Saw some posts and comments from a while back about the Trek books and decided to give them a try. Starting out with “Q-Squared” because it was on sale for $1.99 and I figured a Q-centric story would be a fun entry point. I am now kind of regretting that frugal decision.

It follows multiple parallel realities (called “tracks” in the book) with Q and Trelane central to the plots, so my usual casual reading style of a chapter each evening is not working out well because I just cannot keep up.

The only saving grace is that I’ve at least read “A Stitch in Time” so I know not all Trek books are this confusing. Probably going to have to just power through this one and not let it ruin the medium. It’s not that it’s a bad story, just hard to follow.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
    41·
    15 days ago

    Both technical limitations, convenience, and moral objections to DRM (if it has to phone home or I can’t use it how I want, I won’t buy it). I have a Kobo but prefer to have a clean epub for whatever I buy so I feel like I actually own it.

    The online shop I bought “Q-Squared” from has most of them DRM free, including all 3 of the Destiny books. Not sure how deep the DRM-free well is, but spot checking it shows most of the ones I looked at were clean. Worst comes to worse, I’ll do like I did when I still bought ebooks from Amazon and buy the DRM’d version and high-seas a clean copy.

          • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
            1·
            7 days ago

            EPUB (encrypted) means you have to use their reader app or maybe Adobe Digital Editions or some other walled-garden horseshit to read it. It seems to be up to either the author or the publisher on whether to offer it DRM-free. I haven’t found much rhyme or reason, but it looks like the ones from Simon and Schuster are available without DRM about 5 years after it’s been published.

            I only buy DRM-free since I like to read on multiple devices (Kobo, Phone, or CalibreWeb in a browser in a pinch) and get tired of jailbreaking them myself. I’d gladly pay more for DRM free than not be able to read it without asking for permission every time or being locked to specific reader apps.