To clarify, I can connect my kindle to the computer and sync whatever I want with it.
But how do I get the comics to the ipad and what kind of software do I use on that side? Does anyone know this? The apps I found look a bit suspicious 
Don’t you use calibre to do that? I manage my library with it and use it to send books to my ebook reader.
1 Like
Yes, I do that. I even figured out how to add series info to the title.
However, I have a bunch of colorful comics I want to read on a device that has a color screen. And I cannot figure out how to get them onto my ipad. There is a calibre client app but it won’t connect to the content server or via wireless connection.
I have previously searched–in vain–for a good ebook reading app for my ipad for the same reason. I thought calibre would somehow solve the problem.
Of the Prometheus Award nominees, I’ve finished Ready Player Two (Cline) and Braintrust: Requiem (Stiegler) and I’m a good way into War Whisperer 5: The Hook (Longyear). They span a spectrum as far as interest goes. I had to stop reading Cline after every chapter to recover from accumulating distaste. Stiegler was entertaining, in a rather anime-like style. Longyear seems a little archaic, with a flavor of the kind of utopian romance where the hero visits Nowhere and gets taken on a tour, but it’s plausibly motivated and has some interesting speculative ideas that make me seriously to want to find out where he’s going; this will likely end up as one of my top choices, as an SF novel with “idea as hero.”
3 Likes
I would suggest asking in the calibre forum. They are the experts after all 
1 Like
I use Chunky Comic reader on iPad, you can setup lots of connections for importing. It has support for calibre, network shares, ftp, a lot of cloud services, and web servers which is what I usually do. Can even run as a web server on your iPad for you to drag and drop stuff to it via a browser. I also use it for pdfs of RPGs and board game rules in English. I recommend it, the only time I ever had an issue and had the developer email me back with a fix straight away (it was an issue on my side too!).
2 Likes
Works like a charm 
thank you. Now i can finally finish The Wicked and The Divine …I only have paperbacks for the first 5 volumes and got the humble bundle a while ago that has the rest.
1 Like
Excellent! Yeah I use the Web import to login directly to my humble bundle library and download them directly into Chunky, great little app. Think I have the paid one so not sure if all options I mentioned are there, but been using it so long I can’t remember 
1 Like
Last year I supported the publication of the third print volume of Stand Still Stay Silent. I just had my address collected; supposedly it will ship out in around a month. I really look forward to it; it has beautiful art that can better be appreciated on the printed page than on the screen.
I’ve just bought Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro because I was suckered by targeted advertising. I got an email from Goodreads telling me that I once rated a Kazuo Ishiguro book highly, and maybe I’d be interested in this new one… and one thing led to another. I can’t even remember rating anything on Goodreads, but I’ll take their word for it. I don’t normally read (listen to) newly published books, but I’m making an exception - as I did for The Mirror and the Light. I hope it’s good. [Interview that I’ve mostly avoided reading because of possible spoilers here: Kazuo Ishiguro: A Dystopian Book in Dystopian Times - Goodreads News & Interviews]
2 Likes
Hadn’t heard of either of those books, thanks. I wonder if he can top Never Let Me Go.
1 Like
The Mirror and the Light isn’t Kazuo Ishiguro, but it’s modern which is why it’s an exception to my sort-of rule about recent books. It’s by Hilary Mantel - the third in the Wolf Hall trilogy. Possibly an acquired taste, but an amazing trilogy. Mantel is a stunning writer. Of Ishiguro’s books, I’d recommend The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go to anyone, The Buried Giant to people who like strange stories that live with you in a weird way, and When we were Orphans not so much. I haven’t read his others, but I think he’s brilliant.
2 Likes
I’ve just been indulging myself in spending money on books:
Onyx Path advertised a new supplement to Mage: The Ascension, devoted to running campaigns in the Victorian era. As my recent Mage campaign was set in 1905, the start of the Edwardian era and just after the Sons of Ether joined the Traditions, this was right up my alley, and I’ve signed up to support it.
After putting it off for a while, I decided to buy a few books from A Libris that I’d been wanting to have on my shelves: The Ancient Engineers (a guide to early technology—the cover has falled off my copy and I’ve wanted to replace it), The Electronic Mind Reader (one of the Rick Brant boys’ adventure novels—again, my copy is falling apart), A First Course in Calculus (the book from which I endeavored to teach myself calculus in my teens, with partial success), Starfish, Jellyfish, and the Order of Life (a study of how in the 19th century the putative animal phylum Radiata was gradually recognized to be made up of two or more disparate groups, the primarily radial Cnidaria (sea anemones and jellyfish) and the secondarily radial Echinodermata (starfish, sea urchins, and sea lilies), the latter of which are actually close relatives of vertebrates), and Unlocked Books (a historical study of what medieval scholars actually thought about magic). I’ve actually read all of these at one time or another, but I’d like to be sure of being able to do so again.
