Cyberbooks

By Ben Bova

Book Overview

Computer genius Carl Lewis has invented the "Cyberbook", an electronic device that instantly and inexpensively brings the written word to the masses. But not everyone warms to Carl's ideas. Add corporate spies, authors threatening to strike, and a wave of mysterious murders, and you have Ben Bova at his best.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812503198
• ISBN13: 9780812503197
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 283 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

Hilarious satire

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.

I read it when it was written

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 restict Used book sales, by treating a hardgood as software. Stating a book cannot be "transferred". 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.

The court room scene had me laughing out loud

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.