The Sword and Laser discussion

Finally, a book I can judge by its cover and can pass on. This gives me the chance to finish up other S+L books ,plus others on my bookshelf (yeah, Harry Turtdove I'm looking at you.)

Ken wrote: "Finally, a book I can judge by its cover and can pass on. This gives me the chance to finish up other S+L books ,plus others on my bookshelf (yeah, Harry Turtdove I'm looking at you.)"

I swore to myself I would read every book on the S&L bookclub this year... but Rule 34 is really testing my commitment to that list.

And we're but a week into the year. You're not missing out, believe me.

I actually want to read Rule 34 but it doesn't seem to be available at my library.

I can understand why people like it, but coming from 1Q84 where the writing is, if nothing else, amazingly tight to Rule 34 is a bit too jarring. I'm probably being overly critical though.

Joshua wrote: "You're not missing out, believe me. "

Can you elaborate? I'm on the fence with this one. I can get it from my library, so I'm only spending time. But I have a lot of other books I want to read.

Only available in hardcover or crazy kindle price of $12.99. Library doesn't seem to have it so I will skip it.

@Ken: What's wrong with the cover of this book? Doesn't look so bad to me. Now you mention it, this is my pet peeve with "Fire and Ice". Nobody would give them a second look based on the covers.

I got the book even though I really don't feel like it. But I wanna join in the book club and it felt kind of cheap to skip the first book of the year.

I haven't been in this group long but I was surprised that there wasn't a poll going on this time to vote for the next book. That way, at least we could be sure a certain amount of people wanted to read the bookclub selection.

Linguana wrote: "I haven't been in this group long but I was surprised that there wasn't a poll going on this time to vote for the next book. That way, at least we could be sure a certain amount of people wanted to read the bookclub selection."

T&V switch it up on how they decide what the next book will be. Sometimes they poll. Sometimes they make dictatorial decisions. Sometimes they look through the annals of what other S&L'ers are reading and choose something that sounds good from that. Sometimes they ask podcasts guests to choose.

Personally, I seem to have had better luck when T&V decide without input, as it seems the things I vote for never get selected. :D ;) But yeah, it varies.

Jason wrote:

Can you elaborate? I'm on the fence with this one. I can get it from my library, so I'm only spending time. But I have a lot of other books I w..."

Sure. The biggest thing for me is the second person perspective. It is really weird, especially since his writing can lose focus and there will be periods where you aren't sure if "you" means the reader, a main character, or someone else. This gets even worse when you realize that there are three second person perspectives, meaning there are three "yous" to deal with.

The accents are an issue to, but that's just because I'm American.

There's a lot of meme stuff that people may not get, and to spend your time looking up goatse or 4chan in a fairly light novel like this is kind of... Jarring?

If the premise doesn't immediately catch you, I would avoid it.

Are we judging Rule 34 by this cover

or this cover

?

Kate wrote: "Are we judging Rule 34 by this cover

or this cover

?"

My comment was based on the second one as that is the one that popped up in the link. After seeing the first cover, I have to agree with Ken. That's a disgrace and I would ignore it if I saw it on the shelf.

Rule 34 and 1q84 are two of the worst books I've ever attempted to read. How did these books end up on the reading list (Or published for that matter). How much did the authors pay you, Veronica Belmont? ;)

AndrewP wrote: "Only available in hardcover or crazy kindle price of $12.99. Library doesn't seem to have it so I will skip it."

It's the prices of hardcovers that are crazy.

My library has the ebook via Overdrive, but I'm on the waiting list, so I might not get to it right away. Can this one be read out of order, or is it better to read the previous book "Halting State" first?

Luke Burrage reviewed Halting State completely in 2nd person on the Sfbrp podcast.

http://www.sfbrp.com/archives/61

Tamahome wrote: "AndrewP wrote: "Only available in hardcover or crazy kindle price of $12.99. Library doesn't seem to have it so I will skip it."

It's the prices of hardcovers that are crazy."

For me it looks like $17.13 on Amazon so I wouldn't say it's crazy, but I wouldn't pay it:) Just as a matter of interest, I did a search on EBay and found Rule 34 and HaltinG StatE, both brand new for less that $8 the pair, with free shipping.

Hardcovers cost $2 to print.

Tamahome wrote: "Hardcovers cost $2 to print."

Yeah but the point of high priced hardcovers (for the industry) is to target the price insensitive market to recoup the costs of getting the book to market, not to compensate for high printing costs.

I got about halfway through the book a few months back before giving up on it. I tried to keep going because it had so many positive reviews....

@Tamahome and a big mac's ingredients are $0.50 raw material costs have little to do with retail costs if a business wants to make a profit.

It's all broken down here. Publishers see more profit on a $25 hardcover than on a $10 ebook. They would have to charge more for an ebook just to get the same profit margin.

http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/...

First off what is labelled as "profit" is missleading. It does not take into account any overhead costs such as salary, benifits, marketing, lease, equipment and editing costs to mention a few.

Yes I am sure hardbacks are profitable and much more profitable than a paperback or lower priced ebook. If you do not like the price there are lots of options available yo get it at a lower price. Charging extra for a premium product or early access is nothing new. The publishers want to make a profit and doing so allows them to continue publishing books we love.

The big difference in my opinion is this- until the DRM issues with eBooks are resolved you are buying just the right to read the book yourself. I read somewhere that the average book, even a paperback, gets read by 3 people. With an eBook, they sell it 3 times to get the same readership, hence they are getting 3 times the profit.

@ AndrewP,
Not necessarily true my family is on a kindle account with me and there are 5 of us, and many times 2-3 of us will read the same book since we like the same authors/genres.

If you do not have family who likes to share books or you do not want to setup a shared account then yes it is no where near as easy to share books. I know some people only read books they can borrow, which is why paper books or the Overdrive service through local libraries are still a great option.

I think we got way off the thread here :) Back to the original point, there seems to be quite a few reasons why people do not want to read Rule 34.

1) Ugly cover
2) Price
3) 2nd person narrative
4) Offensive/objectionable content.

Any others?

Statement for consideration - sometimes the books with the best discussion are books you don't like, or think you won't like, or start out not liking, or end up hating. Who cares, but you won't know without reading.

Yup, I absolutely agree! My original objection was based solely on not being able to get the book for less that $12.99. Since then, a lot of other people have found things to complain about on this and several other threads.

I am so very glad that I decided to skip this one. I'm spending the time on the DC New 52.

Ditto, skipping this one to catch up on my Connor Grey, and the mistborn trilogy

Scott wrote: "Ditto, skipping this one to catch up on my Connor Grey, and the mistborn trilogy"

Wow I never see people reading Connor Grey. I still have to read the latest in that series.