Just finished yesterday

"Aftermarket afterlife" by Seanan McGuire. this is an novel of a series
about a groups of scientists who attempt to preserve cryptid life forms
from dragons to boogeymen. They are heretics and escapees from the
Covenant of St.George which as you might guess is quite interested in
making dragons extinct. They are also the object of worship by the
Aeslin mice which talk a lot. I believe that they pretended death and
escaped to North America where they do their best to protect the strange creatures most of us ignore. The Covenant in this novel attacks the
Dragon Nest in New York City but only kill a female dragon. The male
dragon is safe but one of the family members is injured and her husband
is killed. Now the main POV here is of one Ghost named Mary Dunleavy who
as explained in the story is the Family's babysitter and they can call
on her in the dase of distrees. Oliva is a 5 year old human child living
in the Dragon nest and Mary rescues her with the aid of Sarah, a cuckoo
(not a bird) who has the power of teleportation. And the story goes on
from there with Mary assuming the role of a general in protecting her
family for which she has been baby-sitting for over 100 years. All in
all a very satisfy read.

The background remark are intended for a person who is
not reading the series currently. I try to keep the SA of
the Team Amiga mailing list well entertained with notes
about this sort of thing and manga.

bliss
--
b l i s s - S F 4 e v e r at D S L E x t r e m e dot com

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 26 Sep 2024 21:04:06 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

I spend 10 to 12 hours per day on the computer. The last thing that I
want to do is read a book on the computer. Dead Trees Rule !

Ditto. I do listen to Youtube quite a bit but that's background noise
while doing other things - like this.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 9/30/24 15:54, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 9/27/2024 8:03 AM, BillGill wrote:

On 9/26/2024 5:59 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 9/22/2024 12:58 AM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

Just finished yesterday

"Aftermarket afterlife" by Seanan McGuire. this is an novel of a
series about a groups of scientists who attempt to preserve cryptid
life forms from dragons to boogeymen. They are heretics and escapees
from the Covenant of St.George which as you might guess is quite
interested in making dragons extinct. They are also the object of
worship by the Aeslin mice which talk a lot. I believe that they
pretended death and escaped to North America where they do their
best to protect the strange creatures most of us ignore. The
Covenant in this novel attacks the Dragon Nest in New York City but
only kill a female dragon. The male dragon is safe but one of the
family members is injured and her husband is killed. Now the main
POV here is of one Ghost named Mary Dunleavy who as explained in the
story is the Family's babysitter and they can call on her in the
dase of distrees. Oliva is a 5 year old human child living in the
Dragon nest and Mary rescues her with the aid of Sarah, a cuckoo
(not a bird) who has the power of teleportation. And the story goes
on from there with Mary assuming the role of a general in protecting
her family for which she has been baby-sitting for over 100 years.
All in all a very satisfy read.

     The background remark are intended for a person who is
not reading the series currently.  I try to keep the SA of
the Team Amiga mailing list well entertained with notes
about this sort of thing and manga.

     bliss

Bummer, my cousin's MMPB does not come out until February 25, 2025
which I have ordered.  Are you reading the ebook or the hardback ?

https://www.amazon.com/Aftermarket-Afterlife-Seanan-McGuire/
dp/0756419727/

And the next book in the 14 book series comes out in ebook / trade
paperback on March 11, 2025.  I would guess that the MMPB will be out
in 2026.

Lynn

I ordered my copy yesterday.  I didn't ask what format it was
but I guess I will be getting a hardback.  I'm not sure that
Seanan McGuire is worth the hardback price, but I didn't ask
so I will get it however.

Bill

I just do not have shelf space for hardbacks.

