The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Man, you're writing off Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Silverberg, Michael Moorcock, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Bloch, Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart and just about everything Hard Case Crime republishes

Dating myself here but at one time, my favourite science fiction source was the Ace Doubles. Often one author I knew and liked and a lesser known author whose work I could try.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Man, you're writing off Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Silverberg, Michael Moorcock, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Bloch, Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart and just about everything Hard Case Crime republishes

I've read some of them, of course, but yeah, these days I like more modern stuff. It seems the older I get, the newer books I like. I read old stuff mostly in my teens and twenties.

[ownedbycats]

Honestly, I find certain older science-fiction books to be amusing. You have interstellar travel, even galaxy-wide empires, and yet societally it's like they never left 1950s America with everyone smoking cigars and a notable lack of females.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Honestly, I find certain older science-fiction books to be amusing. You have interstellar travel, even galaxy-wide empires, and yet societally it's like they never left 1950s America with everyone smoking cigars and a notable lack of females.

Sci-fi isn’t my thing, but it seems to me that the lack of women, and certainly the lack of women in positions of authority or even autonomy, persisted way beyond the 1950s. It’s especially bizarre when it’s fiction of the 1960s or later, once second-wave feminism had taken hold, and you’d like to think that authors would have been able to project from that into the future where women would have had equal roles, but no.

[Bookstooge]

I hate it when I start a book in the evening and the next morning I can't even remember the name of the book I started.
Of course, once I start reading again it all comes back, but man, sometimes it's like a blank wall in my head, sigh...

[DNSB]

Memory Lapse or Dementia? 5 Clues to Help Tell the Difference...

[JSWolf]

One thing that's annoying is when legitimate eBooks are available from some countries but not others. Such as The Mary Stewart's Arthurian Legend and Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall (Dragonriders of Pern) books being in the UK but not the US .

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One thing that's annoying is when legitimate eBooks are available from some countries but not others. Such as The Mary Stewart's Arthurian Legend and Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall (Dragonriders of Pern) books being in the UK but not the US .

I imagine crap like that push some people to piracy. Sure, you can use fake addresses and VPNs... or you can just get it illegally.

[cfrizz]

I much prefer page counts, word count is meaningless to me.

[arjaybe]

I don't like to run into patches of florid writing or swathes of "wallpaper." (gratuitous descriptive wordage. I don't mind learning something about a character, but I don't need to learn where they probably bought their socks.) And encountering a patch of florid writing is like running into long grass on a skateboard. Just give me a good story with good characters and I'll fill in the rest. Please.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

I much prefer page counts, word count is meaningless to me.

Personally, I prefer word counts. Divide the number of words by my reading speed and I have a decent idea of how long it will take to read the book.

Page count? Unless the algorithm for determining the page size is consistent, the numbers can vary all over the place. I had one book where the page count varied from 360 to 490 depending on which vendor I looked at. I also have books where the word count was different by over 20% but the page count was the same. Then we have those ebooks where base-64 encoded images were used which breaks most page count algorithms.

Part of the differences seemed to be due to some vendors quoting the page count for a pbook version while others used their own pet method of calculating the page count for an ebook regardless of whether a pbook version was available. Unless all pbooks start using the same font, font size, line spacing, margins, etc., even that information is not all that useful.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

I much prefer page counts, word count is meaningless to me.

They can keep the page counts, but it's hardly a major thing to provide a word count too!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Page count? Unless the algorithm for determining the page size is consistent, the numbers can vary all over the place. I had one book where the page count varied from 360 to 490 depending on which vendor I looked at. I also have books where the word count was different by over 20% but the page count was the same. Then we have those ebooks where base-64 encoded images were used which breaks most page count algorithms.

Part of the differences seemed to be due to some vendors quoting the page count for a pbook version while others used their own pet method of calculating the page count for an ebook regardless of whether a pbook version was available. Unless all pbooks start using the same font, font size, line spacing, margins, etc., even that information is not all that useful.

This is why I like the ADE page count method. It's consistent and I understand it well enough to judge how long an eBook is. In most cases it works well.

Shops online show some meaningless page number no matter where it came from. They would be better with a word count.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

I don't like to run into patches of florid writing or swathes of "wallpaper." (gratuitous descriptive wordage.)

I like that when it is done well, It helps give me a feeling for the setting/characters/etc.

I read a fantasy novel a few months ago that was completely free of your florid writing and it was a detriment. The story took place on an island. But whithout the gratuitous descriptive verbiage, I couldn't tell if it was a tropical island or what? Were there pine trees or palm trees? The characters and buildings also were barely described.

The magic and religion were much better handled and the book was interesting. But the writing really needed some flower power.

[JSWolf]

Another vent/rant is when the formatting gets in the way of reading because the formatting is that bad. It's very easy to make eBooks with good formatting. So why is it the big publishers have no idea what they are doing?