This enjoyable collection of short stories that the author refers to as “dark fantasy tales” which I have just read at the author’s request, turned out to be very enjoyable. Generally I am not fond of the Gothic genre, vampires and similar do not really engage my interest to be honest, so I approached this collection with some doubts. In the event I was very pleasantly surprised by the stories though.

The stories in this ebook cover the entire range of this genre, we have vampires, ghosts galore, mysterious creatures going bump in the night, murders, elves who create mayhem in a garden and so on. But all written with a strangely gentle approach, so whilst I read a number of these tales at night, I wasn’t frightened by them, or felt the need to check under my bed for long legged beasties or any such things. Somehow they were not scary.

At Smashwords it is described as follows:
An unsolved murder on a seductive resort island with brooding secrets….a mechanical movie prop intended to help create a dream on film, but instead becomes part of a nightmare for those involved….an odd alliance between a priest and a vampire….a modern day meeting with the Phantom of the Opera….tales of ghosts and monsters and otherworldly encounters. This collection of stories by science fiction, fantasy and mystery author Gary Alan Ruse explores fantasy realms and the dark side of human…and non-human…nature with thrills and chills, and in some cases a touch of humor.

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A look at two ebooks all about a visit the author made to the ancient ruined city of Hampi in the south of India, so not really guides but more a description of what he found there, and the history of this extraordinary place.

Richard Brown, the author of these two ebooks, travelled to Hampi in 2007, and at that time he wrote an account of this trip in his blog (www.brownbeat.net).  But as he says in the introduction to his ebook, what he saw there continued to gnaw away at him and so he decided to  put his thoughts and images of Hampi into proper book form, thus these two ebooks.

The first one, titled BrownBeat Guide to Hampi isn’t , as its title would make you think, a sort of guide to the city, but actually more of a personal account of his experiences on his way to the city and what he found when he arrived in what seems to be a completely magical and extraordinary place.

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I have just finished reading The Candle Stick Maker by Dennis McDougal, a very strange ebook indeed, but enjoyable too I hasten to add.

Here is how it was described to me.  This is a reasonable enough description I suppose, but it sent me off on the wrong foot I have to admit:

“The Candlestickmaker” is about three boys who form a tight friendship when serving aboard the (fictional) USS Argosy during the Vietnam War.
Based partially on Mr. McDougal’s own experience in the Navy, it follows these young men who join only to find themselves pawns of another war being waged within the military. As their bond deepens so do their suspicions”.

Coming of Age…..  Perhaps….

It starts out as a sort of “coming of age” story about three young Americans who find themselves swept up in the war in Vietnam, and all end up on the same naval ship, an electronic espionage ship that sort of wanders around the seas off Vietnam, but never actually goes to Vietnam.

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For all lovers of Tolkien’s original Hobbit tale we now have not only a straightforward ebook version of The Hobbit, but we now also have an enhanced version, which in plain English means that it is full of all manner of extras, visuals and audio.

What makes this version of The Hobbit interesting for anyone who loves the Hobbit story is the fact that apart from the story itself, it also offers new high-resolution colour versions of all of Tolkien’s illustrations from the original version of the book, many of which are also included in their earlier black-and-white versions, which can be revealed by a simple swipe of the screen (obviously you will need an ereader with a touch screen for this ebook).

The Forward is a book in itself:

Apart from that, there is also a forward by Christopher Tolkien, which is in its self almost a book, as he ponders on the whole process that Tolkien went through to produce The Hobbit, using many illustrations, manuscripts and other material which did not appear in the original version of The Hobbit – such as unused drawings.   Almost worth buying this enhanced version simply for the Forward I would say.

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One of the many advantages of ebooks over paper books is the fact that no one can see what ebook you are reading……….

As I was sitting in the train this morning on my way into Brisbane, with my nose buried deep in an ebook on my Kindle, I became aware of one aspect of ereaders and ebooks that hadn’t occurred to me before.

The ebook I am currently reading is a detective novel, quite a calm one generally, but I realized as I was reading one rather purple passage (to do with an attack on a victim) that the person sitting next to me in the rather small seats that this particular train is blessed with, was able to read what I was reading, as I had set the letter size to quite large last night, in order to be able to read comfortably in bed.

As I was mildly embarrassed by the passage in question, I realized that with a couple of clicks I was able to make the font so small that whilst I could still read it comfortably enough, the person sitting next to me could not…..

This was no sooner thought of than it was done, and I relaxed and happily kept on reading in splendid privacy.

But it brought to my mind an important but mostly ignored point with ereaders and ebooks – The fact that no one can see what you are reading, as they do not have covers, or anything that anyone other than you can see to identify the ebook you are reading.

A wonderful advantage it seems to me.

Imagine, you are an extremely sober banker – for example – A male one at that, and you happen to have a liking for romantic novels of the “heaving breasts” and “tall dark heroes” variety, such as Harlequin offer us.   Read full story »

Rich Adin has posted a fascinating argument for the standardisation of formats and copyright protection for ebooks on his blog (An American Editor).

He contends that publishers are busily ruining their only chances of survival by ignoring the very real risks that Amazon poses for them, and by extension, for us consumers as well.

I am reposting it here with his permission, as I felt that the various points he makes in this excellent article should be seen by as many people as possible.

So, read on, the word is with Rich…….

I have been following the story regarding Amazon’s foray into publishing. It reminded me of an old (early 1960s) hit by Gerry and the Pacemakers called How Do You Do It? So let’s set the question with Gerry and the Pacemakers.

As the song asks and says, “If I only knew, I’d do it to you.” And that is the crux of the matter in the latest nose thumbing by Amazon.

If publishers cannot figure out what is happening, cannot see the upheaval that is coming, then perhaps they should fold their tents and slither away in the night.

The truth is that the publishers do have an ultimate weapon, a “nuclear bomb” so to speak, at their disposal if they are willing to stand up and use it now, before it is too late.

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