Lynn

Aw Lynn I can only sympathize with your plight.
I have decided myself to conduct a winnowing of my
paperbacks and maybe some manga (which are paperbacks) so
that I do not have them double stacked or towered. This is
from about the last 69 years of my life. I lost all my
SF magazines from the 1950s when I left home. I stopped
reading via subscriptions in the 1970s when hard times
hit my situation. I picked up a few in the first year
or so of Covid-19 restrictions but the shop where I bought
them in downtown SF decided to shut down since the workers
were no longer coming into San Francisco and buying anything
from that shop which was called "Fog City News". I spent
more money there on chocolate than on magazines and before
the restrictions I only would buy the Anniversary issues of
SF magazines but Linux magazines which I now consume digitally
as a result of Covid-19 restriction which kept the paper
copies from being moved across the country. The biggest pain
was the closing of the SF Public Library. Eventually you
could use the Library web site to reserve and request books
then go to the entrance with people behind plexiglass who
would take your card and bring you the books you ordered
then return the card. Before Amazon over-powered the real
stores I had a SF powerhouse located about 3 blocks away.
San Francisco had really great book stores and used book stores
in the downtown area. But I would go to Oakland where a
particular shop took some of my prizes in exchange for enough
money to buy a burger at the prices of today.

bliss

--
b l i s s - S F 4 e v e r at D S L E x t r e m e dot com

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 17:54:36 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

<snippo>

I just do not have shelf space for hardbacks.

I do mostly Kindle books now, as my bookshelves are quite full.

But my experience with the Kindle edition of /From Hell/ showed me
that Kindle is not really suited to graphic novels, manga, art books,
and similar items. So I still get them, on rare occasions, in paper.

And in paperback when possible. But a lot of times it is not possible,
or at least inconvenient for various reasons, I then I get hardback.
Generally at unbelievable expense, I might add.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 01 Oct 2024 08:16:53 -0700, Paul S Person
<psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 17:54:36 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

<snippo>

I just do not have shelf space for hardbacks.

I do mostly Kindle books now, as my bookshelves are quite full.

But my experience with the Kindle edition of /From Hell/ showed me
that Kindle is not really suited to graphic novels, manga, art books,
and similar items. So I still get them, on rare occasions, in paper.

The kindle app on ipad works ok for things like that

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

In article <cb4ofj9g8ue4sj46q3pfm1chk97fbk4qkn@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 17:54:36 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

<snippo>

I just do not have shelf space for hardbacks.

I do mostly Kindle books now, as my bookshelves are quite full.

But my experience with the Kindle edition of /From Hell/ showed me
that Kindle is not really suited to graphic novels, manga, art books,
and similar items. So I still get them, on rare occasions, in paper.

And in paperback when possible. But a lot of times it is not possible,
or at least inconvenient for various reasons, I then I get hardback. >Generally at unbelievable expense, I might add.

Alton Brown would no doubt berate me for having a unitasking
device but I have enough ttrpg material in PDF, and enough
of it is double-columned, a pain in the ass to read in PDF
on a laptop, that I picked up a 12.4 inch tablet on sale.
Filled up 200 GB of its 250 GB memory already.

--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 2 Oct 2024 13:13:43 -0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

In article <cb4ofj9g8ue4sj46q3pfm1chk97fbk4qkn@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 17:54:36 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

<snippo>

I just do not have shelf space for hardbacks.

I do mostly Kindle books now, as my bookshelves are quite full.

But my experience with the Kindle edition of /From Hell/ showed me
that Kindle is not really suited to graphic novels, manga, art books,
and similar items. So I still get them, on rare occasions, in paper.

And in paperback when possible. But a lot of times it is not possible,
or at least inconvenient for various reasons, I then I get hardback. >>Generally at unbelievable expense, I might add.

Alton Brown would no doubt berate me for having a unitasking
device but I have enough ttrpg material in PDF, and enough
of it is double-columned, a pain in the ass to read in PDF
on a laptop, that I picked up a 12.4 inch tablet on sale.
Filled up 200 GB of its 250 GB memory already.

Multicolumn PDF files are another category that, in my experience,
doesn't work very well on a Kindle.

My Fire HD 6 was /bought/ to be a single-purpose device (an electronic
picture frame that actually shows all 2098 images, one after the
other, sorted randomly, instead of just the first 50 or 60 and that
has a screen that doesn't go irretrievably white after a few months --
both of those defects are from the reviews of actual electronic
picture frames). It has since expanded to a receiving-end streaming
platform.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 02 Oct 2024 16:33:02 +1000, Mad Hamish <newsunspammelaws@iinet.unspamme.net.au> wrote:

On Tue, 01 Oct 2024 08:16:53 -0700, Paul S Person ><psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 17:54:36 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

<snippo>

I just do not have shelf space for hardbacks.

