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I'm not sure why I'm replying as there appears to be only me and you contributing to this forum! E-mail might be a better medium.

Anyway, both formats have their pluses and minuses. I am an avid reader and until relatively recently I would buy books to read while commuting to/from work. This presented problems as I don't have space for storing all the books. I ended up passing them onto friends or giving them to charity.

Things changed when I was given a Kindle as a present. While I have probably aquired far more books the physical storage space has remained the same.  I'm saying acquired here as it is a mixture of books that I have actually purchased and books that are free to download. The Kindle is a superb device for reading novels. It can also render black and white diagrams but I have yet to see any in any of the e-books I have acquired. What makes it a joy to use compared to a computer screen is the portability of the device and the quality of the text on the screen. I can and indeed have been able to read my kindle in strong sunlight outdoors.

One of the things I do miss about the physical book is that you automatically know how far through the book you are. I know this may seem odd but as I get towards the end of a book my expectations of what the story will deliver in the next few pages change. With the Kindle you don't get page numbers when reading you get a percentage. This is not very helpful as 90% of a 100 page book means that there is 10 pages to go, while 90% of a 1000 page book means there are 100 pages to go.

When reading novels I have to say that I prefer my Kindle. Part of this may be due to the fact that I don't often re-read novels. I seem to treat novels as a disposable item. This may be a habit I have got into having been forced to give away most of the books i have read. This might change as with the Kindle I don't have to get rid of the books so I can keep them for re-reading at a later date.

Andy

I have just finished Doc Sidhe by Aaron Allston. It's quite an old story as the version I read was copyrighted in 1995. It's a story that has two related earths; the grim world (where we live) and the fair world, where its an alternative 1930's populated by the descendants of elves and other fair folk. The Doc Sidhe of the title is similar in a lot of respects to the Doc Savage character, apart from being a true blood elf.

While it's an enjoyable romp, there's very little substance to it. The story is told from the perspective of Harris Greene. He is a professional kick boxer and gets caught up in events that take him to the fair world. This is one of the things I didn't enjoy so much about the book. Doc Sidhe is just one of the characters that Greene runs into. OK, so Doc is the very rich team leader of a bunch of good guys who Green teams up with. But the story is about Green and is estranged girlfriend. The other characters have very little depth. This is also true for Doc Sidhe's arch enemy as very vague reasons are given as to why he has turned so evil.

Perhaps I was expecting a bit too much from this novel. It is an easy read and there are no despicable twists or puzzles for the reader to solve. I still don't understand why it received such rave reviews on the amazon.com web site though.

Andy

This is a collection of four short stories which attempt to project what impacts current or expected technologies will have on us in the future. The first story Last Day of Work by Douglas Rushkoff goes the furthest into the future. It deals with how mankind guided technology development up to and past the point where technology guided mankind's development to be come a feedback loop. Its an interesting idea that the development of one can effect the development of the other, that then effects the development of the original. Its ironic that there's a typo in the second sentence of this story. Was it put there by the humans or the technology?

The second story is The Mercy Dash by Ray Hammond. This is really just a vehicle to showcase possible and in some cases very possible future technology. It is well written and the Virtual Assistants are probably not to far away.

I'm not quite sure about the third story, The Drop by Scarlett Thomas. Mind control of devices is certainly a possibility but I do hope that the author is wrong about reality TV shows being the number 1 form of entertainment. Especially when just about every family could be put up for viewing.

It was the last story The Blink of an Eye by Markus Heitz that caught my attention. I think this could be very near the truth in 10 years time. It covers what happens when you install a lot of sensors in your house and connect them to a virtual assistant. Quite spooky, but perfectly believable.

You can download the stories from http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-1490

Andy

The one that sticks in my mind is Michael Moorcock having read the Golden Barge. I thought it was absolute drivel with no real ending. My friends agreed with my assessment but generally added a few swear words.

For years the book was given as a present between my friends. It had to be cunningly disguised or hidden inside something else. I'm not sure what happend to it in the end as I've not seen it for years.

I'm starting to feel nervouse now as its my birthday soon 

Andy

I'm a bit late to this thread but here goes anyway!

After seeing a lot of praise for Zoo City when it was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award so I bought it. It was - in my opinion - very poor. It is certainly not Science Fiction. Apart from being in a slightly different reality, there was nothing else to distinguish it.

Having been so disappointed, I'm inclined to avoid the nominated titles unless it's an author I know or a subject matter I know I will enjoy.

The thing I like about short stories are the ideas or twists to accepted norms that they contain.  'Escape Velocity - The Anthology' is a collection of forty-eight science fiction stories and is an interesting mix. As with any collection of stories there are some that I very much like and there are some which I won't say I dislike but I just can't see the point of them. With this collection, I'm glad to say that there were only two stories which fit in the latter category.

Before I discuss the stories and to get to the gist of the review - would I recommend this collection? The answer is; absolutely yes!

As there are so many stories I'm just going to mention the ones that for me stand out. I won't be able to delve to deeply into the story without providing spoilers as they are after all, short stories.

The first story - 'Finding Fraber' by T.M. Crone did not disappoint. You have to have a special plot twist to turn an astrophysicist into a suspected murderer. There is enough material here to develop it into a full novel or comic book and I do hope the author takes it forward.

The second story, 'Zuggyzu and the Humans', is also worth a mention as it is cleverly written and it's good to know not all the aliens have it in for the Humans. You will cringe and smile at the actions of the humans. Indeed there are a number of stories were the actions of the humans involved are utterly disappointing but utterly believable. 'Sixes, Sevens' by Simon Petrie is a fine example of this and yes, I did share his pain.

While the first two stories covered alien interactions the third story is a different take dealing with humans on the moon. A Smaller Step by Michael Anderson is worth reading just for the twist at the end of the tale. I can't really say much more without spoiling it. It's a story of what might have happened. You never know, the conspiracy theories out there might be right.

There are a few stories which feature time travel. The one that really struck me was 'The Rising Cost of Insurance' by Branden Johnson. It delivers such a cruel twist which in retrospect is perfectly obvious. There are also a few featuring robots which has been an area of interest to me since I read Asimov's stories many years ago. Of particular note was 'An Empty Kind of Love' by Adam Colston (although I can't say why without giving the plot away) and 'It's Easier to Pretend in the Dark' by David Tallerman for being uncomfortably close to how things are likely to develop with domestic robots.

I could say more as there were other excellent stories here on a diverse range of subjects. There are even a couple that could be described as horror stories. However, to keep this posting from becoming overly long, I would like to say I enjoyed the collection and I would recommend it to others.

If you are a kindle owner (I am) you can get the collection dirt cheap at Amazon - £2.13! I think this must be a mistake as the paper version is four times this.

Andy