Along a similar line, C and I have been talking about the withdrawal of several Dr. Seuss books from publication, including On Beyond Zebra, whose fantasy of an extended alphabet may have helped stimulate my lifelong fascination with linguistics. I had never gotten around to rereading it; now it looks as if I won’t get to, as Amazon is listing used copies at prices in the neighborhood of $1000—so I can’t expect to assess for myself whether the talk of its being racist has any basis in reality. But that led to my thinking about other writers who could face similar pushback, and in particular Kipling, whose Just So Stories both present ethnic stereotypes ranging from Irish to Malay and use words that are no longer acceptable. That led to my looking to see if a version of it in better shape than our mass market paperback copy was to be had—one with the original art (Kipling’s own drawings) and with the text accurate reproduced—and eventually I hit on Oxford University Press, which sells not only the Just So Stories but Stalky & Co. and Plain Tales from the Hills. So I bought all three, having in mind that books can now become unavailable without warning, especially books by authors who have been politically in bad repute since before I was born.
Now we’re looking for a hardback Lord of the Rings that is a) in three volumes, b) carefully proofread, and c) if possible, not illustrated. Such a thing is surprisingly hard to find.
Addendum (9 March): The books I ordered arrived today, somewhat earlier than predicted . . .
2 Likes
I’ve finished it now.
It’s very reminiscent of Never Let Me Go in that it has a series of fairly insignificant-seeming events narrated in great and seemingly obsessive detail by an observer whose view is just a bit weird. This time the narrator is (not a spoiler) an AF, who starts life in a shop window, and the story follows her relationships with various humans. It’s officially sci-fi, but the world is recognisably this one, with seemingly just one variable adjusted [human-level AI, but taxi drivers drive their own cars, for instance]. And, perhaps predictably for a book about artificial intelligence, it’s really about humanity.
If anyone does fancy reading it, I would recommend doing so before reading any reviews, all of which give away at least a small amount of the story, which is carefully crafted to reveal its secrets slowly. [I’ve just been doing that post-book thing of reading the reviews online]
1 Like
Read a short novella from a friend during the weekend, Ciberyo (Cyber-Me, Cyber-I or I-Cyber? You tell me what would be the better translation format from Spanish). I really enjoyed it, treating some classic issues from sci-fi and how we adapt to new technologies. It was a nice break from Mythos, that I am really enjoying, but reading in short bursts, normally picking it from the bed side table.
Yesterday I took my daughter to the library here in Havelock, and found a copy of Rothfuss novella, The Slow Regard of Silent Things. I never thought I would buy it, and having read the first two books a while ago, I think it will be good to rekindle my memory before I tackle the third one in the near future.
1 Like
I enjoyed The Slow Regard of Silent Things a lot. It was not very long, but I liked it
3 Likes
Needed a break from textbooks and teaching novels, so I finally started in on The Stormlight Archive after putting it off for a decade. I’m audiobooking it during my commute to and from my classroom, so it should only take about 90 school days to finish.
2 Likes
The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced its five finalists for the 2021 Best Novel Award: Mackey Chandler’s Who Can Own the Stars?, Karl Gallagher’s Storm between the Stars, Barry Longyear’s The War Whisperer: The Hook, Marc Stiegler’s Braintrust: Requiem, and Dennis Taylor’s Heaven’s River. I’m pleased: those were my top five choices. I haven’t finished Heaven’s River, but I got to the halfway point, and that was enough of a sample to persuade me; I plan to finish reading it. I’ve finished all but one of the other six nominees; I don’t plan to finish that other one, partly because it was humorous and my taste for humor is chancy, and partly because I didn’t feel invested in any of the characters.
So now I’m in a position to read more freely. I have two novels and two nonfiction works (one philosophy and one literary criticism) waiting for me at the University of Kansas library. And maybe I can get back to Cuvier’s La règne animal. I’d like to finish the preface and get into the section on vertebrates.
I’m debating whether to acquire the first volume of the Flash Archives, reprinting the first Barry Allen stories from the 1950s. I rather like the Julius Schwartz titles from that era, with their effort to make comics more sfnal.
1 Like
That looks great and sounds interesting at the same time 
Curious what you will report
2 Likes