84 Comments on “The Human Division, Episode One: The B-Team is Live!”

1. Kobi has it, but says “Adobe DRM EPUB”. Bug or feature?

2. Kobo, that is. And yeah, congrats!

3. I read this last week (preview copy) and I have to say I was really hoping for Episode 2 today The B Team was Amazing and I am Eagerly awaiting “Walk the Plank”

4. The email for this post and the Amazon order confirmation were waiting together in my inbox this morning. Time to start reading!

5. Studer:

   If anyone is selling it with DRM, they are doing it wrong. I can not formally encourage you to break any DRM that is on it, but if, say, your file happens to fall and the DRM just somehow slips off then that is all right by me.

6. “… in this episodic way. ”

   In the tradition of Charles Dickens! Congrratulations, sir.

7. Congratulations John!I love the idea of this being serial-esque (is that a word? Oh well, you get the idea).
   I’ve just started reading OMW, I “discovered” your blog without reading any of your stuff (thanks to Wil Wheaton’s blog), I’m about halfway through and am really enjoying it! Glad to see there is more in that “universe” for me to read.
   I have a question for you, as I was reading it last night I was wondering do you have a favourite book? I’m referring to a favourite that you have written, not just your favourite book. I sometimes wonder if author’s have a favourite amongst their own bibliography or is it like having multiple children, you love them all differently but equally?

8. I don’t have a favorite at this point, no.

9. Thank you, Whispernet. Reading now…

10. Hi John! I’m also halfway through Old Man’s War at the moment, and I’d like to read the others in the series before I move onto the Human Division. Do you have a handy list of the books in the best order to read them that I can refer to? I accidentally read the Sagan Diaries already, because I didn’t realise it was in the same universe!

11. Victoria: In order: Old Man’s War, The Ghost Bridages, The Last Colony, Zoe’s Tale. The Sagan Diary slots inbetween TGB and TLC.

12. Whiz bang of an opener and smooth exposition to update folks unfamiliar with OMWs background. Not done it yet, but it promises to be exactly what OMW fans are looking for.

    Two things though: I’ve yet to figure out how Tor is going to engineer “riots on the docks” in an online way. How does one effectively push oneself to the front of the virtual crowd to insure getting a copy. I’m sure that the kerfuffle helped boost Dicken’s sales.

    And second – I understand the experiment and am participating in good faith (though I used to wait until all 3 or 4 issues of the magazines were in before reading the serials there), but I do find myself thinking A: that I wished I’d waited in a similar fashion (a week may be too long) and B: am I still going to rush out and buy the paper version? The answer is, of course “yes” as I am a completest, but depending on budget at the time it may experience a few passes in favor of unreads, which is not the norm for a Scalzi title. Those (unread) get snatched up instantly.

    Your feedback may vary.

13. John, et al. I noted that, at the iBooks store: “Books can only be viewed using iBooks on an iPad, iPhone (3G or later), or iPod touch (2nd generation or later).”
    Seems rather DRM-ish to me…

14. I remember when I craved more from the OMW universe. I remember wishing you’d return to it and scouring your blog for indicators that you might. But I also remember a niggling fear that if a new instalment did materialise, that it would not match my ridiculously high expectations.

    I needn’t have worried. The B-Team has just kicked my expectations in the facehole. It’s utterly immenseballs. Congratulations, John and thank you….

15. [and I realized after posting it that my comment is probably merely an annoyance to you, in that you’ve no control over the matter. My apologies; I’ve mentioned it to Tor.]

16. Maybe I’m not seeing it – is there a way, through Amazon, to subscribe to the entire run without having to buy each episode individually?

17. With an endorsement like that from Warren Ellis, I’m off to pre-order the rest of the series…

18. Hi,
    I really looked forward to this, however I’m german and cannot find it on any of the german sites. (Well, except on Amazon, but it says “Kindle Edition” there, and I don’t have one.) ebook.com says they can only sell it in the US. Do you know what to do (or point me to someone at Tor who knows what to do)?

19. Daniel: no to buying as a series

    eBbr: get a copy of Calibre at http://calibre-ebook.com/. It converts non DRMed files to/from multiple formats. I have a Sony e-Reader and have converted iBooks and Kindle books.

20. Michael Smik: You don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle books. They have SW that runs on most types of PCs and hand held devices – I have it on my Windows 7 machines and iPod Touch.

