Books

The oh HEY I have a whole new ereader book roundup

But this is not to say I haven’t bought books lately in print as well, because I have!

Picked up in print from Third Place:

  • Cold Days by Jim Butcher, which I have of course already read, but I hadn’t yet picked up my paperback copy to add to my collection. Because oh my YES Mr. Butcher is on the “must have both electronically and in print in case of zombie apocalypse and OHNOEZ NO MORE ELECTRICITY” list.
  • The Inexplicables, by Cherie Priest. The latest one in her Clockwork Century series–looking forward to this one since it takes the action back to steampunky, zombie-infested Seattle!

Meanwhile, as I have posted about earlier, I’ve picked up a Kobo Mini in my effort to start shifting my ebook purchases over to support Third Place. A big part of this is motivated by the desire to support said store, though there’s a considerable amount here as well of being disgruntled with Barnes and Nobles’ customer service. I’ve never had any particular issues with the Nook as a device; the hardware is lovely and the current edition of the software on mine is simple and doesn’t screw up what I want it to do, i.e., let me read books. But I’ve never been happy with B&N’s customer support, especially in regards to supporting Mac users.

(The Nook desktop app is still broken on Mountain Lion, for example, and I’ve never heard yet if they’re planning to bother to fix it any time in the next few years. Every time I google about it, I see a whole bunch of cranky Mac users posting to the B&N forums.)

So yeah. That I can support Third Place now with my purchases is lovely and from what I’ve seen so far, responsive customer support on Kobo’s part is bonus. These things together have combined to get several shiny new ebooks showing up on my shiny new Kobo Mini, several of which have been on the Rebuy list for a while. But not all!

So, picked up from Third Place/Kobo:

  • The Duchess War, by Courtney Milan. Grabbing this one because I’ve quite liked her historical romances, and this one’s starting a whole new series. ALSO, Kobo’s selling it for real cheap right now, but if you act super-fast, i.e., by the 20th, you can use a coupon to knock 50% off the price. How shiny is that? Thank you, Smart Bitches Trashy Books!
  • The Wounded Sky, by Diane Duane. Because this is one of my favorite Star Trek novels from the first big run of them. We have a physical copy in our library but I wanted an ebook too.
  • Strangers from the Sky, by Margaret Wander Bonanno. Another Trek novel. This is one I’d actually grabbed a German edition of when I’d grabbed a compilation from the Kobo set, one which included Vonda McIntyre’s Enterprise: The First Adventure–so I wanted the original English edition of this too!
  • Murder with Peacocks and Murder with Puffins, by Donna Andrews. These are rebuys, the first two books of her Meg Lanslow series. Decided I wanted them back in ebook form.

But–it’s important to note that I’m not actually going to bail entirely on my B&N account for now. For organizational purposes, if I started buying a series on B&N, I’m going to continue to do so. Like, say:

  • Victory of Eagles, by Naomi Novik. This is book five of the Temeraire series. Which I did actually already own in hardback, so I clearly needed an ebook copy! Once I finish doing some beta reading for userinfokisanthe, I’m going to jump back into my mad dash through the rest of this series, prepping for Book 8 to drop this summer!

Total of 11 for the year, so far.

February 15, 2013 by
Great Big Sea, Music

A Great Big Pile of Great Big Sea!

Great Big Sea’s Facebook account announced this morning that the the CBC Radio 3 account on YouTube posted a whole MESS of videos from a concert this past November in Ontario.

Really. GOOD. Videos. Like this one of “River Driver”. Jesus Jumping CHRIST on a pogo stick, the bass on Murray in this. +50 to the sound engineers who worked this show, because I have never swooned so hard at the harmony mix on this song.

And there’s MORE OH MY GOD MORE. Enough that I must really hope that this is potential future DVD footage, because I would buy the HELL out of this.

It’s an entire MINI-CONCERT! Enjoy this, if you’re starting the three-day weekend here in the States!

February 15, 2013 by
Great Big Sea

Great Big Public Service Announcements!

Calling all Puget Sound area Great Big Sea fans!

My party gathering for the show at the Moore on March 8th has ONE AVAILABLE TICKET! We were a party of five, but two of us had to back out. One of their tickets has now been claimed, but we still have one left! So if you think you might want to come to this show and you don’t already have arrangements, talk to me ASAP!

Because did I mention–SECOND ROW, Stage Bob? That’s almost close enough for the inimitable Mr. Hallett to hear us singing! So if you’ve ever wondered exactly how high I can boing when The Doyle yells VERTICAL MOVEMENT, now is your chance to find out!

