Uncompromising honor earc

TychoImpact wrote:

Jeslis wrote:This'd be my first time working with the E-Arc stuff.. a question..

Is this the full e-arc?.. or does it get updated? The 1 review posted on baen for this seems to imply it is incomplete?

Have you actually finished reading the complete book or are you just making a statement that the book is incomplete based upon a superficial glance at how many chapters are listed?

I have only just started reading the book myself, but I would suggest that you hold up on making your statement in the review section on baen.com that the book is incomplete until you actually finish reading it.

A couple of things immediately stand out to me that would suggestion that your view that the book is incomplete is both erroneous and unwarranted.

Consider

1) While the table of Contents in the Earc may only contain 8 chapters. The chapters in question are identified as months. The months in question cover a 9 month time period. David Weber has been using 9-12 month time periods in his more recent Honorverse books to rapidly advance the plot lines of the overall story. It's my perception that this has been the main tool he is using to wrap up the story about Honor Harrington in the universe he has created.
2) The size of the file for the book is 2.7 GB in Mobi file format which also happens to be the same file size for Shadow of Victory.
3) My hard copy version of Shadow of Victory is a 750 page book.

Taken together, my first impression is that Earc version of the book is complete and will answer many, but not all, of questions that we have been wondering about for quite awhile now. The qualifier is if there is some kind of issue within the file itself. We shall see.

Happy reading.

Vince wrote:***ERROR***ERROR****ERROR***

Regarding the portion of your post that I bolded above:

Holy door stopper!!!!!!!!!! A 2.7 Gigabyte filesize???? That would nearly fill a Kindle ebook reader (maximum space available for content is 3 gigabytes of the total storage space of 4 gigabytes, with 1 gigabyte reserved for the OS and the installed software) with just one ebook. I know that David is known for large books, but I think that would set some kind of record for the world's longest novels.

The filesize on disk of my PC in mobi format for Shadow of Victory is 2,797 KB, which works out to 2.7 Megabytes, and my word processor reports a total of 292,137 words.

LOL we all missed that one.

A kindle only has 4Gb total space, after the OS steals its share? Then that kindle would be totally useless to me as a book reader. A kindle fire has a 128gb microsd card expansion slot. But then, I've always felt kindles were useless anyways except for those who liked them, for whatever reason, since you can buy a tablet for the same price and have access to a computer and a very capable reader as well.

Kindles are less of a strain on the eyes for heavy readers. I know it's possible to read books on smartphones and tablets, but it can tire eyes out faster.

Battery life is substantially longer on such devices too. Monthly charging, even with regular use(with wifi off, of course), rather than daily charging as with more common devices.

cthia wrote:

TychoImpact wrote:Have you actually finished reading the complete book or are you just making a statement that the book is incomplete based upon a superficial glance at how many chapters are listed?

I have only just started reading the book myself, but I would suggest that you hold up on making your statement in the review section on baen.com that the book is incomplete until you actually finish reading it.

A couple of things immediately stand out to me that would suggestion that your view that the book is incomplete is both erroneous and unwarranted.

Consider

1) While the table of Contents in the Earc may only contain 8 chapters. The chapters in question are identified as months. The months in question cover a 9 month time period. David Weber has been using 9-12 month time periods in his more recent Honorverse books to rapidly advance the plot lines of the overall story. It's my perception that this has been the main tool he is using to wrap up the story about Honor Harrington in the universe he has created.
2) The size of the file for the book is 2.7 GB in Mobi file format which also happens to be the same file size for Shadow of Victory.
3) My hard copy version of Shadow of Victory is a 750 page book.

Taken together, my first impression is that Earc version of the book is complete and will answer many, but not all, of questions that we have been wondering about for quite awhile now. The qualifier is if there is some kind of issue within the file itself. We shall see.

Happy reading.

Vince wrote:***ERROR***ERROR****ERROR***

Regarding the portion of your post that I bolded above:

Holy door stopper!!!!!!!!!! A 2.7 Gigabyte filesize???? That would nearly fill a Kindle ebook reader (maximum space available for content is 3 gigabytes of the total storage space of 4 gigabytes, with 1 gigabyte reserved for the OS and the installed software) with just one ebook. I know that David is known for large books, but I think that would set some kind of record for the world's longest novels.

The filesize on disk of my PC in mobi format for Shadow of Victory is 2,797 KB, which works out to 2.7 Megabytes, and my word processor reports a total of 292,137 words.

LOL we all missed that one.

A kindle only has 4Gb total space, after the OS steals its share? Then that kindle would be totally useless to me as a book reader. A kindle fire has a 128gb microsd card expansion slot. But then, I've always felt kindles were useless anyways except for those who liked them, for whatever reason, since you can buy a tablet for the same price and have access to a computer and a very capable reader as well.

Math time: With 3 gigabytes of available storage (out of 4GB total, with 1GB reserved for the OS and applications), a Kindle ebook reader can easily hold 1,000 ebooks of the size of Shadow of Victory with room left over.

