Book #34 of 2019: Tomorrow's Sphinx

[thistlechaser]

Tomorrow's Sphinx by Clare Bell
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Liked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



I wish I could review this book fairly. It's by my favorite author, and most of what I could read of it was good, but it was such a challenge to read. Long, long since out of print, physical copies are really expensive (lowest I saw was $56, most in hundreds of dollars range), and I can't read physical books anyway (font too small). So hunting around a lot, I found a copy online through a library lending system.

Unfortunately, unlike books from Amazon or elsewhere, you can't remove the DRM protection from a library book, so I had to read it on my computer. I really, really do not enjoy reading books on my computer. I can't concentrate on them, and it's not relaxing to me.

Worse than that, the book was scanned in, so large sections of it were completely unreadable:


I really liked about half of what I could read of the book. It was completely in Clare Bell's voice, and I would recognize it anywhere. She's a wonderful writer of "talking animal" stories -- one of the best in the world. So the parts about the cheetah character in the wild were wonderful.

Unfortunately I'm not really into ancient Egypt, so those parts of the book were less to my taste.

All in all, unfortunately I can't say I enjoyed reading this book, but it wasn't at all the story's fault. Maybe one day every book that has ever been printed will be available as a good-quality ebook...

Comments

[jeane nevarez (from livejournal.com)]

I was excited when I saw the title from your livejournal in my feed! And then it's soooo disappointing. Wow, that is the worst scan of text I've ever seen. How in the world does it get so garbled. I feel lucky I found my copy at a library sale years and years ago. If I ever come across another one (hardback, the text is larger), I'll get it for you.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I suppose someone edits the books after they're scanned. Much of it was mostly fine (lots of small errors, but readable), but big chunks (sometimes a whole chapter) was like that screenshot above.

And thanks for the offer! Very kind! ♥