The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I just bought book 3 in a series. It's great that the series is finally available as ebooks in my country, but the recent editions are republished unter the author's new, more successful pen-name. When I bought the first two, years ago, they were in her original name.

I guess that's always been a thing - the Richard Bachman books being republished as by Stephen King, etc - but it's the first time it's happened to me in the middle of a series.

If I came across series like that, I'd just find old cover and put the original name in Calibre.

[ownedbycats]

I was looking up whether Humble Bundle book bundlles were DRM'd and found this.

That's... certainly a take. (I can't even understand what he's talking about.)

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I was looking up whether Humble Bundle book bundlles were DRM'd and found this.

That's... certainly a take. (I can't even understand what he's talking about.)

My guess is that there is an S2K size limit but not for direct purchase from amazon and they seem to think that if HB sold the books with DRM they would magically download straight to the kindle from HB over wifi, just like buying from amazon, and it never ocuured to them to copy the DRM free d/l from HB to the kindle over USB

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I was looking up whether Humble Bundle book bundlles were DRM'd and found this.

That's... certainly a take. (I can't even understand what he's talking about.)

I read some of it and yes, I do understand what he wants (because I'm quite familiar with the Kindle ecosystem, maybe). He wants to store his bundles in his Kindle cloud and download them as he reads them, not keep them all on his tablet with its small storage space. It has nothing to do with DRM, actually.

His problem is that those bundles are too large for Send to Kindle, so he cannot get them to the Kindle cloud.

He's just confusing cloud storage with DRM.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

My guess is that there is an S2K size limit but not for direct purchase from amazon and they seem to think that if HB sold the books with DRM they would magically download straight to the kindle from HB over wifi, just like buying from amazon, and it never ocuured to them to copy the DRM free d/l from HB to the kindle over USB

He doesn't want to mess with USB, he wants to download them over wifi whenever he feels the urge to read them. That's his problem.

[ownedbycats]

Backcover summaries that spoil a plot events that happen in the last 10% of the book.

[JSWolf]

When others say a book in a series is standalone and it's not.

I don't actually know of any book in a series that's 100% standalone.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Backcover summaries that spoil a plot events that happen in the last 10% of the book.

Related: Comic Book Trade Paperbacks that put the villain of the story right on the cover of the collection, while in the actual story who it was is the big reveal in the story. An example of this is The Great Darkness Saga for Legion of Super-Heroes, where the mystery of who was the villain was built up over several issues (someone was stealing magical items and then easily taking down the Legion's most powerful enemies) and it turned out to be someone you never would have expected. Yet the cover of the collection reveals who it is before you open the book.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When others say a book in a series is standalone and it's not.

I don't actually know of any book in a series that's 100% standalone.

Nancy Drew and the Secret of Shadow Ranch ?

And, why do you care what other people say? They’re entitled to their opinion in this instance just as you are. Also, this one is getting pretty stale. We know.

Seriously, by insisting on an “all-or-nothing” standard you’re eliminating a very useful distinction. I personally would like to see adopted a differentiation in terms between “series” and “serial”. Series would apply to books where there’s little if any overarching story, although there might be changes in situations that do not, however, materially affect the plotting and resolution of an individual book. Serial, obviously, would apply to books where events in the individual books are part of and matter to the long-running story. Ideally, the books are structured in themselves although that’s not always the case. It’s the difference between Harry Potter and the Hardy Boys.

I’ve said it before; we’ve been spoiled by digital availability. Back in the paper days, reading a series would be conditioned significantly by what was available to you, whether in bookstores, the library, a personal borrow. We all, except for perhaps one exception read books out of order or missed out some in a series.

I’ve also said that there are many series where I think the reading experience would be best served in the long run if you started with the second or third book, once the author’s found her legs. The popular series that I expected to like but I abandoned after the first book (and frequently abandoned that) are legion. Two that occur to me are Inspector Gamache and Bruno Chief of Police. People love them but the first book in each was awful. I assume the series got better, but I was done.

[DNSB]

I recently pre-read a series by a local author. Most of the characters in the 6 books were unique. The main characters in each book knew each other since they worked at the same police station but in different divisions. The investigations in each book were separate and did not depend on other books in the series. I received the books to read and give some feedback (formatting, typos, continuity, etc.) on before they are published.

Sadly, the books were close to 10 finger exercises and very predictable (formulaic plots, lack of character development). The feeling I had was that the author had written the same book 6 times. Major Crimes instead of Homicide, swap between a male and female officer as the lead. The bad guy/gal from the first chapters was not the person responsible for the crime but would end up as the police officer's love interest. Clichés R Us.

While Agatha Christie could commit similar sins with predictable plot twists and characters, her books were interesting to read and she created many of the clichés she used.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

He doesn't want to mess with USB, he wants to download them over wifi whenever he feels the urge to read them. That's his problem.

You can redownload books from Humble Bundle at any time too. Admittedly it's maybe a bit more of a pain perhaps than Kobo/Kindle but it's just grabbing them off their website.

[Cactus Chef]

When multiple books are consolidated into a single ebook.

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...nium-trilogy-3

I usually end up buying the "consolidated" versions because it's inevitably more bang-for-your-buck when they go on sale, but number one, the covers always look awful. And secondly, I just finished reading the first book in the above trilogy, and I should be getting that nice dopamine hit of satisfaction when the book gets marked as "read" and it disappears from my Kobo shelf, but instead it's still there, taunting me with "17 hours to go", because I still have two books left to read in that single EPUB. Grr!

Also, $0.99 at the moment. I think I'll crosspost that to the deals thread.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

When multiple books are consolidated into a single ebook.

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...nium-trilogy-3

I usually end up buying the "consolidated" versions because it's inevitably more bang-for-your-buck when they go on sale, but number one, the covers always look awful. And secondly, I just finished reading the first book in the above trilogy, and I should be getting that nice dopamine hit of satisfaction when the book gets marked as "read" and it disappears from my Kobo shelf, but instead it's still there, taunting me with "17 hours to go", because I still have two books left to read in that single EPUB. Grr!

A trilogy, pfft. I read the whole Wheel of Time in one volume a few years ago. All 14 thousand-page doorstoppers plus the prequel. The book had over 17,000 pages. Took me a year or so (I read other things in between too). Now seeing those stats was a laugh.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

You can redownload books from Humble Bundle at any time too.

I don't think this is true. I looked at my order history, and a bundle I bought a year ago says the redemption deadline has passed. It appears you can redownload your books within a year or so of when you bought them, but that's it.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

When multiple books are consolidated into a single ebook.

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...nium-trilogy-3

I usually end up buying the "consolidated" versions because it's inevitably more bang-for-your-buck when they go on sale, but number one, the covers always look awful. And secondly, I just finished reading the first book in the above trilogy, and I should be getting that nice dopamine hit of satisfaction when the book gets marked as "read" and it disappears from my Kobo shelf, but instead it's still there, taunting me with "17 hours to go", because I still have two books left to read in that single EPUB. Grr!

Also, $0.99 at the moment. I think I'll crosspost that to the deals thread.

I use the ePub Split plugin to separate them into the individual volumes and add the specific cover to each book.

But it does mean I have to count them as multiple books in my TBR pile....