And while we’re on the topic–another OKPer has just relayed to me on Facebook that she’s coming in for the show and is seeking parties interested in sharing her suite at the Moore hotel. So if you’re coming to the show (whether or not you want my group’s ticket!), and you need post-show crash space, talk to me and I’ll put you in touch with that other fan.

Great Big Sea is COMING. The Good Ship Vertical Movement will in our harbor soon! See you all at the show! 😀

February 15, 2013 by
Valor of the Healer

Will there be a print edition of Valor of the Healer?

Since I’m already getting asked about this, I’d like to issue a general reminder: there will not, at least at first, be a print edition of the forthcoming Valor of the Healer.

This is basically because Carina Press is primarily a digital imprint. Carina does release a small number of titles to retail print, but from what I’m being told, there are several factors that dictate whether a book will be released in print to the retail market–and it’s a decision that Carina makes in conjunction with parent company Harlequin.

Carina is investigating other means of delivering print editions to readers, but details on these are not solidified so there’s not much I can say to this yet. When I have more details I can share, I will definitely let everyone know.

The good news is, though, that Carina is a DRM-free imprint. Anyone in the world can go straight to Carina’s site and buy books right off the site. Or, you’ll be able to find them on the major ebook sales sites as well–Amazon, B&N, Kobo, iTunes, Sony, etc. EPUB will be the major format being delivered (unless of course you’re a Kindle reader, in which case you’ll be getting a Kindle file), but since it’s DRM-free you will be able to convert it in Calibre if you need to!

If you have a vested interest, though, in seeing Valor go to print, here’s what you can do to help: buy the book. Even if you’re not a digital reader yourself, if you can think of people you can gift it to who would like to read it digitally, do that. My sales numbers will be only one of the factors Carina and Harlequin would look at to dictate whether or not to print it, but if the book actively sells, that will help.

Spreading the word will help, too. Some early reviews would be excellent. If you’re a book blogger, I have a shiny production-class PDF I can hand you right now if you’d like to review the book. I’ll have an EPUB on the way as well that I can share with reviewers. If you’re not a reviewer but you know people who are, point me at them, or point them at me, or both!

If you’re not an official book reviewer, you can still help once the book drops by reviewing it on Amazon, on B&N, on Goodreads, and anywhere else that it’s possible to talk about the book. Talk it up on your social networks, on your blogs and journals, wherever it might be at all appropriate.

Getting excited here, people! Faanshi and Julian and Kestar have all been living in my head for years now–especially Faanshi and Julian–and I’m very eager to share this story with you all!

February 13, 2013 by
Bone Walker

Beta reading Bone Walker

And now, a status report on Bone Walker!

I am now in the final push to finish the first draft. As of this writing I have signed off on the new Prologue and chapters 1-4. I have chapters 5-25 yet to go, and am hoping to hand them off to editor JoSelle on Friday, or at the very least some time this weekend. (Since it’s a three-day weekend, I suspect I’m going to be blowing a lot of it finishing the sweep.)

The book’s current word count is 84,048 words, and I am pretty sure the first draft will be coming in at not too much above that–which means, still shorter than Faerie Blood.

What happens once I finish the draft will be this: I’m going to send it to JoSelle, who will then do her sweep through it. She’s going to be doing a thorough edit, both copyedit-level changes and bigger-picture development stuff.

However, I will also simultaneously release the book to anybody who wants to beta read it. Kickstarter supporters are going to get automatic access to the draft as well.

Since the book is being professionally edited, this first round of beta reading will not necessarily need to be as extensive. This is not to say, potential beta readers, that you should not beta read the hell out of it! It’s just to say that this is more optional than it would otherwise be if I hadn’t engaged an actual editor to look at the book. 😉

Note also that this will indeed be the first round of beta reading. When I finish incorporating JoSelle’s recommended changes as appropriate (and any changes from beta reading round 1), I will also need eyes on the resulting second draft. So if you don’t get into the first round of reading, there will be a second opportunity!

All beta readers will get their names into the Acknowledgements. I will offer a free digital copy of the finished book to beta readers as well–I cannot unfortunately offer print since print copies will be limited in number. But beta readers can definitely have a digital copy in the format of their choice if they’re not already getting it via supporting the Kickstarter!

So talk to me, people, if you want in on either round!