I do mostly Kindle books now, as my bookshelves are quite full.

But my experience with the Kindle edition of /From Hell/ showed me
that Kindle is not really suited to graphic novels, manga, art books,
and similar items. So I still get them, on rare occasions, in paper.

The kindle app on ipad works ok for things like that

It worked "ok" on my reader, if by "ok" you mean being very very
large, and showing parts of an image in a different (and fuzzier)
resolution than other parts when viewed separately.

The latter was the real problem: I would see an image of three parts,
but when I selected each part in turn the left and right ones would be magnified (and fuzzy) while the middle one stayed at the same level of magnification and sharp. It also didn't do so well with really large double-page images.

Of course, this doesn't have to be the player's fault. It could be the
fault of the people preparing the file. Certainly some of the wierd
things I have seen in text on the Kindle resulted from how the file
was prepared. But then, a file format that is so flexible that it is
possible to mess things up unless you are very diligent and very alert
isn't really ideal either. Something more constrained that ensures
that each document it accepts will be displayed properly would be
preferable.

It also didn't help that the only part of /From Hell/ I actually
enjoyed reading was the 2nd Appendix. Although I must admit that, the
next time I saw the film adaptation, the scene where we are looking at
a horse's bridle for an excessive amount of time made sense because of
the graphic novel: it is basically all that remains of the incredibly
boring chapter of how London is a Masonic city.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

In article <nerqfj1mu6jcl1hb3bdci9jdkberc1p2g9@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 2 Oct 2024 13:13:43 -0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

In article <cb4ofj9g8ue4sj46q3pfm1chk97fbk4qkn@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 17:54:36 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

<snippo>

I just do not have shelf space for hardbacks.

I do mostly Kindle books now, as my bookshelves are quite full.

But my experience with the Kindle edition of /From Hell/ showed me
that Kindle is not really suited to graphic novels, manga, art books,
and similar items. So I still get them, on rare occasions, in paper.

And in paperback when possible. But a lot of times it is not possible,
or at least inconvenient for various reasons, I then I get hardback. >>>Generally at unbelievable expense, I might add.

Alton Brown would no doubt berate me for having a unitasking
device but I have enough ttrpg material in PDF, and enough
of it is double-columned, a pain in the ass to read in PDF
on a laptop, that I picked up a 12.4 inch tablet on sale.
Filled up 200 GB of its 250 GB memory already.

Multicolumn PDF files are another category that, in my experience,
doesn't work very well on a Kindle.

Ages ago, I was sent a double-columned PDF from Haikasoru, which
I dutifully converted to Epub and imported to my Kobo. I don't
know what I expected Calibre to do with two columns but what it
actually did was treat them as one column. Oddly, the resulting
mess was more readable than you'd expect. It took me a couple of
pages to realize it was not a bold stylistic choice.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 9/26/24 15:59, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 9/22/2024 12:58 AM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

Just finished yesterday

"Aftermarket afterlife" by Seanan McGuire. this is an novel of a
series about a groups of scientists who attempt to preserve cryptid
life forms from dragons to boogeymen. They are heretics and escapees
from the Covenant of St.George which as you might guess is quite
interested in making dragons extinct. They are also the object of
worship by the Aeslin mice which talk a lot. I believe that they
pretended death and escaped to North America where they do their best
to protect the strange creatures most of us ignore. The Covenant in
this novel attacks the Dragon Nest in New York City but only kill a
female dragon. The male dragon is safe but one of the family members
is injured and her husband is killed. Now the main POV here is of one
Ghost named Mary Dunleavy who as explained in the story is the
Family's babysitter and they can call on her in the dase of distrees.
Oliva is a 5 year old human child living in the Dragon nest and Mary
rescues her with the aid of Sarah, a cuckoo (not a bird) who has the
power of teleportation. And the story goes on from there with Mary
assuming the role of a general in protecting her family for which she
has been baby-sitting for over 100 years. All in all a very satisfy read.

     The background remark are intended for a person who is
not reading the series currently.  I try to keep the SA of
the Team Amiga mailing list well entertained with notes
about this sort of thing and manga.

     bliss

Bummer, my cousin's MMPB does not come out until February 25, 2025 which
I have ordered.  Are you reading the ebook or the hardback ?

https://www.amazon.com/Aftermarket-Afterlife-Seanan-McGuire/dp/0756419727/

And the next book in the 14 book series comes out in ebook / trade
paperback on March 11, 2025.  I would guess that the MMPB will be out in 2026.

