Reading on an iPod: A Complaint Afterall

As I’ve been reading on the iPod lately, I’ve been able to come up with a complaint after all: the fact that it’s hard to find quality material. I’m not talking about the actual reading part; indeed, the iPod is a perfectly capable and convenient devise for ereading. No, what I’m talking about is how difficult it is to find ebooks that do not contain some sort of textual error, either in the form of spelling errors, typos, quotation problems, or paragraphs that are competely out of whack. And this is a distraction, especially when I am ready to have a relaxing read, only to be interrupted with a glaring error.

It would appear that the availability of good quality texts are the hindrance of this new technology at this point.

Reading on the iPod Touch

I never would have thought that I would have welcomed ereading technology. When it came to reading novels, reading literature, I was a true Luddite. Books, I thought, must be read as books—not on a gadget. Well, little did I know how much I would enjoy reading on an ereading devise.

In my case, I use an iPod touch, and boy do I love it; I actually think I enjoy reading on this devise more than if I had a true eReader. The iPod Touch is backlit, you see, and that is something I’ve always yearned for, albeit subconsciously. As soon as I tried out the Touch in a dark room without a lamp on, while my wife was sleeping, I became, instantly and most definitely, hooked.

Also, reading on the little screen is not that bad. The font and its size is totally adjustable, as are the margins, paragraphs, and all those other wonderful things that make a book a book. In reality, reading an ebook on the iPod Touch (using Stanza, no less) is like reading a glow in the dark book. It’s also not really all that hard on the eyes, as it has a wonderful resolution.

The novels that I’ve read on it so far are The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown, and The Shack, by William P. Young. Both, by the way, were great reads.

Currently I’m reading The Gardens of the Moon, by Steven Erikson, and I am especially grateful for the iPod Touch and its reading capabilities because this particular novel is such a massive tome. I will write up a personal review of this novel once I get (easily, breezily) through it.

Posting a Catch-up

What can I say? I’ve been reading…and to be honest, doing straight out novel reviews a boring. I like variety excitement.

So in a nutshell, I’ve been reading: I’ve read the next instalments of my all my favourite comics, including The Marvels Projects & The Stand.

I’ve also finished reading The Elfstones of Shannara and started and finished The Lost Symbol. I liked both.

The Marvels Project

I had the extreme pleasure of starting a new comic series over the weekend called The Marvels Project. It’s written by Ed Brubaker, and I have read his material before–and I like it (especially his Criminal comics).

Anyway, issue #1 of The Marvels Project was a great read and really sets the tone for future issues. There is a lot going on in issue 1, and it’s rather deep, so it’s no doubt that a second and third reading will be just as rewarding as the first go through.

I don’t want to spoil the story, so just read the synopsis provided by Marvel if you are curious about what it’s about. Essentially, though, this is how Marvel (or the Marvel Universe) came to be.

It’s great to see this time period truly fleshed out for modern audiences.

The Sword of Shannara

Well I finally finished reading The Sword of Shannara. With summer, work and getting back in shape a priority—not to mention the other stuff, like life— I am not surprised to find my reading time cut and that it took a little over a month to read this novel. It is, after all, almost 800 pages in length. It’s too bad really: Sword was a really enjoyable novel and the only thing that made the process long was my inability to allot the proper time to have a really good read (you know, one of those long, absorbing sessions that lasts for hours and hours). I could usually only muster ten to twenty minutes per sitting, just before passing out after another long day. These ten or twenty minutes were certainly enjoyable though, but because there was a quite expansive cast I sometimes lost track of what was going on. My bad.

I did enjoy the premise of the novel and the mystery surrounding what happened in the First Wars. It’s obvious in the way the novel is narrated that we, as readers, are only given small snippets of World History and this detail in itself kept me reading and wanting to find out more. My only caveat is that there was not more history interspersed throughout the narrative; the real deep history is only truly presented in the first quarter of the novel, with the rest making up journeys, quests, fights, etc. Not that this is bad; most people would probably like a lot of action and not much history this early into the series.

No doubt I will find out more as I read other novels in this series; I have bought The Elfstones of Shannara, and I plan on finishing the trilogy before delving even deeper into Brooks’ ongoing Shannara saga. What’s interesting is that there are two ways to read Brooks’ novels: chronologically (from prehistory to the future—not necessarily in publication order) or also in a sort of publication order. See here for more information.

I’m not sure which path I will choose yet. I have The Word & Void trilogy already, waiting to be read, but if I choose the first path then I won’t have the opportunity to read this for a real long while, like within a dozen books or more. I’ll have to decide after reading the first trilogy.

Perhaps some of Brooks’ readers can post suggestions as to which path I should choose?

I’m Tardy

I am here apologizing to my (probably non-existent) audience. I’m still reading The Sword of Shannara and as I have not yet finished it, I consequently have not formulated any writing on the book. I like it though, and I’m close to being finished.

