What's with the Paranoia?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Larla

Perhaps his other SF works have rightfully earned him a "crappy SF writer" title but Battlefield Earth does not fall into that category. As Jon said, perhaps it should have ended a couple of hundred pages earlier but it is worth reading before dismissing L. Ron Hubbard as a SF author.

It should have ended many more pages earlier then a couple of hundred. It's like he got to the end but wanted to keep writing and he did that in two or three places.

[kyrilson]

I haven't read through all of this thread yet, but I wanted to point out to some of the people that are accusing this guy of being a pirate because he doesn't buy ebooks, that it's a bit presumptuous. A lot of ebooks become available for free download throughout the year and you can download them if you're patient and not too picky. I personally have a huge backlog of ebooks that I've gotten for free that I haven't read yet. I buy ebooks (too many, really), but I also will pick up freebies here and there if they look interesting. Tor.com also has a free ebook of the month that they put out too. And other companies do similar things as well.

Baen has tons of free SF/Fantasy. There are tons of short story magazines that put out free material every month that could keep you occupied for free for quite a while.

Or maybe he is a pirate. We don't know for sure. My point is, there is a lot of free material out there that's not public domain or illegal copyright material.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by kyrilson

I haven't read through all of this thread yet, but I wanted to point out to some of the people that are accusing this guy of being a pirate because he doesn't buy ebooks, that it's a bit presumptuous. A lot of ebooks become available for free download throughout the year and you can download them if you're patient and not too picky.

Except that the poster refused to create an account at the etailers and you need an account even if if you’re just going to acquire freebies.

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by issybird

Which edition? I’ve read only his Apologia Pro Vita Sua.

Parochial and Plain Sermons

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Larla

I think it does need some correcting. He, in fact, considered himself as part of the Campbell crowd and if he can be believed, Campbell did also. Read his lengthy introduction in Battlefield Earth.

He WAS part of the Campbell crowd. Campbell fell for his Scientology hooey.

What I meant was as a writer, he was more in line with the old-style Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers/Lensman/Star Wars 'space opera' than the science fiction Campbell pushed for. From what I have read so far, there is little to no 'science' in Hubbard's science fiction.

Perhaps his other SF works have rightfully earned him a "crappy SF writer" title but Battlefield Earth does not fall into that category. As Jon said, perhaps it should have ended a couple of hundred pages earlier but it is worth reading before dismissing L. Ron Hubbard as a SF author.

Who knows. That may be so. But based on my previous experiences with his work, I'm not going to take a run at that thousand page football on the off chance that this time it will be different.

It is just as likely that you could read Hubbard's other work and find all of it meets the same level of quality that you found in Battlefield Earth.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by kyrilson

I haven't read through all of this thread yet, but I wanted to point out to some of the people that are accusing this guy of being a pirate because he doesn't buy ebooks, that it's a bit presumptuous. A lot of ebooks become available for free download throughout the year and you can download them if you're patient and not too picky.

You wouldn't believe how many eBooks I have gotten for free (actually bought for $0) over the years. Part of my daily routine is to check ereaderiq.com and freebooksy.com There may be other websites that scour Amazon for free books too, but these are the two I've learned of (here on mobileread, actually).

As an example, I now have a Calibre library for "history books". Which is funny, because I don't read that much history. Anyway, I have found all the books I have in this collection via ereaderiq.com. Several history book publishers have frequent and large sales of their books for $0. ereaderiq finds them. Mind you, I have 516 history books in this collection now. Every last one of those was on sale for $0 at one time (I have never paid to purchase a history ebook, I just collect the free ones). "Captivating History", "Matt Clayton", and "Hourly History" are three publishers who tend to put large numbers of their history ebooks one sale (e.g., you can generally pick up dozens and dozens and dozens of them from Captivating History on Black Friday).

I have even more free novels than history books, that I have bought for $0, but I don't have an easy way to filter the $0 ones out of my Calibre novels library for an accurate count. Most of my novels I have paid for, and they're all mixed in with the free ones in my Calibre novels library. I should have separated them from the beginning, but it's too late now.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by haertig

I should have separated them from the beginning, but it's too late now.