February 13, 2013 by
Music

Quebecois tunes now in my sights

One of the big intimidating things for me as a newbie to Quebec tunes is that there are so! goddamn! many! of them–a problem equally applicable to Irish/Celtic tunes in general, but I’m growing to appreciate the sheer number of tunes available to an interested student!

And thanks to being pointed recently at this beautiful repository of tunes goodness and a few other fine links as well, I’ve now happily ID’d an initial lineup of tunes I can focus on. These are ones that I have confirmed recordings for, mostly–a LOT of La Bottine Souriante, but also some Genticorum, some De Temps Antan, and even Le Vent du Nord!

These tunes are:

  • Gigue a Trois–this is a Le Vent du Nord tune, by M. Demers! \0/
  • Gigue André Alain–a.k.a. 6/8 de André Alain, this is the first of the two that Alexandre of Genticorum taught me! Including it here for completeness
  • Gigue du Diamante Bleu–Alexandre mentioned this one when he was trying to remember what Gigue du Père Mathias was called. So clearly I must investigate whether it’s similar!
  • Gigue du Père Mathias–And this is the other one that Alexandre taught me! This one’s fun! Also including for completeness since I’ve played with this one already.
  • Hommage à Philippe Bruneau–La Bottine recorded this one! But I’ve found two different PDFs of this, and they appear to be two different tunes. I need to determine which one is actually the one that La Bottine recorded.
  • Jigue/Gigue de Salon–on the grounds that Pascale Gemme of Genticorum wrote it! Don’t have a recording, I think, unless it’s uncredited in one of the instrumental sets on the Genticorum albums.
  • Le brandy–La Bottine recorded this one, and if the mighty La Bottine recorded it, it requires my undivided attention.
  • Le Chat Noir–This has Andre Brunet and Éric Beaudry’s names on it on the Montreal Session site, to wit, category Highly Relevant to My Interests!
  • Le pommeau 1–Alexandre wrote this one! Genticorum recorded it on La Bibournoise.
  • Le reel des menteries–Written by Normand Miron, who I know of course from the Charbonniers. I have a couple different recordings which should have this tune in them.
  • Les Patins de Pauline–By Andre Marchand, recorded by La Bottine Souriante recorded on Chic & Swell. And, well, you don’t get more venerable than M. Marchand, I think…
  • Nuit sauvage–… unless perhaps you are Michel Bordeleau! Again, recorded by La Bottine!
  • Reel au relenti–By the aforementioned M. Brunet! No recording, but for M. Brunet, I make an exception.
  • Reel de Caribou–We’ve played this in session! Though I need to determine which of the conflicting PDFs I have is more like what we’ve played.
  • Reel de la tuque bleue–Recorded by Les Frères Labri.
  • Reel de Siamois–Again, Andre Marchand! Recording on Le Bruit Court dans la ville.
  • Reel des vieux garçons–Must check this against the same recording as Reel de Siamois; same as first tune on that recording?
  • Sheepskin and Beeswax–BEST LA BOTTINE EVER! \0/ This gets played in our session crowd, and it was played when Genticorum was here last year, and oh gods this one is awesome. Recorded on La Mistrine as well as the opening “Ouverture” track on La Bottine’s live album En spectacle.
  • The Woodchopper’s Reel–I think this is in our session repertoire!
  • Valse Bernadette–Another La Bottine, on Tout comme au jour de l’an.
  • Valse d’hiver–Yet another La Bottine, on La traversée de l’Atlantique.
  • Violon guérisseur–Genticorum! \0/ This is on the most excellent Nagez Rameurs.
  • Reel du Pendu–The last of the La Bottines I’m targeting! Again, conflicting PDFs, must match up against my recordings!

This, I think, should keep me happily occupied for months. SO EXCITING! And hopefully also stomp-inducing, because oh my yes I’m going to see if I can get footwork going on these things while I’m playing!

February 11, 2013 by
Ebooks and Ereaders

Kobo Mini vs. Nook SimpleTouch

ETA 6/19/2013: Hi, everybody who keeps hitting this post from search engines! Gracious, there are a lot of you. I’ve been seeing this post get something like 8-10 hits a day for a while now. So y’all say hi, won’t you? If there’s anything I don’t talk about in this post that you’d like to know about, or anything you’d like me to post about in a future post series on how to read ebooks, drop a comment and let me know!

ETA 6/20/2013: Also, if you haven’t seen this post yet on a few followup remarks I’ve got on the Mini, go check that, too.

