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| Public-Access Computer Systems Review 1, no. 1 (1990): 56-57.
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| Reviews
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Bova, Ben. Cyberbooks. New York: Tor, 1989.
ISBN: 0-812-50319-8.  Price: $4.50.

Reviewed by Charles W. Bailey, Jr.

In this satiric science fiction novel, an idealistic MIT professor
invents a light-weight electronic book that employs a high-resolution
display, simple controls, and small, inexpensive electro-optic storage
wafers.  Best of all, bookstores or customers can download the books
they want, eliminating the need for a complex book distribution system.

Filled with visions of saving the world's forests and bringing
cheap electronic books to the underprivileged, the professor journeys
to New York to sell his invention to a publisher.

Alas, the professor soon learns the harsh realities of publishing,
which is thoroughly lampooned as an avaricious and anti-intellectual
enterprise.  Although the publisher is interested in the electronic
book, everyone else involved in book production, sales, and
distribution, from paper industry magnates to book store owners,
is opposed to it.  Ultimately, the electronic book triumphs by
bypassing the publishing industry.  Toy stores, which are used to
selling electronic gadgets, peddle the "Cyberbooks" to children,
and the funeral knell of conventional publishing is sounded.  Fifty
years later, the Library of Congress displays the last book to be
published in paper form.

Bova shows no mercy to publishers, and his acerbic treatment of them
does wear thin at times.  Nonetheless, Cyberbooks is an amusing
cautionary tale that deserves to be read by those interested in the
future of electronic publishing.

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About the Author

Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
Assistant Director for Systems
University Libraries
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204
LIB3@UHUPVM1.BITNET


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