Lynn

Whatever I find in the San Francisco Public Library Genre racks.
Some of is on real book shelves. I believe this was a hard cover book.

I do not care for reading text online as it is very hard to
reproduce the page format of real books. I have an excellent computer
but the display is 17 inches which I chose because my vision is
getting poorer.
On the other hand it is better for manga than for text but
even then I prefer the solid paper versions.

bliss

--
b l i s s - S F 4 e v e r at D S L E x t r e m e dot com

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 2 Oct 2024 17:36:59 -0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

In article <nerqfj1mu6jcl1hb3bdci9jdkberc1p2g9@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 2 Oct 2024 13:13:43 -0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:

In article <cb4ofj9g8ue4sj46q3pfm1chk97fbk4qkn@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Mon, 30 Sep 2024 17:54:36 -0500, Lynn McGuire >>>><lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

<snippo>

I just do not have shelf space for hardbacks.

I do mostly Kindle books now, as my bookshelves are quite full.

But my experience with the Kindle edition of /From Hell/ showed me
that Kindle is not really suited to graphic novels, manga, art books, >>>>and similar items. So I still get them, on rare occasions, in paper.

And in paperback when possible. But a lot of times it is not possible, >>>>or at least inconvenient for various reasons, I then I get hardback. >>>>Generally at unbelievable expense, I might add.

Alton Brown would no doubt berate me for having a unitasking
device but I have enough ttrpg material in PDF, and enough
of it is double-columned, a pain in the ass to read in PDF
on a laptop, that I picked up a 12.4 inch tablet on sale.
Filled up 200 GB of its 250 GB memory already.

Multicolumn PDF files are another category that, in my experience,
doesn't work very well on a Kindle.

Ages ago, I was sent a double-columned PDF from Haikasoru, which
I dutifully converted to Epub and imported to my Kobo. I don't
know what I expected Calibre to do with two columns but what it
actually did was treat them as one column. Oddly, the resulting
mess was more readable than you'd expect. It took me a couple of
pages to realize it was not a bold stylistic choice.

I forget what Kindle did with the PDF files I tried, but it wasn't
pretty.

Ironically, a reader that treats them as one column by showing first
the left column and then the right column would probably have worked
just fine. Well, except for the PDF pages that didn't have two columns
but did have lines too wide to display properly. But broken lines that
are supposed to flow together in a paragraph are much less distracting
than intermixed text.

A couple of Deaver books came with a setup (font, font size, line
spacing -- it may have any or each of them) I didn't like all that
much. When I set it up the way I wanted it, the last two lines of each
screen were often repeated at the top of the next. When I reverted to
their setup, this didn't happen. I suspect the pages were formatted so
that only their setup would actually work. Since the Kindle is clearly
intended to allow the user to change the setup, making it possible for
a book to be locked into a specific format in this way is, IMHO, a
poor design decision on the part of Amazon.

Similarly, if the magnification-to-blurriness referred to earlier is
the result of how Kindle handles /all/ images, then some control of
this needs to be provided and used to avoid the defects it produces.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 27 Sep 2024 08:14:19 -0500, BillGill <tonisdad215@gmail.com>
wrote:

On 9/26/2024 9:04 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 9/26/2024 6:45 PM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

On 9/26/24 15:59, Lynn McGuire wrote:

On 9/22/2024 12:58 AM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

Just finished yesterday

"Aftermarket afterlife" by Seanan McGuire. this is an novel of a
series about a groups of scientists who attempt to preserve cryptid >>>>> life forms from dragons to boogeymen. They are heretics and escapees >>>>> from the Covenant of St.George which as you might guess is quite
interested in making dragons extinct. They are also the object of
worship by the Aeslin mice which talk a lot. I believe that they
pretended death and escaped to North America where they do their
best to protect the strange creatures most of us ignore. The
Covenant in this novel attacks the Dragon Nest in New York City but >>>>> only kill a female dragon. The male dragon is safe but one of the
family members is injured and her husband is killed. Now the main
POV here is of one Ghost named Mary Dunleavy who as explained in the >>>>> story is the Family's babysitter and they can call on her in the
dase of distrees. Oliva is a 5 year old human child living in the
Dragon nest and Mary rescues her with the aid of Sarah, a cuckoo
(not a bird) who has the power of teleportation. And the story goes >>>>> on from there with Mary assuming the role of a general in protecting >>>>> her family for which she has been baby-sitting for over 100 years.
All in all a very satisfy read.