21. At first I was going to wait for the whole book, and then your enthusiasm for this format won me over. Then, it dawned on me I read books like channels on TV: a few pages with this book, a few with that book. For that matter, I remember reading a trilogy backwards once in college (due to book availability and my own impatience). Was sort of the ‘Memento’ version, but ended up working quite well with Cherryh.

22. I’m just going to smile at the synchronicity, as I just finished Redshirts and immediately started Ellis’ new Gun Machine.

23. Wow, thanks again for reposting – I loved the first episode and just wanted to help get the word out, but thanks to you, that post has gone far beyond my expectations. Keep up the great work!!

24. Yay.. the book all about me is finally out! :) Ok, so, not really, but I loved it anyway. Quite the start to what promises to be one hell of a serial.

25. eBbr: Apple’s note notwithstanding, I’ve bought DRM-free ebooks from the iBookstore and read them with other ebook readers with no problems. They are just ePub files.

26. 2301 hrs 14 Jan: E-mail from iTunes saying I can download “B-Team.” Stop doing real work and grab my iPad. Open up iBooks and download starts.
    2305 hrs: Start reading “B-Team.”
    2310 hrs: Holy Sh–!! This is great!!! (have to second Warren Ellis’ comment…)
    0530 this AM: Problems getting out of bed to start the day.

    Thanks, John for making my day today. Can’t wait for next week’s installment. I’ll have probably read this one several times by then.

27. Looking forward to read the B-Team, unfortunately I will have to wait till May, seeing as Amazon hates the non-US countries, 99 cents an episode in US, 3,71 dollars an episode for other countries. I know that the price for the whole book will differ as well, but hopefully it will be a better deal.

28. I didn’t like it.

    I LOVED IT!
    Thanks John. Can’t wait for the next one. Fortunately I’ll have Redshirts to tide me over. :)

29. Thanks for linking to our review, John! We’ll have a review of Episode 2 up next Monday as well. Can’t wait to start reading it…top notch stuff.

30. Do you know why Amazon hasn’t figured out how to sell all 13 together as a subscription?

31. You’d have to ask Amazon, I’m afraid.

32. Bought it on Google Play. I can read it in a browser, but the margins are wide and the text is narrow (about 40 characters on each line). Screen shot available upon request.

    Tried to download the ePub from Google, and got a file named “The_Human_Division_1_The_B_Team-epub.acsm” (891 bytes) that contains a bunch of XML.

33. John – Warren also has a nice write up on his site.

    http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=14559

34. WAUGH. OK, now that I’ve inchoately howled, thanks for the new stuff, Mr. Scalzi.

    And someone in the CDF really does hate Harry Wilson, I see.

35. Thank you John for another great story.

36. @Brian Brown:

    He hit the nail on the head with this: “What Scalzi does in these books is take the second strain of military sf, the more liberal and literary works like Joe Haldeman’s THE FOREVER WAR, and sew it into the classic form.”

    That’s it, exactly. Well, that’s a big part of “it.” Then there’s the dark humor, which sets the OMW books apart from their source material.

37. Kobo update: The DRM issue there has been fixed. But from Kobo with impunity!

38. This is what Google says about the “acsm” file that I downloaded (instead of the ePub I expected):

    What is an .ACSM file?

    As you may have noticed, many downloadable books on Google Play have an “.ACSM” extension. This is an Adobe file format used for Digital Rights Management (DRM) of your ebooks. Ebooks with DRM are protected under copyright law, and our publisher and author partners require us to guard their titles against unauthorized copying and abuse.

    So I think they’re confused.

39. To B-Team or not to B-Team, forsooth;
    Who such vexatious question would fain ask?
    Not I – ’tis bought and read since early morn,
    And brighter be my day therefore. Well done!

    </iambic_pentameter>

    John, your writing style and the episodic format are amazingly well-matched to each other – even more perfectly suited than beautiful cats and pork products. ;^)  The Human Division, Episode One: The B-Team is remarkably detailed yet spare with words, and fiendishly engrossing… and I look forward to next week’s fix.

    Incidentally, THD #1 is the first purchased work to land on my replacement Nook, thus continuing a tradition that began with Redshirts. That book was what convinced me to purchase an e-reader (also a Nook, maimed when I rolled a chair over its screen – appropriate, no?) and was the first text to be purchased and downloaded to that device.