Third Place Books, my indie bookstore of choice, has joined up with a bunch of other US indie bookstores to sell Kobo ereaders. And since Third Place currently has the Mini on sale for Valentine’s Day, I decided to scarf one and play around with it. This is partly an experiment to see whether I want to commit to making Kobo (and through them, Third Place) my primary ebook source, but it’s also general geeky interest in comparing ereaders. The Nook so far has been my only e-ink device I’ve had firsthand access to; I was quite interested in playing around with another one, just so that I can speak with at least a little more authority on what the various devices are like.

My first impression on pulling this thing out of the box is ZOMG tiny. It’s even smaller than the Nook and lighter as well. Weight-wise, it even feels lighter than my iPhone 5, though that may change once I find a cover for it.

Kobo and Nook Side by Side

Kobo and Nook Side by Side

Setup was super-easy. All I had to do was plug the thing into my computer with the provided USB cord, point a browser at kobosetup.com, and download their desktop app. Then, running the desktop app, I had to log in with my Kobo account.

It promptly began syncing up with my existing Kobo library, pulling down my small number of purchases as well as a great number of samples I’d added. I noticed though that the Help button down at the bottom was cut off, and there didn’t seem to be a way to resize the window to make that button completely visible. (Hi, I’m a QA tester, I notice these things!)

But what if I want to click on Help?

But what if I want to click on Help?

Sideloading was just as easy as with the Nook, since I just had to launch Calibre and send files to the device, the same way as with the Nook. Also, Kobo’s site Help does confirm that you’re able to just drag and drop files directly onto the device if you want to.

The Kobo Help says this thing talks epub AND PDF, so I tried sideloading a PDF onto it as well as an epub. That worked just fine. I suspect though that this device would have the same issue that the Nook does with a PDF–i.e., that even if the device can read a PDF, depending on how it’s formatted, it may or may not look nice on the screen. The PDF I tried came through with the text showing up really tiny.

And, as I poke around Kobo’s Help, I see that you cannot in fact change the text size of a PDF on this thing the same way you can on a Nook. You CAN use a two-finger double-tap gesture to zoom in on the text–but then, the text is too big for the page to fit on the screen at once, and you have to drag the page around to see everything. This is a sub-optimal reading experience, so I’d have to say that when it comes to reading PDFs, the Nook wins slightly. (But I’d still not recommend reading PDFs on either device.)

Comparing Faerie Blood on both devices, Dara and I find that the Kobo renders the cover ever so slightly more smoothly. I’m also seeing that the Kobo device is a bit weirder about rendering the centering of the title page–it looks good on the Nook but a bit weird on the Kobo.

Response time seems to be slightly better on the Kobo but not enough to really notice. So far I’m liking the page transitions a bit better, though. Not as much obvious screen flash, and you can adjust the settings as to how often it does a full screen refresh. Right now mine’s set to the max of every six pages.

You can make custom shelves on the Kobo, like you can on the Nook. I note with pleasure that the shelf functionality on the Kobo includes the ability to let you search for specific titles or authors or keywords, when adding books to a shelf. This is extremely helpful if you don’t want to have to page through dozens of pages of books, as you would have to do in a library as large as mine.

I also note that if you kick over into the mode that shows a list of books rather than the cover grid, the books will show whether they are Read or Unread. COOL. I don’t see a way to make a shelf of books that are Read or Unread, but if there’s a way to do that, that would be awesome.

I notice that if you connect the device to your computer via USB, you have to remember to tap the Connect button on the screen before the computer acknowledges its presence. That’s an extra step to take that you don’t have to do on the Nook.

And hmm. As I add more books to the device, the response time slows down a bit. So yeah, it’s pretty much neck and neck with the Nook.

I’m seeing some screwiness in metadata on the Kobo that I don’t see on the Nook–some titles coming through in all caps, and one or two books that came down off my Kobo library that don’t have a known author shown. But that, I think, is a question of the store not being quite as thorough with its metadata as the B&N store is.

Overall though my impression of this device is positive. I’d say it’s a decent competitor with the Nook SimpleTouch, if you’re in the market for an e-ink device.

Anybody have any specific questions about either that you’d like to me to clarify, let me know! I’ll be happy to post updates in the comments or in future posts.

ETA: Ooh, this is an important thing to note. The Kobo Mini talks more file formats than the Nook does. To wit, it understands mobi, txt, html, xhtml, and rtf. VERY good to know.

February 10, 2013 by