I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books...

[Lee]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Lee said:
I actually ordered it but then cancelled my order when I realized that I live two miles outside a covered zone, so I would have had no wireless connectivity.

After thinking it over, and mulling the pros and cons, I changed my mind yet again and re-ordered it.

I've reconciled myself to being without wireless connectivity. After all, I'm not planning on buying books every day (that would be a disaster for my bank account!), and I work at home and am home most of the time so it's not that big a deal to hook up to my computer to download purchases. However, I am holding out some small hope that I may still get some connectivity, since I'm only two miles out of the covered zone. It would be nice to have wireless access to Wikipedia.

I've also reconciled myself to the fact that at least for the present, my reading choices will be at least to some extent determined by the currently-available content. I'm okay with that too, maybe in a way it's a good thing, I can break out of my rut of preferred reading materials. The ability to sample first chapters of anything for free, and the low 9.99 price for new books/bestsellers (I hope that price lasts!) are definite advantages.

But... I looked up Mere Anarchy, which I haven't read, and only five of the six books are available! The one by Dave Galanter is missing. What's up with that?

 

[JWolf]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Lee said:

Lee said:
I actually ordered it but then cancelled my order when I realized that I live two miles outside a covered zone, so I would have had no wireless connectivity.

After thinking it over, and mulling the pros and cons, I changed my mind yet again and re-ordered it.

I've reconciled myself to being without wireless connectivity. After all, I'm not planning on buying books every day (that would be a disaster for my bank account!), and I work at home and am home most of the time so it's not that big a deal to hook up to my computer to download purchases. However, I am holding out some small hope that I may still get some connectivity, since I'm only two miles out of the covered zone. It would be nice to have wireless access to Wikipedia.

I've also reconciled myself to the fact that at least for the present, my reading choices will be at least to some extent determined by the currently-available content. I'm okay with that too, maybe in a way it's a good thing, I can break out of my rut of preferred reading materials. The ability to sample first chapters of anything for free, and the low 9.99 price for new books/bestsellers (I hope that price lasts!) are definite advantages.

But... I looked up Mere Anarchy, which I haven't read, and only five of the six books are available! The one by Dave Galanter is missing. What's up with that?

You cannot always search by the series name. Sometimes you DO have to search by the book name.

http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-of-the-Ind...2014&sr=8-1

That said, without wireless, the Sony Reader PRS-505 is a better choice. 8 shades instead of 4, sleeker design, longer battery, better ergonomics, and the case that comes with it fits better.

 

[Lee]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

^^^ Ah, thank you very much, Jon!

I understand what you say about the Sony, but one of the reasons the Kindle appeals to me is because of the larger amount of content available (with the hope of much more available in the future) and Amazon's power in the publishing industry. It also seems to me that Amazon, because of its presence in publishing, is more likely to be in this for the long haul than Sony, which is not primarily known as a book retailer.

Thanks again for the link!

 

[JWolf]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Well.. I am reading The Sky's the Limit on my 505. And the first two stories are quite good. The first story fills in a hole in The Buried Age that I was wondering about.

 

[wizkid]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Update: Was notified this evening my Kindle will arrive on the 4th if all goes right. :-) A day early.

 

[wizkid]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Kindle is here and I am about to start reading after photographing it out of the box for a written review. The screen is excellent and the size is not much larger than a pocket book. So far so good. When I turned it on it had no books, then about 1 minute later the books I preordered in the Kindle store appeared. :-) Sweet. Took about 15 seconds to d/l Before Dishonor.

I am going to finish KRAD's A Time to... series book on it (so I bought two copies Keith ;-) ) and report back.

 

[JWolf]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

If you had purchased a Sony Reader PRS-505, you'd have a smaller mer ergonomic reader with the same screen that you'd have been able to use for longer and already have been reading Star Trek books. I'm reading The Sky's the Limit and I need to put SCE #42 on it. But overall, I think the 2nd generation of eink screens are quite nice. If you are thinking of such, don't purchase eReader or Adobe format books. You'll never be able to use them.

 

[Lee]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

JWolf said:
If you had purchased a Sony Reader PRS-505, you'd have a smaller mer ergonomic reader with the same screen that you'd have been able to use for longer and already have been reading Star Trek books.

And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon!

I've had my Kindle for five days now. Still reading the first book I put on it -- Huckleberry Finn. Next up is Burning Dreams by my favorite Trek author.

 

[JWolf]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Lee said:
^^^ Ah, thank you very much, Jon!

I understand what you say about the Sony, but one of the reasons the Kindle appeals to me is because of the larger amount of content available (with the hope of much more available in the future) and Amazon's power in the publishing industry. It also seems to me that Amazon, because of its presence in publishing, is more likely to be in this for the long haul than Sony, which is not primarily known as a book retailer.

Thanks again for the link!

Someone on another forum pointed out that all that content is not as it seems for the Kindle. Mutliple versions of the same book, short stories, books a lot of people will never read, text books, etc. The main issue for ebooks is the content available that you will actually want to read. If there at 100,000 ebooks available and only 100 of them you want to read then the other 99,900 books are irrelevant. What I want to know is how many of the S&S trek ebook library have been ported to the Kindle?

 

[Lee]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Looks to me like a lot of them have been, but see for yourself.

 

[JWolf]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Usually I purchase my Star Trek ebooks at Simonsays.com cause they are cheapest there. But I do purchase them at fictionwise.com when they have 100% micropay rebates.

 

[Lee]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

I compared prices for three Trek ebooks from simonsays and from Amazon's Kindle store:

Titan: Sword of Damocles
Simon: 4.54 Kindle: 5.59

Collision Course
Simon: 11.04 Kindle: 9.99

Dwellers in the Crucible
Simon: 2.27 Kindle: 2.79

It looks like the Kindle has a slight advantage for someone who'll be buying new Trek hardcovers. Otherwise, Simonsays has a slight edge.

 

[JWolf]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Speaking of ebooks, Before Dishonor is a bestseller over at BooksOnBoard.

 

[Man of Steel]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Here's CNET'S review of the Kindle CNET KINDLE REVIEW

 

[Geoff Thorne]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

I've never seen any of these devices in actual use. Can they be used in the dark?

 

[wizkid]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

No. You have to have some light like a normal book. The eye strain is less when compared to a normal Trek book because you set font size and the background color is very close. I love mine but you need light.

 

[Trent Roman]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

^ Really. You'd think something like that would have a backlit screen, since that would be an advantage over regular books.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[JWolf]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Eink does not allow for a back lit screen as the eink is not opaque and the lite does not shine through, If you want to learn all about the various eink readers, go to http://www.mobileread.com/forum and you'll find out all about them. I do enjoy reading mine and even though I purchased the pbook of Sword of Damocles I did purchase and ebook edition since it was basically free from Fictionwise.

 

[ATimson]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

JWolf said:
Eink does not allow for a back lit screen as the eink is not opaque and the lite does not shine through

Okay, then how about frontlighting, like in the original Game Boy Advance SP?

 

[JWolf]

Re: I just bought a Kindle and the first three Titan books..

Front lighting is fine. But it's not easy to find a book light that does not shine too much in one spot. I'm thinking of the music stand light with two lights. That way you can angle the lights so they give a nice even spread.