40. Listened to the audio book as I didn’t want to wait until I got home from work. Thanks for making the work day much more enjoyable!

41. I need to know what time B&N releases their Nook files. Usually it’s at midnight, but I checked at midnight Eastern and midnight Pacific and no joy. I had to wait till after I slept rather than before!

    GIVE ME WORDS NOW DAMMIT.

42. I’m hooked, you swine!

    But I forgive you…

43. PS
    It was £0.63 which is the straight translation from $1 so I’m happy about that too…

44. I order The B-Team for kindle and I enjoyed it very much. Nice work as always John. I read it on my iPad and was disappointed that the awesome cover art I see on your website was nowhere to be found. Any thoughts on why that is?

45. My bad! The cover art appeared when I returned the kindle app to home and closed the copy of The B-Team. Just like a real book the cover shows up when you close it. Who would have guessed?

46. @Max: where in the world are you? Kobo was happy to charge me in my local non-US currency, and I ended up paying slightly less than the US price. Might be worth checking out.

47. So I was rereading the opening, heard “Sara Bair” in my head, and went D’oh! Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky, aka Elizabeth Bear, aka ebear!

48. I finished it already and I LOVE IT!!! It is a great continuation of the series in the same style, with some unexpected twists! I cant wait until the next part comes out!

49. @Max

    … unfortunately I will have to wait till May, seeing as Amazon hates the non-US countries, 99 cents an episode in US, 3,71 dollars an episode for other countries.

    I just looked up the price at Amazon.de (for curiosity, as I had subscribed for the promo), and it’s 0.79 EUR — that seems ok, so I probably will get the next issue(s).

50. John,

    B&N looks to be selling pre-order of the full book for $.99 (Hardcover pre-order is $15.25). Is that correct? Personally, while I intend to buy and read the serials, having the whole book as one entry in my nook “shelf” may be neater in the long run. So, I could see offering the full ebook for $.99 as a nice option for those of us who read each installment as it comes out.

    http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-human-division-john-scalzi/1111298415?ean=9780765333513

51. Actually, it looks like what I was seeing for $.99 is a pre-order for episode 9. Really can’t tell that from B&N’s page, though, as it only lists it as “the Human Division” and includes option to pre-order the hardcover. On the page for “The B-Team”, it’s pretty obvious that it’s only the single episode, and the hardcover is not offered. I found this page just by searching for “Scalzi”, and no other options for “The Human Division” come up. If not for your link in this article, I don’t think I could have found “The B-Team”.

52. Unfortunately, I can’t get this week’s episode of “The Human Division.” I know this probably isn’t the place to kvetch about booksellers’ technical issues, but I will anyway. I pre-ordered (and paid for) “The Human Division at Barnes&Noble a week ago. Then the display of my old first generation Nook died, so I bought a new Nook HD day before yesterday. I successfully downloaded most of my library to it, and bought and downloaded “Shadow War,” but “The Human Division” remains stubbornly in its “pre-order” state in my Nook library on Jan 16, even though it’s supposedly available as of yesterday. It’d sure be nice to be able to read it.

53. RBH: Someone else said that at Barnes and Noble “The Human Division” was episode 9, so that pre-order really is still in pre-order. The one that’s now available is “The B-Team”.

54. Ugh. Thanks, Cally.

55. What did I say?? It’s the B-Team I’m actually trying to download. My brain is apparently fried.

56. Search for John Scalzi on your nook. You’ll see all the episodes there. The website’s searches do seem to be messed up. But if you search by episode title you’ll find them. Still, the easiest way for B&N is to search your nook shop.
    John, I was just looking at it, and there is a 99 cent edition of Agent to the Stars, listed as by you and something called Don’s ebooks. Is this legit? I’ve had it in paper and ebook for some time now, but I saw that and it looks a bit shady. It wasn’t there a couple weeks ago when I preordered THD episodes.

57. John, search NookBooks on B&N.com for “Agent to the Stars Don’s ebooks” to see it. It doesn’t show up if you just search for Agaent to the Stars

58. Not seeing it. Link?

59. hopefully I get this right. I don’t link a lot.

    http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/agent-to-the-stars-john-scalzi/1100260075?ean=2940015955897

60. I bought it from Kobo and was disappointed, that the cover art is not included in the epub file. Is there a reason for that or is this just an error of mine or my epub-reader on the phone?

