Things are still a little wobbly because jetlag and such, but Gary and I fired up Skype this morning and spent some time talking about the ways information gets used online, the SF Encyclopedia, when it’s a good time to do a “Best of” collection and I spent a little time raving about Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls. As always, we hope you enjoy the podcast!
Note: If you have subscribed to The Coode Street Podcast via iTunes we’d like to encourage you to swap from our old link to the new official Podbean-hosted The Coode Street Podcast link. I’ve been cross-posting over the past few months, but plan to discontinue that and only post to the Podbean link in the next few weeks.
Getting lost while browsing an online encyclopaedia-like hyperlinked text is a familiar phenomenon. It has been well illustrated by (Hugo nominated) webcomic author Randall Munroe at xkcd for wikipedia and tvtropes.
I’m always on the lookout for “best of” collections. I know I should advance-order from Subterranean, but missed out on the Kiernan. I was pleasantly surprised last week to notice that it was up on Amazon as an ebook, so anyone who missed it (and is willing to do without the physical copy) can read it An author’s “best of” is clearly the type of book that deserves to stay in print since, as you pointed out, it’s meant to serve in part as an introduction to the author’s work. Hopefully this publishing model (ebook following on the limited edition collector’s volume) continues to make sense to Subterranean, and they will continue to keep these volumes available….
In regard to the Encyclopedia, the growth of tablet reading might break down the barrier between book-reading and internet-reading. I just got the new Kindle tablet, and the experience of reading an Encyclopedia entry seems little different from reading a book in that environment. They might be well-served by creating dedicated tablet apps for the SFE.
As always, an interesting discussion!
Thanks, Scott! Will try reading the SF Encyclopedia on my iPad & see if it feels different.
I’d be delighted to have a “Best of Kate Wilhelm.” I’d be happy to have a “Best of Norman Spinrad” too.
I came here, mid podcast, to cite TV Tropes as a counter example to deep reading of links in a website, but I see Joris has already beat me to it.