Those Books that aren't Digital

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Four or five authors you already knew you liked?

I worded it poorly, but I meant new ones I hadn't read. I think the only author in the Free Library that I had read previously was Andre Norton. I'd never read anything by Roberta Gellis or Keith Laumer and really like both. Mercedes Lackey is potluck; her stuff is either really good or I can't get into it. She's probably the big winner for me since I've bought several of her series, but I wish she wrote more SF. I like a smattering of Eric Flint's books (I love Mother of Demons and the first few in the 1632 series) and I like David Weber's Oath of Swords, but not his SF. I loved Chris Dolley's Resonance, but he unfortunately hasn't written much else.

I've tried a few John Ringo and David Drake titles and just don't enjoy them (military tactics ad nauseum, but shallow plot and character development). I suppose if I did enjoy those, though, it would completely flip Baen's ratio for me.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

I've tried a few John Ringo and David Drake titles and just don't enjoy them (military tactics ad nauseum, but shallow plot and character development). I suppose if I did enjoy those, though, it would completely flip Baen's ratio for me.

John Ringo (and Travis Taylor's) VORPAL BLADE (and sequels) are old school intrepid space explorers with a touch of whimsy. And the best kitty kat since Heinlein's Petronius.

David Drake's WITH THE LIGHTNINGS (and sequels) is a Space Opera version of the Patrick O'Brien Aubrey/Maturin books, with scenarios based on ancient Roman incidents.

David Weber's EMPIRE FROM THE ASHES reminded me of LENSMEN in the first two volumes, of Harry Harrison's ETHICAL ENGINEER in parts of the third.

Ryk Spoor's BOUNDARY and sequels come straight from the Clarke school of near future hard SF adventure.

Most of my BAEN stash is still TBR but every one in a while I dip in and find a new author or series that pleases. Fantasy, SF, techno-thrillers, superheroes, cautionary tales, comedy, genre-benders, there's a lot of variety in those webscriptions. And that's above and beyond the Proven Classics they've been adding, like Laumer, Heinlein, Anvil, etc.

More often than not, it is their unknowns (to me) that take me on fun rides into new territory, which is why I associate their brand with SF adventure in general, not any specific variant.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

It's also possible that you're comparing a selected sample of old SF with everything available now. I can think of a number of authors from the 50s and 60s that I like better than most of the modern stuff, but I can also think of modern authors that I like better than most of the old stuff.

I think the biggest factor is that there's just a lot of dreck out there, but the old stuff has had time to be filtered. The good stuff get saved, passed around and reprinted, while the crap gets discarded.

When I hit Amazon's list of SF, going through the stuff that's free and 99 cents feels like flipping through issues of Analog looking for a gem. When I went through the Baen CDs, I think there was something in the neighborhood of two hundred books and I only found about a dozen representing four or five authors that I really liked.

You and fjtorres both have some good points I think Difflugia. Of course growing up in the 70's and 80's most of the SF I read was via the public library (i.e. in book form) rather than being the new hot off the presses magazine fiction like in Asimov's SF or Analog SF. Or the were old paperbacks that were up for grabs at garage sales. So either way they had stood the test of time be being worth the publisher's time and expense to republish after their initial magazine appearances.

[Tarana]

Have you tried this converter? They have it under promotion at the present (again) so it's free to get.
http://www.pdftoepub.com/

I did not know about this. I will give it a try. Thanks for the tip.

Tubemonkey, I get your reasoning. Truly, there is no shortage of books in eversions. However, keep in mind that digital only may mean that you will miss out on many gems because they are orphan books - likely never to be published in eversion because there is no clear copyright ownership due to either the death of the author or the demise of the publisher (who owned the rights).

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Tarana

I did not know about this. I will give it a try. Thanks for the tip.

Tubemonkey, I get your reasoning. Truly, there is no shortage of books in eversions. However, keep in mind that digital only may mean that you will miss out on many gems because they are orphan books - likely never to be published in eversion because there is no clear copyright ownership due to either the death of the author or the demise of the publisher (who owned the rights).

You're quite welcome Tarana.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Tubemonkey, I get your reasoning. Truly, there is no shortage of books in eversions. However, keep in mind that digital only may mean that you will miss out on many gems because they are orphan books - likely never to be published in eversion because there is no clear copyright ownership due to either the death of the author or the demise of the publisher (who owned the rights).

I'm aware that I'll miss books that I'd otherwise like; but there's so much out there in digital form that I do like, that I'll never read even those in a lifetime. So I don't feel deprived.

As to orphan works, I'm all in favor of changing the copyright laws to allow their publication. Publish notice that the owner has x amount of time to come forward or the book goes into public domain.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crich70

You and fjtorres both have some good points I think Difflugia. Of course growing up in the 70's and 80's most of the SF I read was via the public library (i.e. in book form) rather than being the new hot off the presses magazine fiction like in Asimov's SF or Analog SF. Or the were old paperbacks that were up for grabs at garage sales. So either way they had stood the test of time be being worth the publisher's time and expense to republish after their initial magazine appearances.

Did you run into this at the time?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimov'...nture_Magazine

Even with that roster of authors, that wasn't a friendly time for SF Adventure.
Just 4 issues, but what Issues!
I'm not sure I still have the full set: one of the disadvantages of print magazines. Not as easy to keep track of compared to books. I used to be a regular with Asimov's for years but asmy book accumulation grew, I moved away from short stories to mostly novels. And more recently, to digital.