61. First, thanks for another OMW book. I had almost given up hope….

    Second, the free audio of Episode 1 was a good idea…nice foreplay, cozy frisson; I’m sufficiently KYed for the major session in 2 months.

    Third, I hope what you’re doing fails. Not the book, the rather pointless serialization.

    If you were releasing bits to a magazine, I’d back you 100%. The additional revenue to you; helping the circulation of the magazine; enabling you eventually to expand the serial and create a fleshier product for the book market — all that makes sense…and has been done thousands of times. But the gratuitous ladling of sections to readers is silly at best, obnoxious at worst. What’s the point? The book is obviously finished and ready to be a “book”; why use the TV mini-series model of doling it out to your readers?

    Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a fatal error. I’m sure the book will be great, and I’m sure it will do well. It just seems terribly silly. So, just as there are work-arounds for dealing with Windows 8, here is my work-around for The Human Division serialization: Episode 1 was a great teaser, I use it as an extended trailer for the real book. I’m excited, but… Now I pick up a book that I can actually read today (probably Reid/Manchester’s The Last Lion). Flash forward (with apologies to Robert Sawyer) 2 months — I’ll buy the now-completely doled-out THD and I love it. Great – but…I ask again, what’s the point?

62. Marty:

    “Third, I hope what you’re doing fails. Not the book, the rather pointless serialization.”

    Well, one: Telling someone you hope that what they’re doing fails, on their own site, is a dick move in any context. Just in case you weren’t clear on that.

    Two: If the serialization fails, then the book fails, so what you’re hoping for is the book to fail. If the book fails, no more OMW books. That’s the consequence of what you’re wishing for.

    Three: The book was not written and then chopped up into serialized chapters. The book was written episodically with serialization in mind, i.e., designed and structured specifically to take advantage of that format. It’s not pointless — it has a serious business (and creative) point behind it.

    Four: Attempting to tell me how to do my business, especially when you don’t have any idea of what the purpose is of the business I’m doing, is also a dick move, or at least deeply clueless. Try not to do it again.

    Five: If you don’t want to buy into the serialization, then don’t; the book will be compiled into a single volume in May. Or simply skip it completely in order to truly express your wish for its failure.

    Seriously, this is probably the most obnoxious comment I’ve gotten in a while. Congratulations on that achievement.

63. John,

    “Well, one: Telling someone you hope that what they’re doing fails, on their own site, is a dick move in any context. Just in case you weren’t clear on that.”

    If that’s how you feel, that’s fine. I’d always assumed you wanted genuine feelings on this site…not just blind adulation. I may have been wrong.

    “Two: If the serialization fails, then the book fails, so what you’re hoping for is the book to fail. If the book fails, no more OMW books. That’s the consequence of what you’re wishing for. ”

    The book’s success and it’s serialization are not inextricably connected. I assume that most people, like me, will treat the first episode as a trailer, and pick up the book when it’s truly available. It won’t stop me from buying it, nor will it stop any other true OMW fan.

    “Three: The book was not written and then chopped up into serialized chapters. The book was written episodically with serialization in mind, i.e., designed and structured specifically to take advantage of that format. It’s not pointless — it has a serious business (and creative) point behind it.”

    Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe and Gangbusters were also written with serialization in mind. So were All My Children and As the World Turns. They made sense, in their milieux, but their demise points to their lack of viability in the present world. Stories can be presented instantly to readers nowadays. Forcing people to wait for months for the conclusion of a novel made sense in the magazine world – now it seems a contrivance. This model (the Hobbit is another case — but they *do* have a lot of money to make up) seem to be a an unwelcome trend.

    “Four: Attempting to tell me how to do my business, especially when you don’t have any idea of what the purpose is of the business I’m doing, is also a dick move, or at least deeply clueless. Try not to do it again.”

    First, I wasn’t telling you how to do your business — I was merely giving you my reaction to your experiment. Second, I’m kind of surprised at the thinness of your skin. I assume that you know that everyone is not obliged to agree with you. I also assume that you realize that you may occasionally make a misstep. My intention was simply to let you know how one fan sees this new model. Sorry.

