You probably know by now what we think of electronic books, here at the Computer Lab. In our post-McLuhan world, we still read, but increasingly, it's via books that glow! William Gibson's Sprawl series (Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive) is one of the first to make the leap from pressed bark to the digital screen.
All three books are available on a single high density Mac disk from The Voyager Company. The novels are part of Voyager's "Expanded Book" line. In an expanded book, the essence of reading pleasure has been distilled and brought into the computer world. I tell you, there's nothing like laying back on your couch - dark room, powerbook on your belly, curling up for a nice digital read...
Expanded Books read like a book, but they also let you do the kinds of things that computers are real good at, like text searches. Other titles in the line have such amenities as pop-up graphics, sound annotations, and hypertext links. What the Sprawl series has is even more revolutionary: it's a great read!
(P. Sugarman)
Links:
ACCESS:
(Available directly from us! Visit the Purchase Card)
The Computer Lab
Rt. 4, Box 54C
Louisa, VA 23093
$19.95 ($2.50 s/h)
Requires a larger than Classic Mac screen
graphic: Neuromancer Graphic Novel
Here is the TEXT POPUP for Gibson's Sprawl Series:
Why read on a computer?
Voyager's Expanded Books combine the most enjoyable and useful aspects of traditional ink-and-paper books with computer-based benefits such as variable type sizes, customized word searches and indexes, on-screen pop-up annotations and footnotes, and the ability to read in bed without the light on. The result is a more active, more dynamic way to read.
- A Revolution in Reading
by The Voyager Company
"The electronic book represents the start of a publishing revolution, a move from the realm of fonts and onionskin to the megabytes and hypertext... (R)eading will never be the same."
- Elizabeth Venant,
The Los Angeles Times
"Computer enthusiasts have long dreamed of the electronic book, a small, handheld computer that would display pages as crisp and pleasing to the eyes as those designed by a master craftsman... Now there are signs that the publishers are becoming as interested as the computer buffs."
- John Markoff,
The New York Times
