Kindle, it’s not just a book. But is it Treason?
April 12th, 2011I won’t buy a Kindle because Orson Scott Card is a big bully.
Kindles are supposed to be so much more than a book. Web browsing, messaging, and most notably updated annotations from the author, embedded advertising, and of course Amazon can delete any book at any time remotely. Sure, you can’t really loan your books out, not the good ones. But it’s so much more than a book!
Which is why I don’t own one. I really just want a book. Don’t get me wrong, I really want a Kindle, too. But, I also want control, and the two are mutually exclusive. This attitude really springs from a single experience where a book was taken from me by the ultimate bully: the author.
I used to have a copy of “A Planet Called Treason” by Orson Scott Card. I really liked it. It was a bit abstract, but also quite powerful. Eventually, as will happen with books, it fell apart and I wanted a replacement copy. When I went to buy a replacement copy, the book had been ruined by the author, and the original was no longer available. Orson didn’t just fix a few typos and add a paragraph, he completely rewrote the book, or as his web site puts it:
Treason represents a thorough, page-by-page reworking of A Planet Called Treason. Almost ten percent of it is completely original.
It changed so much that he had to rename it and sell it as a different book. Well, I bought and read it, and it’s not all that. The simple fact is that Orson Scott Card’s writing really went downhill at about the same time that he started letting fans download and read early versions of his books and tell him what to write. (On Compuserve! How cutting edge!)
As you would imagine, the author no longer wants copies of the original unrevised book sold. So they are not. Lest you think this is an isolated incident, I’d like to point out the Star Wars Special Editions, the only edition now available unless you have an ancient VHS copy. I guess some artists lose their artistic vision later in life and are then compelled to ruin their earlier masterpieces, perhaps as a form of revenge against a cruel life where inspiration, like youth, is a fleeting thing.
Kindle opens the door for this nightmare future, where you can lose books you’ve purchased even though you didn’t loan them out. Heck, you *can’t* loan them out, and they don’t wear out. But, you can still lose your favorite book, if it gets “revised” by the author. And this is a “service,” a big advantage to you, the book’s licensee. Because it is an e-book controlled by the publisher, you do not have control over the book, you don’t even have the right to read the original version any more.
Does Kindle work this way now? No, but it could.
For a list of other ways in which technology has failed to improve your quality of life, press 2.