    “Five: If you don’t want to buy into the serialization, then don’t; the book will be compiled into a single volume in May.”

    Which is exactly how I (and many other people) will go about it — as I said in the previous email.

    “Seriously, this is probably the most obnoxious comment I’ve gotten in a while. Congratulations on that achievement.”

    If that is true, life must be very pleasant for you.

    Marty

64. Marty:

    “I’d always assumed you wanted genuine feelings on this site…not just blind adulation.”

    Oh, good grief. It’s one thing to say that you’re not on board with the serialization idea. It’s another thing to say “I hope what you’re doing fails.” If you don’t recognize the difference between those two things, spend more time with actual humans on a daily basis, because your standard mode of communication runs toward “dick.”

    “Second, I’m kind of surprised at the thinness of your skin.”

    My skin’s thickness is fine. However, I have a low tolerance for people expressing themselves like dicks on my site (see the site disclaimer), and I have no problem letting people know when they’re doing that. I’m not sure why you’re surprised that someone will call you out for communicating in a dick-like fashion; if you don’t want to be called out for being a dick, don’t be one. There are plenty of ways to express skepticism/criticism of a business plan or a creative that don’t start with wishing failure on someone else.

    Beyond this, you are once again asserting things you have no knowledge of, in particular Tor’s and my metric of success for this particular project. Please stop doing that. You really do have no idea what you’re talking about. Continuing to suggest that you do does not make you a dick, but it is exasperating.

65. [Deleted because Marty is at this point apparently committed to being a dick — JS]

66. So far I’m liking the new book, but I saw what looks like a mistake in the the book. At least what looks like a mistake in the EPUB version I got from Kobo on 1/15. On page 12 Bair says “I’ve have”. I assume that was supposed to be “Ive had”.

    Aside from that, thank you for pushing DRM free ebooks. It the first time I’ve purchased one of your ebooks as result. I have the rest in paper.

67. Igor Kolker:

    Indeed, notification of errata is useful, so thank you.

68. With apologies to dicks, I LIKE serialization.

69. Post A MEMORY OF LIGHT read, I needed something short and sweet. New OMW book…in Serialization form? SWEET! Consider me super on board! A brilliant plan that will work for fans to salivate from release to release. Just like the wait between episodes of BEING HUMAN or DOCTOR WHO ramps up excitement so, I think, will this. I think this idea is really great, can’t wait to get it started later tonight!

70. And, needless to say, I LOVED The B-Team. Put me in my Happy Place.

71. To Marshall and others, regarding those Google Books .acsm files: If I recall correctly, the thing to do is to install Adobe Digital Editions on your computer, then (somehow) cause the downloaded .acsm file to cause Adobe Digital Editions to download and display the ePub file for the book you bought from Google Books. Then figure out where on your computer Adobe Digital Editions stores its ePub files. In the case of Tor titles, those files should be DRM-free, regardless of what the documentation in Google Books says. Once you’ve actually located the files you should be able to move them into other ePub-reading apps or onto other devices, as you see fit.

    For more detailed information on all this, search engines are your friends. The above is all from memory, but when I actually had to do it, it took me about ten minutes to figure it all out, tops.

    No, it’s not the most simple system in use by an online e-book retailer, which is why, despite owning a very nice Android-based Nexus 7 tablet, I don’t personally buy books from Google Books, DRM-free or not. Other retailers make the process a lot easier.

72. John,

    I don’t think I risk being a dick here, but, like Marty, I don’t think I like the serialization idea either.

    I bit into the Hobbit apple and it left a really bad taste in my mouth. To change metaphors slightly, maybe I’d have swallowed the Kool-Aid for 2 movies, but 3 seems not only to be greedy, but almost to pose an arrogant attitude toward the consumer. Now, I know that that’s not the case here (we’re talking apples & oranges – and I guess a little cherry here), but it makes me wonder.

    I have just one question, and don’t think I’m being snarky here; I really would like to know. Just what advantage is there to me as a reader to want the serialization over the complete book? I just can’t think of any.

    Thanks.

73. Matt:

    I don’t know that there’s an inherent advantage or disadvantage from the reader point of view; I think it’s just a different way of doing things. I think what it does change is the dynamic of reading the story, which depending on who you are could be a positive or a negative. For Tor (and for me) it’s also a chance to see what the interest is in this particular method of storytelling and story telling delivery. If people really enjoy it, it’s probably worth doing again, and playing with the format some more.

