Flutterby™! : Unpublishing 2009-07-17 20:58:59.037105+00

Unpublishing

2009-07-17 20:58:59.037105+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

I figured "what the hell, it's free!", so I downloaded the Kindle iPhone app, just in case, then Shawn mentioned that Amazon was giving away one of Robin Hobb's books in Kindle form, so I tried it out. The Kindle app gets a lot of iPhone touches right, their page flip mechanism means it's actually possible to read one handed (stop that!), they have an option to lock rotation so you can read lying on your side, the font works well and is readable...

But... but... Amazon has just unpublished a couple of books. Apparently the copyright owner backed out of the deal, so Amazon deleted them from people's devices and refunded the money. Which... well... should make us all more aware of what we're giving up when we think we're getting a deal.

In Jack Vance's 1950's fantasy novel The Dying Earth, wizards keep their spells written down. This is important because you can only hold about 6 in your head at any given time. Once you say the spell and smite the demon or whatever, the spell disappears from your memory, and you have to get the grimoire out to rememorize the enchantment. This current Kindle kerfluffle reminds me of Vance.

I've fallen in love with my iPhone - the first Apple product I've ever owned in my entire life. So much of it for me is done so right; I find myself reading tons of stuff inside Safari because the zooming is so easy. I was even telling my girlfriend that I was going to download the Kindle app and give it a whirl....until I saw this the other day. I kind of did a spit-take/head-shake thing and started screaming about softbacks and my cold, dead hands.

Irony is now dead and can be buried next to it's recently deceased partner, Satire.