printer queen. She printed everything and filed it making quite a few binders for a paper trail. When she left, another employee and I killed and updated many of her process that were left to us and our department is saving around 1 case of paper a month because of it. But it couldn't happen until the older employees that couldn't trust or let go were released or moved on to other things. Know I some positions and applications technology hasn't reached the point where paper can be eliminated, but give it time and some innovative software and it'll be done.

I think the Kindle could become a catch all for e-readers. Like how everyone calls an .mp3 player and ipod. Maybe if authors united and adopted their own open source e-reader [DRM free of course:] file, change could come quicker. Or maybe they'll just use .pdf more since it's been well adopted for many books.

The problem with recycling electronics is that the process to reclaim the materials is generally complicated and not very green. Also many places will only take it if you pay, since recycling, especially metals [now anyway:] are a losing proposition. I personally tear down my electronics to the board level and deliver them to a local recycler, if not I dump it with my work equipment in which the hospital pays to have our electronics disposed of. That is of course if I feel the equipment can't be recycled by giving to goodwill, salvation army or such.

I'm no green Nazi but I do believe in being a good steward to what has been given to us.

When comparing paper production vs electronic production and upkeep, most don't realize that the banks of servers they use to store all the data [and thus save paper:] use an enormous amount of power and with all that standards, electronics on the larger scale is not as green as people might think.

The classification of scary and horrific labeled as horror is a joke to me. I prefer the classification Dark Fiction since it seems to help keep the term horror in the mind of the reader. Also I think 'horror' gets short changed more than the other genre's as well, not that Fantasy or Sci-Fi are ahead by much.

Overall I think the generic theme label is too individualistic to be really practical [or do stories and authors any justice:], much prefer all organized by author with a database of tags to describe or help find different books/authors.

LOL, I hear you Lara. NO pets, wife, 15mo son in a 2 bed apt less than 1000sqft. Most of my books are on a pallet. One ritual we do once a year is the dumping of stuff were everything is gone through and we decide to keep it or donate it.

I like looking at my spines as well, but I don't put my books in a place where they are the centerpiece of decoration. That is what I meant, plus I've got a few friends that buy books not to read, but to look like the could actually know something.

Sounds like Lara's got a packrat problem!

I only keep the books that I deem worthy of keeping in my private collection. Generally ones that I'll keep re-reading until I need to get it rebound. And books shouldn't be used to decorate that's what lithographs and other visual art is for.

I like the concept of ebooks/readers but a few things need to change that only time and patience will accomplish.

For me first is price of the reader; most are around the 300-400 range. Too much when considering I can get another device that will do the same thing with many more options for the same price. I'll be more interested when it gets to a reasonable consumer price level.

Second is the selection of books, not complaining, but most of what I really want to read isn't available and is only accented by the fact that I really love horror. But with the .pdf support a reader device could serve as a great reference device. I've got many cookbooks, reference books, RPGs and comics that I've converted to .pdf [and some .cbr/.cbz reader files too, not waiting for the mfg to do it:].

As for price of the ebooks themselves I don't really care, I buy plenty of small publisher LHC/SE books that a free-10$ file isn't a big deal. But with enough patience you can get any hardback [almost:] for cheaper than an ebook. Ebooks really pay off for those that wan the title now and not necessarily for those that are looking for the best deal.

I think that e-books will carve themselves out a good alternate market, I don't know if they will take over but I don't think the purpose of ebooks is to kill the paper market. Remember you favorite authors will have trouble signing your ebook or locking out hackers to create limited editions that can be easily done with traditional printing now. I do look forward to the evolution of the product and hope it becomes a cheaper option I would like to justify it, but as it stands now, it's too limited a device for the price and I'm not planning on doing what people do with their phones [and other devices:] and upgrade every couple of years, that is just wasteful and generally unnecessary. Something that might help would be to open the programming up, so that people could make 3rd party applications or small additions the features, like a .cbr/.cbz reader.

I think if they want to remake an Arnold flick, why not do The Running Man? Make it more like the original novel instead, that could be worth watching.

I was doing some movie news diving and discovered that they are remaking what I consider to be a classic sci-fi flick that I really enjoyed. If you've not figured it out by the title, the are really going forward with a Total Recall remake. I for one am not surprised but still very disappointed considering all the great PKD material they could use for a new movie.

Here is one quick confirmation on it...
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews...

What are the rest of your thoughts on this?

I like the tag model, since it broadens the scope of what can be included and excluded depending on what you are looking for. You can still have sections, like New Releases, heck make one for new authors or have a tag of first time authors published in the last year or so.

I only bring up the no labels because I've been able to get many of my reading friends into 'my' genre's of books because I don't have my personal library labeled or organized in a genre type fashion. Now they are getting exposed to possibilities they might not have considered because they held some type of prejudice or assumption about a certain genre. But I'm just as guilty of doing that as any other person.

I'm probably the odd duck out the bunch here but I think that they should eliminate all the useless labels they put on Fiction. Since most books blur the borders anyway and trying to define a pure Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror could be debated forever. With modern technology I don't see the need to keep arranging books with broad sweeping genre labels that do no justice to the reader or the author trying to sell the book in the first place.

This is no surprise to anyone who has remotely followed what has happened with the WoT saga since before Jordan died. I don't care what the publisher does, just give me my conclusion and let me move on. I love the series, but I'd rather put it to rest and I have no doubts that Harriet will do what is best for what her late husband would want for his property.

Sucks about the paperback only, better be a gimmick other wise I'll have to pay for someone to rebind the book into hardcover, which will piss me off even more than another 3 year wait for a conclusion. Oh well, at least I've never read GRMM series that seems to be stalled as well.

I'll try to remain happy that I'll eventually get my conclusion and that the time frame is something I can actually measure.

I think collectors, like myself, get bad wraps. I have a good collection of many different genre's of books. I read them all, some are trophy collections and are worth sums of money, but none the less I've read all of them multiple times and they are still in immaculate condition. Heck, most of my MMPB many people wouldn't even known I've read them and could probably sell them on any given website as new. It's not a collector thing, I take excellent care of all things I dump my money into.

I like the thought of ebooks, but until a more open standard hits, I'm not biting. I can still do everything the kindle or Sony e-reader does with any net book, tablet or laptop. I hope the technology and acceptance gets there, but too many of my favorite authors would be left out for me to consider the e-book option.