[Liselle]

In the topic about Jordan and Brooks are mentioned e-books. This leads me to the following question:
What do you think about e-books? Will real books disappear, or is it the e-books that have no future?

I myself prefer real books to e-books, but that won't influence a global deveopment, I'm afraid...

[FitzChivalry]

I can't read e-books, i can't read whole books on my computer screen, i like to read in bed in other places and i like the feel of a book in my hands, so no e-books for me.

[Rupert Avery]

E Books HA,
They have so smell,no feel and they are very hard to get into bed with.
Long live paper.
E Books HA.

[Erebus]

Having published a couple of e-books myself, I'm still in two minds about their popularity in the market place, as you will see from the comments in my similar topic under Writing/E-books versus Paperbacks, which you can find here:
www.sffworld.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000123.html (http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000123.html)

[Rillcaller]

I think eBooks work best for How To-type books, which can be ordered and printed off cheaply, or read on screen selectively. I agree that, for fiction, there's nothing like a book with an attention-getting cover and something you can curl up with. It adds to the experience and introduces you to the characters and their unique world. The new twist is the eBook "readers," those book-like screens you hold in your hands like a book. I haven't tried one, but that's closer to the real experience. It should be interesting as we become more and more of a "wireless" society.

Robert Halmo
Author of CHILDREN OF THE GROVE, Book One of LORDS OF DARKNESS, LORDS OF LIGHT http://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/7056

[Cadfael]

When Sony produce 'The Readman', that is cheap, easy to read, last for hours and hours on one charge, will fit in a pocket, and allow me to read in the dark (!)... maybe then.

But until that time... no thankyou, Rupert Avery made a passing comment about 'smell', but I actually like the smell of old books. There is a bookshop in Wigan, which is like a rabbit warren, just filled to the ceiling with old books... I walk in and take a deep breath, ahhhh home again.

BTW, I just made the 'Readman' thing up, but stranger things have happened http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by dennizm (edited June 02, 2001).]

[Liselle]

I am very relieved to see that there are people who prefer paper to screen...

And, yes, books smell wonderful... I have visited once the library of the Trinity College at Dublin... more than 200.000 old books... *is dreaming*....

[drakon]

E-books? NEVER.
like Rupert said a book has a "feel" to it, a smell, a personality the it gets after you finished reading it. To me they are more then just a means to tell a story. When I'm done with a book it is given a place on the bookshelf and that's it's home. There are some books that I've been carrying with me for years after i've read them. I haven't lived much at home these last years and some of those old books on the shelf makes it more like home.

So, I don't think that E-books will do it for me.


they will be probably very good for aspiring writers as a means to get there work out though, so I'm not banning them completely.



[This message has been edited by drakon (edited June 03, 2001).]

[drakon]

oops I guess I shouldn't have said NEVER then if I'm not banning them completely...
never say ne...