Review and a Kindle

Just finished Legends, edited by Robert Silverberg. The term “short novel” is an interesting one; longer stories hovering between the short story and the novel. At least he didn’t call them “novelettes”, which sounds to me like an unholy amalgamation of a biscuit and young socialite.

Anyway. All of the chosen authors are consummate world builders. Each have created and written often within in their lush fantasy environments: Anne Mccattery’s Pern, Ursula Leguin’s Earthsea, and Orson Scott Card’s alternate pioneer America are three of many in this giant volume. I especially loved The Hedge Knight by George Martin, and I will read any story with Granny Weatherwax (Terry Pratchett), one of the BEST literary witches, in my opinion.

Robert Silverberg did a fabulous job filling the reader in on the vast amount of information either proceeding, accompanying, or trailing the selected story, although every tale could stand on its own. I very much enjoyed dropping myself back into trilogies that I loved, such as Earthsea.

The one downside was this book is huge; much too big to cart around with me and the volume would also take a great deal of room on my bookshelf. That got me thinking. Like an armed bandit of old, I like having a book on me. At all times. You never know when you will have to wait in a line. Or fritter away time in a doctor’s office. I also live in a small space. And while my hard backed copies of The Lord of The Rings will never leave my office, the vast amounts of paperbacks were slowly crowding me out of house and home.

I don’t like to get rid of books. What if I might like to read it again? What if late one night I need a book and I have none? A fate worse than death. And then my husband got a Kindle. Next my sister. They loved the thing. I was not convinced. Even though I have sold books to electronic publishers. Why, I don’t know. Maybe I like the feel of the pages. Or the cover art. But as I kept thinking about it, I realized a Kindle had everything I needed; small, portable, and most importantly, containing an electronic archive of books I had purchased. So I bought one. In the long run it will save me money. Many older books you can download for free, and even new books are much cheaper.

The only downside is tub reading, but then, I normally devour fashion magazines under a comforting blanket of bubbles. I know, you can get those on a Kindle too. But I want those big glossy pictures to gaze at. Maybe someday I can beam Vogue on the back wall of my bathroom. Ahhhhhh…