Customer Reviews

Cyberbooks

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Regardless of the "hindsight" of some reviewers; it was visionary. I went to a Bova lecture and asked him about this book. He stated he & Arthur Clarke[2001] should have patented their books.

In his 1955 book "Challenge of the Spaceship", Clarke explained how communication satellites would operate. He would have been a Trillionaire.

The book is a "Satire", still relevant today. This may well be what is going on behind the scenes.

Publishers are trying to restrict Used book sales, by treating a hardgood as software. Stating a book cannot be "transferred". [7/30/2009 UPDATE: AZ has deleted copies of 1984 from Kindle users without first telling them - IT HAS COME TO PASS]

Publishers would like:
A Genetically engineered tree
Which would imprint itself with the DNA of its first handler.
The 2nd handler would erase the ink.

I didn't expect much when I picked up this book, I read it on the strength of his other work. I have to say I loved it. It delves into the realm of corporate intrests denying the marketplace of new a innovative ideas (remember the 100 mpg carburetor). By the end I was laughing out loud. Bova has a knack for near future prophesy and based on the digital revolution real cyberbooks are already here in one form or another. Cyberbooks is fun to read after a slow start.

When this book was published it was well beyond what could be possible. Today however the pulse of this book is right on the money. Note it is a little hard to keep reading on the first 3/4 of the book but it has a great finish

Ben Bova's "Cyberbooks" is a hilarious satire on the publishing business, the women's clothing industry, advertising, ocean cruises, romance, and paranoia. It includes a series of publishing house rejection letters of which the last, from a Japanese publisher, is hilarious and is really a satire on people who have bad news to impart but don't want to hurt the recipient's feelings. This is my favorite book by Ben Bova.

This book was completely prophetic of the Kindle and similar readers - should have been one of the first available on that format!!

I've read lots of SF but for some reason had never tried Ben Bova before this. I picked up Cyberbooks in the library on a whim and I'm glad I didn't pay for it. It was mediocre at best. The plot was not particularly creative, none of the characters were all that interesting, and the writing style wasn't particularly compelling. It wasn't bad... just not good. I wouldn't read it again or recommend it to anyone.

The notion of a 'cyberbook' may have been cool when Bova first wrote this, but, like the rest of the technology he talks about, it's old news now. But the lame technology is not really what turned me off. I mean, Asimov can write about coal-powered spaceships and I eat it up because with Asimov, it's all about the characters, the plot, and the writing. He isn't writing about some gadget, he's writing about how people interact in a timeless way. I didn't get that same feeling from Bova. The quality of his writing isn't good enough to make me interested in cyberbooks, so I never got sucked into this and never really enjoyed it.

On a more positive note, it wasn't bad enough to prevent me from trying another Bova book. Thanks to reviewer jerseymca for recommending the Exiles trilogy--I will give that a try and hopefully it will be better than this was.

For the time it was written and published, this book was incredibly visionary. The Internet didn't take over our lives until after 1997 - it hasn't been that long! So don't knock it. Those who claim it was a jaded idea when it was written could never have come up with anything with foresight like he could.

This book is not representative of just how awesome Mr. Bova's writing is. I suggest reading Moonwar or The Kinsman Saga, anything from 1990 on.

Cyberbooks was written in 1989, and is based on the premise that one day books will be delivered electronically to handheld devices, instead of printed on paper. Since you're reading this on ( ), you know that this was not particularly visionary - it's true today, barely a decade later. Even at that time, this was pretty easy to predict. That's not the book's main problem though. The problem is, it's pretty dumbed-down. I had read the Exiles Trilogy by the author a couple of times, and was disappointed by this book. I know he can write better. There are parts that read like Bova was going for a farce, but it's unclear - it may just be bad writing. The book also has some totally unnecessary about the Japonese. Get the Exiles Trilogy, not this one.