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Publisher: TOR Books
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Published: 1989
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Pages: 283
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ISBN: 0-312-93181-6
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Author: Ben Bova
Cyberbooks by Ben Bova is a 1989 novel that predicted the invention of the Kindle and other such e-books. Bova did a pretty good job of describing how an e-book might work, but he over-emphasized the effect such books would have on the publishing world and the world at large. I suspect this book was more his commentary on the interactions with the publishing world of 1989 than it was about how a ‘cyberbook’ would change the world. Part science fiction prognostication of the near future and part murder mystery and part legal drama, the book almost works on all these levels, but doesn’t really excel in any of them.
An inventor, Carl Lewis, has come up with the electronic book and people think it will completely change the publishing industry. That prediction was correct, but how it would change the industry was mostly wrong. Most of the book is taken up with the intra-office and inter-company intrigues of the competing publishing houses, Bunker Books and Tarantula/Web Press. It is relatively humorous in it’s parody of the publishing world.
As science fiction and future prediction, it is less successful. There are so many technological advances in the society of the book, that an e-book seems trivial in comparison. The characters are mostly cartoonish in their traits and actions.