Or just assign a "Free" tag to those you didn't actually pay for, then you could easily see how many in the Free tag at a glance. I get quite a few of those off Amazon still, but I quit searching through other sites because my "to be read" pile is more than I could finish in a lifetime.

[JSWolf]

Part of the problem with free eBooks is that a lot of them are the first book in a series and if you read that and want to read more, you have to buy or get from the library if available. And either option requires giving your information. So if your paranoid enough, a lot of free eBooks may not be readable.

@haertig but this person does not want to sign up for accounts needed to get these free eBooks. He's either extremely paranoid or he's pirating eBooks big time. I go for the latter.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by DNSB

This brings up the question of where you are obtaining your ebooks from.

There are only so many public domain books out there and many people are more interested in newer material so stating you don't buy ebooks is a bit strange for someone who is asking about how to not register his Kobo Forma.

I have trouble visualizing someone who is happy downloading freebies only from Amazon/Kobo/etc. and even there for most of them, you need an account to do so. Public libraries are even stickier since they want to see your ID before issuing a library card.

This leaves one major source of "free" in copyright ebooks which, sadly, brings the word piracy to mind and does fit in with a touch of paranoia about privacy.

Between The Internet Archive, Google Books, Project Gutenberg, Sacred Textsand various other PD/CC Licensed book repositories, there are more than 25,000,000 books to select from. IIRC, the average person reads less than 2,500 books in their entire lifetime.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm reading about more and more people not wanting to register their Reader because they are paranoid. What's with this growing level of paranoia?

When you don't register, you don't get all the features of your Reader and I know in the case of Kobo, the firmware can change such that fake registering fails and you have to start over.

I've been registered with Sony, Kobo, and Amazon. I've never had a single issue with being registered. And then there are all the eBookstores I've been registered with. If you want to read commercial eBooks, you do need to be registered someplace. You just cannot do otherwise.

So why the paranoia? What's the reason for it?

You don't know what you read, or bought, will be used as a reason to fire you, shun you, or have some other direct, negative, consequence to you.
You can safely assume that you will not have the right to explain why you bought, or read the item, before the sentence against you is executed. Indeed, you may not even know that you are being tried, and judged, until that sentence is executed.

You might think that reading Gone With The Wind is harmless. Another person might be convinced that simply reading it is proof that you are a full blown member of the KKK, and as such, should be killed on the spot, no trial required, because you are obviously a sub-human non-person.

We know what Google, Amazon, Kobo, etc. claim, but we have no way to ensure that there is any correlation between their claims, and their practices.

Going by mutterings from Experian, Fico, and similar companies, there is reason to suspect that what you read, either is, or will become part of their databases, and used for "The American Social Credit Score".

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

To put my nerd hat on for a second:

You are confusing Battlefield Earth (a standalone novel) and Mission Earth (a 10 book series). Both are L. Ron opuses.

L Ron wrote, and composed a sound track for Battlefield Earth I found a cassette of it years ago, and bought it, thinking it was him reading the book. Somewhere in the mists of time, I misplaced that sound track.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

You don't know what you read, or bought, will be used as a reason to fire you, shun you, or have some other direct, negative, consequence to you.
You can safely assume that you will not have the right to explain why you bought, or read the item, before the sentence against you is executed. Indeed, you may not even know that you are being tried, and judged, until that sentence is executed.

You might think that reading Gone With The Wind is harmless. Another person might be convinced that simply reading it is proof that you are a full blown member of the KKK, and as such, should be killed on the spot, no trial required, because you are obviously a sub-human non-person.

We know what Google, Amazon, Kobo, etc. claim, but we have no way to ensure that there is any correlation between their claims, and their practices.

Going by mutterings from Experian, Fico, and similar companies, there is reason to suspect that what you read, either is, or will become part of their databases, and used for "The American Social Credit Score".

WOW! That's the most paranoid thing I've read on MR.

[hildea]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

WOW! That's the most paranoid thing I've read on MR.

I agree with you here

[haertig]

Hey, we need some new conspiracy theories! All the old ones are proving true, and thus no fun to discuss anymore.

[RETG]

My thoughts after just reading some of the posts is why should anyone care if a person registers then e-reader or not? Does it cause nightmares thinking people have the audacity not to register an e-book reader.

What a person does with their e-reader is really no one's business other than the person who owns said e-reader.