Now on Kindle: Middle-aged Dude’s Illustrated Primer

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I have a habit of getting a scene or conversation from a story stuck in my head, grabbing the book to re-read, and then getting lost in it again. I love re-reading good books, and this is one of my favorites…Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. Stephenson has really mastered the art of storytelling; his books are tales about people that I care about, but still are great science fiction, because they require the scifi hook to work (be it nanotech in this instance, or virtual reality, quantum worlds, or whatever).

But as I’ve schlepped my careworn paperback copy around the house for the past day or so, it suddenly clicked. The novel’s subtitle, after all, is …or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer. How can I NOT re-read a book about a digital book on a digital book??? Kindle copy ordered, and arrived 60 seconds later.

We’re livin’ in the future, folks!

  • Ron

    Been on my list for some time. Amazing how little time I find for pleasure reading, when all is said and done.

    I liked Snow Crash, but was less blown away than many people seemed to be. (So many people thought his Meta-verse thing was such a brilliant innovation, but was I the only one that thought Gibson's Neuromancer had already anticipated that by many years?)

    But anyway, yes, the man can write. :-)

  • http://kenzoid.com Ken Kennedy

    You're in for a treat, I expect…I enjoy all of his work. And you're local, so if you ever need to borrow any of them just let me know. (I believe I even have a copy of “The Big U” around here somewhere).

    I agree that if you're already a scifi reader, Snow Crash isn't the game-changer that many seem to believe it was. A rollicking fun story, though; my nerd friends and I still joke about “listening to Reason”. *grin*

    And thanks for posting at the site, BTW. I'm just recently started trying to roll some of my energy back out of the big SNS and into my blog and other individual sites. Also, note that you can register at Disqus and “claim” that comment above (as well as any others that you've made w/ the same email address), and that you have multiple registration options, including your Facebook identity, OpenIDs, Yahoo, Google, etc. It's a pretty nice system, really. It gives you the advantage of “single sign-on”/shared identity without requiring you to only use one social networking site.

  • http://glemak.com glemak

    you know that's a really good point ken, i've been loving my iphone kindle app – don't tell anyone ;) – it's especially nice to always have something to read since i personally always have my phone w/ me – yesterday running around san francisco for meetings i caught myself looking at certain landmarks and going “hey, in neuromancer “x” happened there & in jack wakes up “y” happened there.” shows true scfi geekdom i guess…

  • http://kenzoid.com Ken Kennedy

    Indeed, mike. Reality is catching up in some very cool ways. I carry CC or out of copyright books on my G1 right now (Android Kindle app, s'il vous plait, Amazon!)…love having something with me all the time. The Kindle cover that I chose (one of the sleeves, not the Amazon binder one) was out of stock when I ordered it, but I'm supposed to get it tomorrow. I expect to be carrying it more when I've got a bit of protection for it.

  • Ron

    I contemplated the Disqus thing, when I was last here and commenting. (Guess I would have seen your reply sooner if I registered there… :)

    So, my question is, how are they (Disqus) on the privacy/spamming front? I have a “trash” public email address I use to register for most things, rather than the (slightly) more private one I use for most of my actual personal correspondence.

    It seems like maybe the personal one would be better for this, since I imagine reading comments, etc. from that address, but I don't want to use it, if it opens up more spam…

  • http://kenzoid.com Ken Kennedy

    I just doublechecked; I'm not aware of ever having gotten out-and-out spam from them. You can choose to get comment reply notifications, etc., but you can also turn that stuff off. So the service itself is 100%. As for privacy, they hash your email address to use as the placeholder ID for non-registered users, so it's fairly secure (plus, you can go back and claim any comments since they've stored the hash, which is kinda cool. I had several show up in my account that I'd forgotten about making when I registered.)

    Note: if you comment at a site using Disqus, the site owner does see the email you registered with. But that's pretty much the case w/ any commenting software. And that only works for people who have actually commented at the site (kenzoid.com, in my case); I can't just go surfing around the disqus userbase sucking up emails just b/c I use it for comments. It does link your comments together, of course, but that's kinda the point. *grin*

    I dig it…I had an account before I used it on my site, and it's been pretty much flawless through two different site backends now. Recommended as both a commenter and as an admin.

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