Trapdoor Books

Like most techno-thrillers of the genre, the author seeks to come as close to reality as possible – then stretch the facts a bit.

My novel CyberKill is no exception.

Many years ago I read an article in Time Magazine dated March 25^th, 1996 about a young artificial intelligence (AI) programmer who created a series of AI agents and sent them out over the internet to see if they would evolve.

“An ecobiologist and bottom-up computer theorist will soon launch onto the Internet a single, tiny self-reproducing program which will spread among hundreds of computers around the world.

A Wall Street Journal article, Mass Paperback Publisher Goes All Digital, is an interesting look at the other side of electronic book publishing – the negative impact on traditional publishers who are not well positioned to break the distribution and wholesale chain.

Dorchester Publishing – famed for its mass-market romance novels – has seen sales of traditional books fall by 25% last year. This is interesting because their primary market focus has been on older women readers who have embraced new e-book readers – supposedly because of the ability to change font sizes.

An article last week in the NY Times entitled, E-Books Fly Beyond Mere Text, lightly touches on the first forays into the electronic book revolution.

I like the adjectives used by the publishers to describe the new generation of e-books: enriched, amplified, enhanced. Very cool. While publishers can’t decide what to call these new book formats, there seems to be general agreement that this phenomena has been kick-started by the arrival of the iPad – which really opens up the possibility of what interactive books are all about.

Recently, there have been a number of interesting articles published about the advances of electronic books – far from the droll reviews of the Kindle and Nook. These are glimpsing the real future of e-books and some of the technological leaps that forward-looking publishing houses are making. I’ll post a few over the next couple of days with links to the articles for those of you who want to look into the crystal ball.

Electronic reading devices are transforming the concept of a book – LA Times.

This article dismisses the myth that reading is a solitary endeavor – reading is a community affair; readers have a desire to reach out to authors and each other for collaboration and fellowship.

Today’s puzzle challenge is a Decrypt the Signal puzzle! This logic puzzle is themed after the book Cyberkill by Frank Fiore, which is a great book – especially if you’re into technology. You can solve the puzzle without reading Cyberkill, but why would you want to do that?

To grab the printable copy, click the banner at left.

Don’t forget to submit your solution to the puzzle to Chris for a Summertime Puzzle Contest code. Please be a good sport; don’t post the answer to this puzzle in the comments or elsewhere while the puzzle contest is still going on.