[pwalker8]

After reading the small collection of SF that my local library had, I collected Asimov's SF magazine for a number of years, along with some others. The big problem that the magazines had was that writers stopped writing mostly for magazines and moved towards writing mostly for books. As the paperback book became more and more popular, magazines really suffered. I rarely read short stories any more.

I first started buying SF books back in the mid 70's. Some of those books have aged well, others not so much. One think to keep in mind is that there is a difference between books that simply aren't the sort of books that you enjoy (for example, some people love military SF, others hate it) and bad authors. Every SF sub genre that has had a time period of popularity (military SF, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, etc...) also has had the swarm of hack writers trying to make a buck.

Another thing to keep in mind that before ebooks and self publishing, a lot of drek got filtered out by editors, now it shows up in fanfic sites and on Amazon.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Another thing to keep in mind that before ebooks and self publishing, a lot of drek got filtered out by editors, now it shows up in fanfic sites and on Amazon.

Not as many as they should have.
As you pointed out, a lot of "drek" gets shoveled out in the trendy subgenres. But there is also the ever-present three-chapter wonders and outright editorial misfires. Tradpub editors ship out what they think will appeal to readers but few publishers are anywhere near 100% (or even 25%) successful. (Sturgeon's Law)

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

John Ringo (and Travis Taylor's) VORPAL BLADE (and sequels) are old school intrepid space explorers with a touch of whimsy. And the best kitty kat since Heinlein's Petronius.

David Drake's WITH THE LIGHTNINGS (and sequels) is a Space Opera version of the Patrick O'Brien Aubrey/Maturin books, with scenarios based on ancient Roman incidents.

David Weber's EMPIRE FROM THE ASHES reminded me of LENSMEN in the first two volumes, of Harry Harrison's ETHICAL ENGINEER in parts of the third.

Ryk Spoor's BOUNDARY and sequels come straight from the Clarke school of near future hard SF adventure.

Most of my BAEN stash is still TBR but every one in a while I dip in and find a new author or series that pleases. Fantasy, SF, techno-thrillers, superheroes, cautionary tales, comedy, genre-benders, there's a lot of variety in those webscriptions. And that's above and beyond the Proven Classics they've been adding, like Laumer, Heinlein, Anvil, etc.

More often than not, it is their unknowns (to me) that take me on fun rides into new territory, which is why I associate their brand with SF adventure in general, not any specific variant.

Thanks for the suggestions. I haven't read any of those, so I may have just picked the wrong books to sample.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Difflugia

Thanks for the suggestions. I haven't read any of those, so I may have just picked the wrong books to sample.

Every publisher and author has duds. And not everything is to everybody's taste.
(I wouldn't wish Heinlein's NUMBER OF THE BEAST on a politician but most everything else from him is at least readable.)

And market tastes vary with time so stories and subgenres that might have been popular (or unpopular) at a given point in time might face a different fate a few years later. That's one of the virtues of ebooks: once a title is digitized there is no penalty to keeping it available regardless of popularity. No valid reason to take it off the market.

BTW, of the stories I listed, I am particularly fond of BOUNDARY. Not many hard SF stories are built off the science of paleontology.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Did you run into this at the time?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimov'...nture_Magazine

Even with that roster of authors, that wasn't a friendly time for SF Adventure.
Just 4 issues, but what Issues!
I'm not sure I still have the full set: one of the disadvantages of print magazines. Not as easy to keep track of compared to books. I used to be a regular with Asimov's for years but asmy book accumulation grew, I moved away from short stories to mostly novels. And more recently, to digital.

Nope. Back in 1978-79 I was between 7-8 yrs old and didn't have pocket money to buy things with.

[cromag]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Did you run into this at the time?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimov'...nture_Magazine

Even with that roster of authors, that wasn't a friendly time for SF Adventure.
Just 4 issues, but what Issues!
I'm not sure I still have the full set: one of the disadvantages of print magazines. Not as easy to keep track of compared to books. I used to be a regular with Asimov's for years but asmy book accumulation grew, I moved away from short stories to mostly novels. And more recently, to digital.

I remember it, but don't have any issues. I think I recall it being an attempt to broaden Asimov's Science Fiction (also edited by George Scithers). In that same time there were several other attempts to launch magazines -- notably Galileo and Cosmos (not to be confused with the Australian science magazine). Galileo was good. Cosmos was very good, but doomed by the failure of its publisher's other entertainment/movie fan magazine.

Unfortunately, I don't have any copies of these left, either.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by cromag

I remember it, but don't have any issues. I think I recall it being an attempt to broaden Asimov's Science Fiction (also edited by George Scithers). In that same time there were several other attempts to launch magazines -- notably Galileo and Cosmos (not to be confused with the Australian science magazine). Galileo was good. Cosmos was very good, but doomed by the failure of its publisher's other entertainment/movie fan magazine.

Unfortunately, I don't have any copies of these left, either.

There was also OMNI.
Those are available online.

https://archive.org/details/omni-magazine

[crich70]

I remember Omni. I used to have some of the magazines. Not sure where they got to.