I think I only have a hundred or so pages left to go. This second novel (originally the first in the series) is considerably longer than The First King of Shannara. Also, it’s summertime–meaning outdoor activities–and I’ve also joined the gym to return my body to it’s original boyish appearance. These combining factors mean I’m not reading as much as a want to.

And when I do find the time to read, well I read rather than write. Except now of course.

The First King of Shannara

I finished reading The First King of Shannara. I have to say, what a wonderful novel. I really enjoyed this story; right from the get-go I was sucked in, becoming totally absorbed with the lucid and fluid writing. In fact, I enjoyed this novel so much that it persuaded me to seek out The Sword of Shannara, the second novel (originally the first, The First King of Shannara being a prequal) in this series.

One of the reasons I enjoyed The First King of Shannara was because of the nice, clear, concise writing style inherent in this text. Brooks has a fine writing style, and if this is any indication of how he writes, then I vigorously anticipate the next installments of the series.

This novel deals primarily with the beginnings of The Sword of Shannara trilogy. What is useful in reading this novel first is that I was (and still am, really) unfamiliar to the story found in the trilogy, so this prequel is an entry point into the world of Shannara. I did not find the novel hard to become immersed, nor did I feel that I was lacking any background information because I chose to read this title first; it was also the perfect primer for The Sword of Shannara (indeed, I was primed when I started reading The Sword of Shannara).

This is the beginning of everything Shannara, really, and I found that througout this novel there was the right balance of detail, history and lore to keep the novel moving along at a perfect pace.

The First King of Shannara

First off, I think I’m going to continue my diatribe on Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I still can’t believe how long that friggin’ thing was. Now, with that done…

Since finishing up with this novel, I’ve delved into the world of Terry Brooks, in The First King of Shannara, to be exact. I have a hundred or so pages left and so far I have really enjoyed this particular book. I think i’m going to seek out and read the next installment, The Sword of Shannara, upon finishing this novel.

After toiling over Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, I find The First King of Shannara very refreshing, especially the pace of it. I’m really enjoying the read. It’s also a lot of fun becoming immersed in a new fantasy world and I find this novel really engrossing.

When I finish up reading this particular title, I’m going to include the rest of my thoughts on it.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell = Long

This book is so fucking long! It’s not that I didn’t like it, or at least that I didn’t enjoy moments within it, but it’s so fucking long!

I have finally finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell; I finished it last Friday, and even though it’s been a few days, one word continually comes to mind: long. Man, this book was long. There was more than one time when I wondered why? As in, why am I reading this? Why is this book taking so long to pick up?

The novel finally picked up at the end, within the last couple hundred pages or so, but before the  plot finally got off the ground the book was finally done; for me, book was like a never ending intro—800 pages worth. When reading this particular novel, instead of feeling like I was getting anywhere, I instead felt like I was always perpetually there, never going anywhere, and that’s what made reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell so dreadful.

Nonetheless, there were things that I liked about this novel. I did like the characters, and their descriptions. I just wish they would have been involved, or perhaps more involving. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was a true test of patience, but in the end, I won: I finished it (read from the beginning), after having shelved it for two years.

Random Catching Up

Oh, I know already, I’m terrible at being a constant blogger. But what can I say? Other than I’ve been busy reading. And I’m happy to report that I’ve certainly been reading some good items as of late. I’m going to delve into some of the selections now without going in any particular chronological order. Rather, I’ll discuss them as I remember them, which is perhaps a telling indication as to how good they are. Perhaps not.

First off, I just finished reading a really compelling comic book about five minutes ago titled The Unwritten. It was the first one in the series and I can’t wait to get my hands on further issues as they are written. I really like how the concept of fictionality, and even metafictionality, are explored in the story—this story is about story, first and foremost.

Another novel I finished within the last week was Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. I liked it, and although it was somewhat dated—as is wont to happen with any science fiction novel older than thirty years old—it presented a lot of compelling ideas, and a lot of story. What’s nice about reading Clarke is that he doesn’t go into that much detail when describing the gadgets, so if you can suspend your disbelief for a while and let your imagination wander, than it’s possible to imagine the novel as being written concurrently, or even in the future. I liked it enough that I’ll seek out the rest of the novels in the series, to see how everything turns out in the end.

What else? I’ve started reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. This is the second time I try to read it after giving up about a quarter of the way through about two years ago. There was a lot going on at that time, and I was changing jobs, careers even, and this particular title was just too complex for me at that time. I remember reading it, and not really absorbing anything, and then wondering what the hell was going on in the book. Well I`m happy to report that this time around the book is not as hard to read. I have more time and patience to give it the attention it needs. I`ve also discovered that I don`t remember one bit of it, so it`s really like reading the novel anew.

I feel myself getting into a Fantasy mood, so I will undoubtedly like this story.

I`ve read all the Dark Tower comics that are published so far. Great story, and great artwork.

I`ve also been playing a lot of video games, particularly Fallout 3, Silent Hill: Homecoming, and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. I actually finished Fallout 3, and I found the ending to be utterly unsatisfying; I did not get any catharsis out of it, that`s for sure.