Eeee! Colin Kapp's Unorthodox Engineers re-released!

[julesjones]

Paging jhall1...

Just trundled over to Amazon to poke forlornly at the The Unorthodox Engineers listing to see if there's an affordable copy -- and found that it was released in ebook format by Gateway back in September. I think DRMed, alas, but at least it's available. 30 seconds later I was logged into my Kobo account and chucking a couple of quid at the Kobo server...

Gateway have several other books by Kapp in their ebook catalogue, so I may add to my collection.

http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-unorthodox-engineers -- Kobo (epub)
The Unorthodox Engineers - Amazon UK
http://www.amazon.com/Unorthodox-Engineers-Colin-Kapp-ebook/dp/B00F50EX5I/ - Amazon US

Comments

[resonant.livejournal.com]

*purchases based solely on your squees*

[nojay.livejournal.com]

It is an eminently squeeable book. I have the Dobson hardcover as well as the original issues of the ancient and venerable "New Writings in SF" p/b anthologies published back in the 60s and 70s.

The UE's idea of a top-class quartermaster always cracks me up...

[julesjones]

I'd been planning to buy the relevant issues of New Writings when Mount TBR was a little less intimidating. I originally read the stories in the hardback editions in the library.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

I think at least one of the stories was published somewhere else, New Worlds maybe. Wiki wiki wikiwikiwiki... "The Railways up on Cannis" was in New Worlds, the rest were in New Writings in SF.

I got my Dobson hardcover from Rog Peyton -- one of the publishers or their distributors went bust in the 80s and when the liquidators were clearing the warehouse they found boxes of new books at the back covered in dust, this title among them along with a lot of Philip E. High and the like. They were banged out to the trade at firesale prices, a few quid per box and from there percolated out into the wider world.

Dobson's main market was libraries so one could forgive them for not pushing expensive (at the time) hardcovers into bookshops with any alacrity hence the rarity and inflated price of such books today. I suspect most of the copies on offer on De Nile are ex-library books, possibly even the one you used to check out.

[julesjones]

My local library in the late 70s/early 80s had an extensive collection of both New Worlds and New Writings, plus a vast array of Gollancz yellow jackets and a far number of Dobson -- although I hadn't made the connection then on Dobson being a library imprint.

Speaking of Philip E High -- yep, they've got him too. I wouldn't mind re-reading Sold For A Spaceship again. I forsee spending in my near future...

[julesjones]

I haven't read any of the stories for over twenty years, so I hope they haven't been visited by the Suck Fairy in the meantime. But the anthologies they were in were a favourite library check-out in my teens.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

"Just trundled over to Amazon to poke forlornly at the The Unorthodox Engineers listing to see if there's an affordable copy "

Something I also do every couple of years or so. Thanks for the heads-up. Hopefully the ebook will be available in a format that can be read on a PC rather than requiring an ebook reader.

[(Anonymous)]

If you get it in ePUB format, free PC software Calibre will let you read it.

[julesjones]

I'm using a Firefox plug-in for when I want to flip through something on the PC, but Calibre, as already recommended by someone I'm about to unscreen, is very popular. If you don't want to go through the faff of stripping DRM, Kobo and Amazon both do desktop applications that will allow you to read their format files on the PC. The Kobo one sucks, but is usable in a pinch.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Thanks. And thanks also to the person who recommended Calibre. Because I have notifications switched on for replies to my comments, I was able to read what their response said prior to your unscreening it.

I downloaded Calibre, then went to Kobo and bought "Unorhodox Engineers". It looked as though I would have to download the Kobo Desktop application in order to "sync" and thereby download the book to my machine (at least I assume that's what "sync" does), so I did that.

I can now read the book using the Kobo Desktop, but have been unable to find out where the file has been squirreled away, so haven't been able to check whether Calibre will be able to convert and/or read it.

[julesjones]

You may wish to see the comment thread here about using Calibre on DRMed stuff: http://julesjones.dreamwidth.org/249574.html

On my Mini it's hiding Adobe DRM files in a folder called kepub. They have some bizarre string of characters for a filename, presumably some sort of hash. On the C drive, there's a kepub folder in C:\Program Files\Kobo but mine doesn't currently have any files in it. That's probably because I synch directly over wifi and don't normally open the desktop app, and may not have used it since buying a couple of Adobe format files. One of the annoying features of the app is that demands to be updated regularly, won't let you use it until you do update, and was designed by someone who assumes that all users run in an admin account (at least on an XP box). So half the time I need to log into the admin account and update it before I can use it. :-/

Which reminds me, I need to do that...

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Thanks. In fact my search had already come across that kepub folder, but it appears to be empty (even though I have Windows Explorer set to show hidden files).

[julesjones]

Just found these -- not sure how reliable they are:

http://www.ebook-converter.com/117-kobo-drm-remover.htm
http://www.ismoothblog.com/2012/12/how-to-remove-drm-from-kobo-vox-ereader.html

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I am now successfully reading "The Unorthodox Engineers" using Calibre. Thanks for your help. :)