New Comic Day and Books and Family Stuff
Aug. 11th, 2011 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6First, another belated happy birthday wish. Happy Birthday ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
allegroconmolto (Aug 9)!!!
I really have to get more on top of this, been distracted from too long a gap without birthdays, gotten out of the habit of looking every day.
And, in on-time birthday wishes, happy birthdaykarenjeane!!!!!
Anyway, yesterday I took the trip to the bookstores and comic store. I got
New Mutants #28 (fun stand-alone issue involving a new human character I quite liked)
New Mutants #29 (part of a crossover, and one of my fears about the cast seemingly confirmed, but a decent start so far)
I gave up on Batman: Gates of Gotham mini, because... as much as I like Cass Cain and want to support her appearances, if it's a MINISERIES and you need a fill-in WRITER for an issue (because you want him to get started on whatever he's writing after the DCU reboot), you're obviously signalling it's not worth anything, and DC's history is about to turn to crap anyway, might as well save a few bucks before I swear off DC.
And, at bookstores, discounted, I picked up:
Under the Dome, by Stephen King (aka, Stephen King writes a serious book with the same plot as The Simpsons movie)
Helix, by Eric Brown
And in the rare category "books I did not buy and why I did not buy them"...
While at the (new) bookstore, my eye chanced upon a book I didn't recall noticing before. The Clockwork Rocket, book one in a new series called Orthogonal. I didn't expect much from the title, but I decided to read the back... and was fascinated.
It's a "universe with different physical laws" story, the 'high concept' premise described on the back being that (among presumably other changes), light's creation GENERATES energy (and so plants give off light for energy), and if you're a ship accelerating to high speeds, generations will pass for you while only minutes or days will pass for everyone else (and this property is part of what drives the plot, I assume, an effort to use the time in a generation ship to come up with science to fix the problem). The idea charmed and interested me so much (and Egan's a hard SF guy so the implications will probably be really thought out well... this link explores some of the details, which all apparently stem from flipping a sign from plus to minus in one equation, but it's a bit sciency and technical), that I was prepared to buy the book on the spot, paying full price... if it was a paperback.
But no, of course, it was new, therefore it was a hardcover. And I don't want to pay $30 for a book in a format I don't want. So, instead, I'll have to either find it used, or wait the 6 months to 2 years for a paperback version to come out (which will probably be the oversized, overexpensive one that I won't want to buy either), and risk forgetting about it or losing interest entirely in that time.
Seriously, I think there's got to be a better way than the current book distribution model. Especially with ebooks being so common, is it really that important to not give a new book a small, cheap version to read for years? Or get print-bookstore-quality-books-on-demand services running and operate out of kiosks.
After the bookstore, went to visit my grandmother, who I haven't seen in a while. My aunt was there, and she took us both out to lunch. Had a mushroom/cheese burger and some onion rings, plus the rice pudding that came with my grandmother's meal (she can't eat sugary things). Twas all pretty good. Also toured her garden, helped out a little, and stole some cucumbers (because she forced them on me... like apparently a dozen grew in this week).
A lot of walking, but, all in all, it was one last adventure for a pair of shoes I was retiring (I bought a new pair but forgot to put it on in the rush to leave the house).
allegroconmolto (Aug 9)!!!I really have to get more on top of this, been distracted from too long a gap without birthdays, gotten out of the habit of looking every day.
And, in on-time birthday wishes, happy birthday
karenjeane!!!!!Anyway, yesterday I took the trip to the bookstores and comic store. I got
New Mutants #28 (fun stand-alone issue involving a new human character I quite liked)
New Mutants #29 (part of a crossover, and one of my fears about the cast seemingly confirmed, but a decent start so far)
I gave up on Batman: Gates of Gotham mini, because... as much as I like Cass Cain and want to support her appearances, if it's a MINISERIES and you need a fill-in WRITER for an issue (because you want him to get started on whatever he's writing after the DCU reboot), you're obviously signalling it's not worth anything, and DC's history is about to turn to crap anyway, might as well save a few bucks before I swear off DC.
And, at bookstores, discounted, I picked up:
Under the Dome, by Stephen King (aka, Stephen King writes a serious book with the same plot as The Simpsons movie)
Helix, by Eric Brown
And in the rare category "books I did not buy and why I did not buy them"...
While at the (new) bookstore, my eye chanced upon a book I didn't recall noticing before. The Clockwork Rocket, book one in a new series called Orthogonal. I didn't expect much from the title, but I decided to read the back... and was fascinated.
It's a "universe with different physical laws" story, the 'high concept' premise described on the back being that (among presumably other changes), light's creation GENERATES energy (and so plants give off light for energy), and if you're a ship accelerating to high speeds, generations will pass for you while only minutes or days will pass for everyone else (and this property is part of what drives the plot, I assume, an effort to use the time in a generation ship to come up with science to fix the problem). The idea charmed and interested me so much (and Egan's a hard SF guy so the implications will probably be really thought out well... this link explores some of the details, which all apparently stem from flipping a sign from plus to minus in one equation, but it's a bit sciency and technical), that I was prepared to buy the book on the spot, paying full price... if it was a paperback.
But no, of course, it was new, therefore it was a hardcover. And I don't want to pay $30 for a book in a format I don't want. So, instead, I'll have to either find it used, or wait the 6 months to 2 years for a paperback version to come out (which will probably be the oversized, overexpensive one that I won't want to buy either), and risk forgetting about it or losing interest entirely in that time.
Seriously, I think there's got to be a better way than the current book distribution model. Especially with ebooks being so common, is it really that important to not give a new book a small, cheap version to read for years? Or get print-bookstore-quality-books-on-demand services running and operate out of kiosks.
After the bookstore, went to visit my grandmother, who I haven't seen in a while. My aunt was there, and she took us both out to lunch. Had a mushroom/cheese burger and some onion rings, plus the rice pudding that came with my grandmother's meal (she can't eat sugary things). Twas all pretty good. Also toured her garden, helped out a little, and stole some cucumbers (because she forced them on me... like apparently a dozen grew in this week).
A lot of walking, but, all in all, it was one last adventure for a pair of shoes I was retiring (I bought a new pair but forgot to put it on in the rush to leave the house).