     The background remark are intended for a person who is
not reading the series currently.  I try to keep the SA of
the Team Amiga mailing list well entertained with notes
about this sort of thing and manga.

     bliss

Bummer, my cousin's MMPB does not come out until February 25, 2025
which I have ordered.  Are you reading the ebook or the hardback ?

https://www.amazon.com/Aftermarket-Afterlife-Seanan-McGuire/
dp/0756419727/

And the next book in the 14 book series comes out in ebook / trade
paperback on March 11, 2025.  I would guess that the MMPB will be out >>>> in 2026.

Lynn

     Whatever I find in the San Francisco Public Library Genre racks.
Some of is on real book shelves. I believe this was a hard cover book.

     I do not care for reading text online as it is very hard to
reproduce the page format of real books.  I have an excellent computer
but the display is 17 inches which I chose because my vision is
getting poorer.
     On the other hand it is better for manga than for text but
even then I prefer the solid paper versions.

     bliss

I spend 10 to 12 hours per day on the computer.  The last thing that I
want to do is read a book on the computer.  Dead Trees Rule !

Lynn

I prefer print, but eBooks will do in a pinch. In fact I
am trying to build up my digital library because if I have
to go into some kind of care facility I won't be able to
take my personal library with me. I am building it on a
tablet. Not as good as a book, but reasonable.

One of the big problems with eBooks is that sometimes the
original book is not available in a word processor format.
Very little before the end of the 20th century is available.
So the book has to be scanned, one page at a time, and then
converted to digital format. This involves a lot of errors.
So it then has to be proofed carefully to try to get rid of
them. Sometimes this is not done as carefully as it needs
to be. So the eBook can have some rather bad errors. I
have one book that I bought which has quite few errors.
Digitizing a book is pretty good job in and of itself. I
know this for a fact because I have a lot of books in my
library that are out of print, and not available as eBooks.
So I have scanned a bunch of them myself. There is a lot
of work required to do it right.

Many (most) older books have errors in Kindle editions. You are quite
correct about the cause: lack of proof-reading.

Far more irritating, however, are notes about "unrecognized object"
which are apparently generated by the OCR program and not removed by
anyone. In the case of /She/, the inscription that starts it all,
presented in a special font in the book, is reduced to "unrecognized
object" (or something similar), when it /could/ have been an
illustration. Or just tranliterated into normal text.

Omnibuses can be particularly irritating: these tend to be compiled
from /other eBooks/ and not checked at all. Indeed, the Dumas omnibus
has two or three copies of the more famous works because those works
appeared in two or three of the collections being collected here.

I once read an English translation of a French work that completely
blew street names (ie, "Rue" was something hilarilously, but not
memorably, wrong). There were actually cases where a chapter title had
the text displayed correctly while the first line of the chapter,
displayed below the title, had it amazingly botched. My Kindle Dickens
omnibus consistently rendered "k" as "l:". And when I tried to search
on "l:", I found that it searched on "every term with a
non-digit/non-letter character except ':'", which was about as far
from what I wanted as it could be.

Some older works do not have these problems. This is because they
present an /image/ of each page. No OCR, no OCR errors. Just a very
large file and no control over font size. Or anything else.

Even more recent books, those that I would think were done from the
very same camera-ready file as the print copies, sometimes have
problems. An amazing number of hyphens that, presumably, should
disappear when the word is entirely on a single line, do no such
thing. Occasional, usually small, paragraphs with much wider margins
than anything around them (and they have text as normal as their own
before and after them) appear. But, with those, when I see a problem,
I generally take it that the original had them as well. Typos, lapses,
and grammar problems do exist, even in well-bound well-printed MMPBs,
after all.

Notice that any books that are still in copyright are for
my use only. Distributing them is strictly against the law.

--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)