You want to talk about genre-bending, Objects of Worship will bend the hell out of your genre.

And thanks also for praising Erik. We are lucky as hell to have him.

A friend tells me: “I’d say that reading on a screen *can* be qualititatively different than
reading as we have understood it, but does not necessarily have to be. I’ve
read narrative book-like material almost exclusively on screens for ten
years and I am seldom distracted by links. I focus on the text, particularly
with ebooks. But I know what you mean; different experiences are certainly
possible and are becoming widespread and it is something different than what
we have always called “reading” when you use a basic text more as a jumping
off point than as a narrative.”

And another friend in OZ tells me re same issue:

RE: ”Do we need a new word for reading on screens?”

Dear Danny
“I think it more likely that, seeing as in the future we probably will read more often from a screen than from paper surfaces of books or newspapers or magazines…probably what will happen is that some word or term will evolve to encompass the action rather than the action evolving a new word, and a retronym will arise for its superceded equivalent (think “acoustic guitar” or “film camera”). …..Thus, reading will still be “reading”, but reading a paper book may be…oh, I don’t know, but likely as simple as the examples given…something like “pbook reading” or “paper reading”. …….I guess we can hypothesize about future words, but I suspect we’ll no more control or even steer it than we do most developments and evolutions and contributions to language – it just happens. doesn’t it?”

Excuse me? What kind of frothing-at-the-mouth Luddite do you have to be to hate washing machines?

Answer: a Luddite who does not do his own laundry. Maybe that should change.

I do agree. YEARS AND YEARS.

zenbomb, since i got you here online, wonder if you might be interested one day in blogging on this cockamamie idea of mine , pro or con, and offer your feedback, again pro and con? See my blog at http://zippy1300.blogspot.com and this:

I know and realize I am crawling a bit into the lion’s den here, but I was not named Daniel for nothing (smile) …. but here’s my question to everyone here, pro and con and in between.

I feel that reading on paper is so different, both emotionally and mentally, from reading on a screen, and not a priori better or worse, just different, that at some point — like today, like in ten years, whenever — we (the culture) might benefit from creating a new word or term for “reading on a screen”. I have been crusading for this for the past 6 months, with lots of ups and down, lots of pros and con, lots of good discussions, lots of emails from top experts in the field, both pro and con, and here are some “news” links. Of course, the mainstream media still has not reported on my crusade, and I fear they never will, but the bloggysphere has lit up from time to time on this, and it’s been both fun and educational for me. Please weigh in with your thoughts here, pro or con, after reading the background info below. The two words I am thinking of now, for reading on screens, are screening or screading. One NYTimes reporter suggested diging, for digital reading.

My guess is IF we really do need a new word, and if such a new word could be useful and beneficial for scholars and neuroscientists studying these issues, and for the rest of us, too, then the new word will happen organically and naturally, and NOT because one person or one editor coined a word or new term. It might take ten more years for this word to come to us, out of the blue, a completely surprising new word, and also IT MIGHT NEVER HAPPEN. Reading IS reading, and we might not need a new word for this new kind of reading we do on screens. I feel, however, and this is now my life’s work (since I am semi-retired and working for myself now, age 60), that new word or term will be useful and beneficial. What’s YOUR take on all this, pro or con, and if you are interested in playing this game, what word or term might YOU suggest for reading on screens.

http://zippy1300.blogspot.com/2009/1…e-to-find.html

http://zippy1300.blogspot.com/2009/1…ook-youre.html

http://www.ereads.com/2009/10/is-tha…r-are-you.html

I’m admittedly biased, since I’m friends with both the author of the and the publishers of Objects of Worship, but yeah, Erik Mohr’s covers for ChiZine are indeed fantastic, state-of-the-art cover design.

The Gathering Storm cover is a very good example of a very bad cover illustration, but to be fair, I think the most egregious inflicter of bad covers in our field is not Tor (who have, in general, vastly improved their cover designs lately) but Baen. This cover is a bit of anomaly, frankly looking much more Baen-like than Tor-like, down to the chintzy typography in the book title itself.

I can top you with perhaps the worst-ever cover to grace an SF book in the last 25 years, an abomination foisted on an innocent collection of stories by Spider Robinson, stories that never hurt anyone or even took a sick day they didn’t deserve. Stories no one ever read because their eyes started to bleed as soon as they glanced at the book jacket:

http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/51MEYB1W6KL._SS500_.jpg

Where to begin? The atrocious and amateurish typography?
The computer being burned at the stake because the medieval mob was terrified of the insanity-provoking wrongness of the perspective (Come on! It’s a rectangle! How hard is it to do proper perspective on a rectangle?) Also, given that this was a book published in 1998 by a SCIENCE FICTION publisher, why are we looking at fridge-sized tape drive which would have gone obsolete decades earlier?

Oh wait. There’s a medieval motif going on, so the computer should be medieval too, right?

I could go on, and on, and on, but you get the drift.

Thanks for listening!