Amazonfail #3

Just in case you haven't seen it -- Amazonfail #3 is in progress.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012148.html
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/a-quick-note-on-ebook-pricing/
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/01/30/its-all-about-timing/

My view on this is fairly similar to Charlie's. However, I simply stopped adding links rather than pulling all my links last time round, and was willing to forgive when they fixed the last one. The reason for that is that Amazon, for all its faults, was even throughout the LGBTfail willing to sell anyone pretty much anything, so long as they could actually track it down in the catalogue.

It's different now. They've deleted an entire publisher from their catalogue. Not made it hard to find them, but pulled the entries altogether. And that takes away my reason to put up with assorted nonsense over the years, which was that Amazon was a lifeline for a lot of minorities, because it really would send you anything legal to buy, in a nice friendly brown box.

I won't have time to sort out my website and blogs until I get home in a couple of weeks, but my Amazon links are going bye-bye.

Book log: Terry Pratchett -- Thud!

The 34th Discworld book -- and one which I bought on its initial release in 2005 and then failed to read for reasons of Bad Case Of Life. Have finally read it, and enjoyed it muchly.

LibraryThing entry

January 2010 book log

So, the books read in January:

1) EC Tubb -- Veruchia (reviewed Jan 14)
2) Joseph Green -- Star Probe (DNF, logged Jan 22)
3) Ellen Kushner, editor -- Basilisk (logged Jan 22)
4) Dorothy Sayers -- Five Red Herrings (logged Jan 22)
5) PD James -- The Private Patient (logged Jan 30)
6) Terry Pratchett -- Thud! (logged Jan 31)

Good start to the year, with a little over one book per week actually finished.

More on the Amazon Macmillan fight

Charlie Stross has a lucid explanation of what Amazon has been doing and why what Macmillan was proposing is likely to be to the long-term benefit of both readers and authors.