Quote:
Originally Posted by warlord0
I love technology, but it has it's place. If I wanted a rich active experience I'd choose a tablet. In fact a tablet with it's vibrant colours is great for a comic book read, but limited in its usefulness once you venture into the sunlight.
A e-Ink reader is far superior for feeding my imagination with the words from the page coming alive in my own head in their own flavour. It's the reason I can't get on with audio book, I just can't get past the narrators own inflection on something I'd prefer to apply my own to.
I recently went from grey to paperwhite and have been asked repeatedly why I didn't just get a fruit or robot tablet instead. As good as they are at what they do, they still can't seem to compete with the way e-Ink is just so readable - everywhere. Lightweight, a handy size and infinite battery life in comparison to a tablet.
For me the text is meant to feed my imagination. If it becomes interactive verbal or graphical I may as well sit in front of the TV and have the director feed my imagination with the creations of his special effects team, which are nowhere near on par with the team I have working inside my own head.
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I get what you're saying imagination is closely linked with reading, but that doesn't mean you have to explore other options or that they should not be encouraged. Some things are so much more easily explained by a simple map or illustration. I know part of a writer's job is to be descriptive, but some things are very difficult to describe without being hopelessly complex or clumsy. Also, some graphics can be as impressive as some covers. Don't tell me you've never bought a book because of the cover...
The way I see it is that extras that don't work on a particular technology would just not be presented as options, no video capability -no video links, no audio -no audio links, etc. Since the multimedia extensions would only be options, I don't see how having them could really be any bother to those wishing not to experience them. So on an e-ink reader it looks like an epub, maybe with graphics available at best, on a tablet or other multimedia device it can take on a richness not available in e-ink now. Everyone but those who must have exactly everything their way is happy.
As Lemurian mentioned, can you imagine a 3D-Time variable map of a space armada's movements that you can twirl around and view from different viewpoints? Way cool. I can think of a lot of things described in sci-fi that I'd love to be able to see as the author intended.(of course that may be part of the problem when someone else must render them) I love to read, but I'm interested to view a film or even a graphic novel interpretation in part to see the difference between how I "saw" it and how they were able to depict it. With good CGI and people who strive for faithful adaptation, I'd say that the sky is the limit these days.
I'm not saying ebooks should be turned into commercially supported TV, the commercials should be restricted to those who wish to view them or want the content for free, if in fact they must be suffered at all. OTOH, it does open up the possibility of stories with links to multimedia that could not have been produced without commercial backing. Writing a book is much cheaper than making a movie -even a short one with rendered CGI characters.