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Yesterday we reported that novelist Anne Rice will release her first Vook on March 1st, a digital version of her 1984 vampire story, “The Master of Rampling Gate.” In addition, more Janklow & Nesbit Associates authors will soon follow with their own multimedia Vooks that combine social networking, video, Internet links, and text.
This all raises a crucial question for the book review community. How do you review a Vook? Here are some links to the first round of Vook Reviews. Add your own links and thoughts in the comments section.
First up, unexpected book critic Perez Hilton raved about the new Rice Vook in a post entitled Why Didn’t Stephenie Meyer Get This Memo?: “Anne explained she was excited to see how the technology will bring her over 25 year old story to a new generation … Sounds like it could be a lot of fun for die hard fans, if nothing else. Seriously, Twilighters: how come you guys don’t have cool shiz like this? Wouldn’t you just love a new way to girlishly squeal over a the story you’ve read over 400 times?!
Author Joanna Penn reviewed a Vook version of Embassy by Richard Doetsch on her site: “Having read Dan Brown‘s ‘The Lost Symbol’ last week, I can immediately see the application of these types of video to stories like that. I would have loved to see the Washington architecture as it was described, as well as the actual video that is used as a plot device by Dan Brown. I would also like to buy travel books with these types of video – not just the guides, but travel narratives. I recently reread Inhaling the Mahatma by Christopher Kremmer. I love India and have been myself, but I would love to see what he saw and wrote about. These video clips don’t need to be so ‘professional’ as the ones in the Vook, travel narrative could have raw local footage.”
Our digitally obsessed sibling eBookNewser reviewed Vook’s Sherlock Holmes Experience. Here’s an excerpt: “To the newbee, the videos might offer some useful background, but all the bells and whistles finally distract from the text itself, where the real action still takes place. This app raises a question: do we actually want our books–“e” or otherwise–to do more than display text? Is a product like Vook or the upcoming Blio the end of reading, or the beginning of something else?”