74. My favorite part of serialization, and this might not work for everyone, is speculation. You’re left at a key moment and can’t immediately read what happens next. So you speculate at what might happen next. (When they serialized Stephen King’s The Green Mile they even had questions at the end you could discuss with your friends.) Think of it like a TV show with a long storyline where you don’t get closure at the end of each episode.

75. Two notes:

    I will buy the hardback when it comes out because I happen to like hardbacks. I won’t buy the serialized stories because I don’t like serialization, but that’s just me, and I suspect the serialization will actually be fairly successful with your readership.

    A lot of hugely successful books have been serialized–Ii was just a long time ago. It’s an idea that is very out of fashion, or has moved to TV shows. (Because what is something like Lost or Sopranos or Breaking Bad but a serialized story in pictures?) Pretty much the entirety of Charles Dickens’ work came out that way (along with Sir Walter Scott and a TON of others). Heard that worked out pretty OK for them in both formats in the long run.

    I can see whining about it if there wasn’t going to be a hardback to buy. But there is. I just have to wait for it, which, you know, “life IS pain, majesty.”

76. Reblogged this on Ryan Boren.

77. Isn’t it Tuesday yet??????

78. Well, I finished it! LOL, of course it was not that hard. I did enjoy it, who would have thought diplomats could have any type of interesting life. I certainly was glad to see the return to the OMW universe. I am trying to think, if someone who has never read OMW before if they would understand the universe as described? I believe there was enough exposition for most to figure it out. I still would recommend people reading the other OMW books first, just because they are good and fun to read.

    Having said that, I am going to pass on all the rest. My only reason being is cost. What! you say, how can 0.99 cents be too expensive!? Well it is not, but when one considers that there are 13 parts to the thing then it pushes the TCO of the book to $13. Not to mention I suspect the length of the complete story will be short (in todays standards). For me, an e-book >$10 is too much. So, I wont buy it. It will drop in price eventually and there is plenty other stuff to read.

    Cheers

79. Names, not to tell you what to do with your money, but, with regard to the length: John has mentioned on the blog that THD is, in total, about 130k words long. For comparison: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194172 That puts it in the average-to-long range for a modern sci-fi novel, and half again longer than OMW.

    With regards to the price, I’m always curious: if $10 is your limit on ebooks, what is your limit on hardbacks? On trade paperbacks? On mass-market paperbacks? And how did you decide on these numbers?

80. I had not heard that about the length, good to know. As for the $10 limit, well that is mostly pyshological to be sure. As for mmpb it is again <$10. Hardbacks I seldom buy and when I do it is not usually new rather at the local used bookstores. To be honest until I got into ebooks almost all my purchases were used, we have a large chain of used book stores all around me (half priced books). When I got into ebooks the were <$10 and the little additional (over used) I could accept. Authors/publishers mae money from me, buying used they do not. When Apple and the pubs tried to rig the market I actually started making purchases again at the used bookstores for those newer releases in which the ebooks were high and the authors/pubs get $0 again.
    Of course I know the price will be what the market will bear but for the rest of used there is used if need be.

81. I just bought “The B-Team” from Kobo Books and got the ebook DRM-free, which is great because I had to tweak the formatting. I got very wide page margins on my ereader (Sony PRS-505) and I had to trim down the hard-coded margins by a factor of 3. Looking forward to start reading . . .

82. It would be cool to have an audio+ebook subscription like how on Bandcamp you can order a CD and get FLAC or MP3 whatever. As to serialization, I don’t really care either way. I prefer TV like Buffy over movies in general, but I much prefer a novel in one piece, mainly because I am the obsessivelyreadtheentireserieslikeASOIAFinonesittingthenlistentotheaudiobooksforweeks type of person. I also do that for TV, which makes me rather conflicting myself.

83. Update: Just got off the phone with Google Book customer support.

    He told me several things that weren’t true – including “We sell all our stuff with DRM because the publisher insists”. When I pointed out that the Google Books page for THD explicitly says “At the publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied”, he said “Huh – I’ve never seen that before”

84. There is something really nice about seeing a favorite author call someone a dick. Thanks for not deleting “marty’s” whole thread because it just made my night