December 16, 2011 · 4:36 pm
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Future-Nostalgically

With many publishers and budding publishers increasingly publishing or re-publishing books as Ebooks for Kindles etc., one can visualise the time when everything will be available. With everything available, nothing is available. Well, nothing special, any more.

Furthermore, there is an accreting ‘culture’ being (inadvertently) encouraged by these publishers of Ebooks – a culture that arguably enables and encourages plagiarism, piracy etc. Also, it is my opinion that real paper books have empirically been the only vehicles able to carry fiction works future-nostalgically and memorably as well as effectively in their hard core emotion and tangibility and handleability.

I am not linking to this post from any forums. Just letting it rest here where only a few will read it; my friends seem to be getting fed up with my views on Ebooks.  Others may link to this post, if they wish and if they know about it.

All too easy. Short-termism that destroys the long-term. Nothing potentially nostalgic about that, is there? My last word. A question.

32 Comments

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32 responses to “Future-Nostalgically”

  1. nullimmortalis
    December 17, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    Despite the above, I started my WEIRDMONGER WHEEL as a public service in 2004, recently re-established: http://etepsed.wordpress.com/weirdmonger-wheel-2/ Work that was mainly published in obscure print venues: 1986-1999

    My work is generally unplagiarisable and piracy-deterrent as you will fully appreciate if you read some of it from that page. 🙂
    Much of my longer work since 1999 is in print only.

    Reply
  3. nullimmortalis
    December 29, 2011 at 5:20 pm

    All my life, I’ve continuously stood on my own shoulders to forge new ideas and to beat old traditionalisms (as many of you can hopefully attest) – but somewhere in my heart I think I know this ebook revolution is wrong. A revolution too far. Only an old revolutionary can recognise false revolutions? I don’t know. Nobody is all-seeing. I hope all your dreams come true.

    Not the last word?
    Simon Kurt Unsworth’s LOST PLACES — My real-time review of this new ebook when it was a real book in September 2010:
    https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/lost-places-by-simon-kurt-unsworth/

    Ditto:
    https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/tragic-life-stories-by-steve-duffy/

    Ditto:
    https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/divinations-of-the-deep-by-matt-cardin-my-4th-real-time-review-10-dec-2008/

    Ditto:
    https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/6512/ Mrs Midnight – Reggie Oliver

    At least there will be less assassinations – if the John Lennon one depended on someone carrying a book around with him.
    Or each person with a Kindle will commit a million assassinations if he or she carries a million books?

    Reply
  4. nullimmortalis
    December 29, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    “‘Ma’am, I just want to know if the library is still–’ / “It’s been closed for years and all the books are gone.” – from 11.22.63 by Stephen King (2011)

    Reply
  5. nullimmortalis
    December 31, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    > >
    > > I live in 2020 when we’re back to real books.
    > >
    > Des, are the Beatles back together there too? Ya gotta wonder how often John
    Lennon heard “Yeah, but I REALLY miss your old work,” & how patiently he bore
    it. 🙂
    >

    Someone had a million cherished books caught in his Kindle pocket and he killed
    a million John Lennons. Yes, we all COME TOGETHER in 2020.

    =============
    a 2020 vision
    =============
    I came across the words Marston Moor today in the Ron Weighell box….

    Reply
  6. nullimmortalis
    January 1, 2012 at 10:01 pm

    A real book – unlike music or electronic text – is an object that is passed around or given as a gift or re-sold or thrown away then picked out of the bin or stolen – it is real life. It is like one’s body.

    Electronic text moved from computer to computer illegally or legally is something else.

    Reply
  7. nullimmortalis
    January 1, 2012 at 10:01 pm

    The River Runs Uphill. The Event or Non-Event Horizon?…

    Reply
  9. nullimmortalis
    January 5, 2012 at 6:15 pm

    I published the world’s first blank story – on quality paper – in 2002. But
    that’s nothing now.

    Reply
  10. nullimmortalis
    January 5, 2012 at 7:13 pm

    I’ve just bought a Kindle book for my ipad:

    STATE OF EMERGENCY – THE WAY WE WERE: BRITAIN 1970-74 by Dominic Sandbrook

    Reply
  15. nullimmortalis
    January 31, 2012 at 7:29 pm

    One of the comments to the above article made a good point, I feel:

    “ebooks are services, printed books are goods. A major difference that hasn’t been yet understood or sorted out.”

    Reply
  16. nullimmortalis
    February 2, 2012 at 4:28 pm

    So fired up today about ebooks, I’ve abandoned my decision not to link to this blogpost from elsewhere.

    Reply
  18. nullimmortalis
    February 2, 2012 at 7:31 pm

    ‘Nemonymous Night’ is the only ‘book’ I can think of that would suit an ephemeral non-identity as an ever aspirational book in non-ending reaching-out for substance! Therefore, thanks and congratulations to anyone for buying this independent Chomu Press publication in ebook form instead of the physical book form in which it is also available as a specialist choice.

    https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/nemonymous-night-2/

    Reply
  19. nullimmortalis
    February 2, 2012 at 8:16 pm

    It seems suitable to use an ebook format for ghost stories. Surely, there must
    be some synergy between the ghosts in books and the books as ghosts?

    Reply
  23. nullimmortalis
    February 14, 2012 at 8:20 am

    I have been thinking about the long-held tradition of giving a copy of the Bible (certainly in the UK) to participants of Court cases for swearing the oath on. I was wondering if they will ever start offering an Ebook version of the Bible contained within a Kindle or Ipad to place one’s hand upon? Just asking that question bears somewhat upon the subject of any books that are held to be sacred (however many editions of them exist) and perhaps tells us something about this whole ongoing debate. The on-going centuries-long existence of physical books, whatever they contain, however new or old they are, will always prove something about remaining ’sacred’ in some sense of that word.

    Reply
  29. nullimmortalis
    April 24, 2013 at 7:52 am

    I have been thinking more about whether reading a text in an ebook and the same text in a real book makes any difference. Time and time again I have found such a potential difference when real-time reviewing books since 2008, indeed many examples of this, the first I stumble on today below is my review in 2011 of ‘The White Hands’ by Mark Samuels: http://elizabethbowensite.wordpress.com/60-2/

    Reply
  30. nullimmortalis
    April 24, 2013 at 10:56 am

    https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/the-transfiguration-of-an-unchanged-text/
    “Every book has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” —from ‘The Shadow Of The Wind’ by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

    Reply

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