Notes:
1) Using 1GB = 1,000MB (storage uses 10^3, not processing's 2^10)
2) The 4GB total storage, with 3GB available storage, is for the middle generations of Kindle ebook readers. The first version had much less, albeit with a SD flash memory card slot, with later versions adding more storage and dropping the SD flash memory card slot, and the very latest top of the line model has either 8GB or 32GB total storage, with some reserved for the OS and applications.

munroburton wrote:Kindles are less of a strain on the eyes for heavy readers. I know it's possible to read books on smartphones and tablets, but it can tire eyes out faster.

Battery life is substantially longer on such devices too. Monthly charging, even with regular use(with wifi off, of course), rather than daily charging as with more common devices.

I have a couple readers on my tablet that feature the pleasant output of eBooks, like night viewing mode, etc. You can adjust everything to your liking. You can even tailor it for several people's reading preference. Kindles and many other readers cater to limited, proprietary formats. There are ways around it, but if it's a reader, I don't want that kind of built-in limitation because I read many different sources.

We're in the information age. My tablet has hundreds of gigs of reading material, mostly mathematics and the sciences, but all of my favorite authors as well. One capability I absolutely have to have that nails the coffin shut against readers is their inability to handle Wikipedia. If I'm reading something and need to cross reference something, I need a research tool. Stuck on the beach w/o wife or wifi, or in a cabin, or radio free zone is exactly when you'll need such abilities. I also like the convenience of being able to quickly transfer any file onto a tablet, instead of having to hack, or deal with the dreaded DRM crapola. Albeit, they are perfect for niche markets, like some senior citizens who find computers in general daunting.

Also, why pay for something that won't also play a movie, a few games if you must, draft a letter, and also write some code. Ereaders seem to ignore the fact that we're in George Orwell's and Alvin Toffler's information age. And they have the nerve and audacity not to be price competitive. And some, very limited memory and some don't even feature color when I need color. The world isn't black and white. And in those occasions, I only wish to carry one device.

cthia wrote:

munroburton wrote:Kindles are less of a strain on the eyes for heavy readers. I know it's possible to read books on smartphones and tablets, but it can tire eyes out faster.

Battery life is substantially longer on such devices too. Monthly charging, even with regular use(with wifi off, of course), rather than daily charging as with more common devices.

Also, why pay for something that won't also play a movie, a few games if you must, draft a letter, and also write some code. Ereaders seem to ignore the fact that we're in George Orwell's and Alvin Toffler's information age. And they have the nerve and audacity not to be price competitive. And some, very limited memory and some don't even feature color when I need color. The world isn't black and white. And in those occasions, I only wish to carry one device.

Here's the thing with tablets. You almost certainly aren't carrying one device, unless you left your phone at home (which, as you've pointed out, it's 2018; you didn't). You're carrying two. And two that do exactly the same thing, except that one is bigger. Whereas e-readers are unambiguously designed for reading and have distinct advantages in that use case.

Yes, I'm certainly disappointed by how eBook prices haven't really dropped. But I don't have one DRM file on mine. Quite a few raw .txt files. I actually tend to buy my ebooks somewhere other than Amazon, because of the pricing issues.

All-in-one devices are nice, but ultimately leads to:



Or rather, the electronic equivalent: App bloat. It's ridiculous how often these things want to be updated. And then you're buggered when it goes missing, breaks or the manufacturer tells it to "slow down" to whet next-generation sales. I prefer having a little redundancy/dispersion versus all my eggs in one basket.

munroburton wrote:Yes, I'm certainly disappointed by how eBook prices haven't really dropped. But I don't have one DRM file on mine. Quite a few raw .txt files. I actually tend to buy my ebooks somewhere other than Amazon, because of the pricing issues.

All-in-one devices are nice, but ultimately leads to:



Or rather, the electronic equivalent: App bloat. It's ridiculous how often these things want to be updated. And then you're buggered when it goes missing, breaks or the manufacturer tells it to "slow down" to whet next-generation sales. I prefer having a little redundancy/dispersion versus all my eggs in one basket.

And with it all, in several years the built in obsolescence aka:

we will no longer support your software,and BTW your hardware is incapable of supporting our newest software, so either buy all new stuff or you are SOL

So I now have an obsolete Nook reader,and a tablet and a laptop. And Baen's unsecured website wants way more personal information than I'm willing to provide for a crummy $15 e-ARC.

pappilon wrote:So I now have an obsolete Nook reader,and a tablet and a laptop. And Baen's unsecured website wants way more personal information than I'm willing to provide for a crummy $15 e-ARC.

Use the paypal option.

kzt wrote:

pappilon wrote:So I now have an obsolete Nook reader,and a tablet and a laptop. And Baen's unsecured website wants way more personal information than I'm willing to provide for a crummy $15 e-ARC.

Use the paypal option.

Paypal???? Great yet another dataminer in the guise of "helpful." I'll sic the GF on it. I can't even get into ordering the thing without having to sign up, I think. Maybe just go through Amazon.

pappilon wrote:Maybe just go through Amazon.

Well, catch back up to us in October then.