Publishers region locking their digital content can swallow a bag of dicks.
this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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Especially when it's not available in the country the author is from. That's pretty messed up.
Anyone know a good set of all the discworld ebooks where the footnotes actually work? This series is the only one I have to still read from a physical copy.
Why have I never heard of Ebooks being region locked before?
Almost makes you miss having to ride your bike to the library
publishing rights for digital books internationally is a giant shit show. This is as much a problem with the laws and treaties over copyright as it is the individual publishers sublicensing copyrights between jurisdictions.
Finally got into Discworld last year. Plowed all 41 books in just a couple of months, sometimes one a day. I cannot overstate how clever they are.
For context, I'm middle-aged, read a thousand+ books.
Looking forward to a revisit to see what all I missed. People have read these books for decades and still find new twists on the 5th reading.
Anyone know how Kobo works? Could I download the books to add to my Calibre collection? If so, what format are they? PDF? MOBI? EPUB?
I basically want to know if I can throw them at my Kindle and expect them to work without any kind of extra configuration or conversion.
Yep.
They are a kobo-flavored epub. If you install the Kobo Desktop program on your computer for windows or Mac, there is a obok drm removal plugin as part of the NoDRM/DeDRM tools for Calibre that works well. It’s what I use.
The Kobo epub just has some indexing stuff in it, but it doesn’t stop any other epub reader from being able to parse them. After using the obok plugin, Calibre just treats them as EPUBs.
I’m happy to help if you need it.
They are DRMed, unlike the technical books I normally get from Humble. I should have read the fine print better and not believed the "works on all devices" summary. I trusted Humble and learned a good $18 lesson.
Can DRM be removed? Sure. But that's not why I buy books from Humble.
I don't get it. Just remove the DRM. It's mildly inconvenient but no way it's "$18 lesson" inconvenient.
Older kobo stuff uses adobe digital editions DRM, which can be stripped with DeACSM but you’ll need an ADE account.
Newer stuff seems to be all epub.
Kobo is epub I believe. They have their own line of ereaders.
They are very good too. Excellent hardware, support open standards, integrate with library systems like overdrive, have modded OS software available.
Something that startled me and is kind of relevant: I bought a new in box Kobo Touch, manufactured in July 2011, battery died with the box still sealed in August 2011. The Kobo Touch was discontinued in 2015, 8 years ago, and when I broke the seal on the box and got it charged, the setup worked exactly as listed in the on screen directions. Going to the provided website redirected to the desktop app download, but the desktop app still supports it and there was a firmware update dated to April 2023 that added compatibility to the newly configured store. I was fully prepared to have to root it and install some janky custom OS just to get it to work but it's still supported and works out of tbf box despite being 12 years old
Man I wish they were audio books.
Or that I had an hour a day to read.
I don't think there is a modern reading. The ones on Audible are pretty clearly ripped from cassette and kind of dodgy
There is, Penguin Audio recently redid all the books with a mostly full cast. They are superior to the old ones, though the Tony Robinson ones hold a place in my heart.
Oh man they’re probably the Tony Robinson versions then those are fucking amazing
Quite a few of the books have been recorded as new audiobooks lately. Some of them are here:
I thought the reading for Going Postal was pretty great.
"Only for those living in the US" 😏
Anyone done the work to figure out what books are missing from the set?
Missing: 27. The Last Hero 40. Raising Steam 41. The Shepherd's Crown
By series:
City Watch - Has All Witches - Has All Unseen University - Has All Death - Has All Industrial Revolution- Missing Raising Steam Gods Collection - Has All Young Readers - Missing Shepherds Crown
Thank you! Helps me complete the collection
A couple days late here, but: Shepherd's Crown is actually part of the purchase. It doesn't show on Humble, but it's listed on Kobo when redeeming the code.
Has anyone had any experience buying something like this outside the US? As in, if I use a VPN can I buy it and get the books?
I used a VPN and was able to purchase the $1 tier via PayPal and redeem the books to my Kobo account. When I was redeeming the code, I had to manually set the webstore to the United States. The books were added to my main Kobo library alongside everything else I own in there.
However, and this isn't a big deal for most, you will receive the American English 'prints'. Terry was so quintessentially English, it feels uncomfortable reading 'Color' of Magic rather than 'Colour'.
I just wanna mention for anyone out there who might need to hear this. It's not immoral to acquire the books via other means if you can't easily acquire them legally.
Yeah I just bought it to throw cash at the estate. There’s DRM that will inevitably get in my way using it so I’ll just download it separately
It’s fulfilled via kobo.com. My speculation is that it depends on if you have (or have access to) a US-based kobo account.
How does Kobo work? Do you get to download files, or only access via some app?
Region locked? I'll just use Oceanofpdf.com
Anyone know a good entry novel from this set? Is the recommended in the promo good? I know that Discworld is something else, but a complete noob
Me and some other Pratchett fans had this discussion last week and we concluded the "Going Postal" was the best entry into the series as by that point Pratchett had mastered his wit, and there's a movie to watch afterwards. Second place went to "Guards Guards" as the watch is easily one of the best arcs Discworld has to offer.
I read them in release order because I love seeing an author grow and master their craft. I also love seeing the "order" in which an author builds their world.
So do I, but I can see why someone would be put off the whole series after reading The Colour of Magic, so having some other books to recommend makes sense to me.
Going Postal is the second pratchett book I read and it has always been the book that flipped me from "curious reader" to "fan"
I've just picked up "Guards, Guards!" never having read any of the series. It's absolutely hilarious and I question myself why i haven't started earlier. This definitely won't be my last.
There are recurring protags in the series, and I've heard that many people read those batches together. I myself just looked up the release order and read it that way and it's been alright so far. It jumps around to different places and fleshes out the discworld pretty early on.
It depends on your tastes. I started with equal rites and wasn’t disappointed. Don’t start with I Shall Wear Midnight though. There are a lot of excellent places to start and that just isn’t one of them.
Seriously though, Mort, Guards Guards, Pyramids, Going Postal, Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, or The Colour of Magic.
Actually no. Small Gods. Nobody was ever disappointed by Small Gods. It’s a one off. It’s funny and clever and makes you think. It’s not his best by any means but it’s around where he hit his stride. It’s chronologically separated. Read Small Gods, it’s excellent.
I love small gods and nobody ever talks about it
The turtle moves!
The problem Small Gods faces is that books like the thief of time, raising steam, late watch books, and everything with Tiffany Aching exist. It’s around where he hit his stride, but it doesn’t leave you sobbing like I Shall Wear Midnight or The Shepherds Crown. It’s somewhere in the middle of an excellent series. I don’t want to recommend the best when someone starts, but I want to recommend something that will get people to stick through sourcery and such.
But yeah I do love it
People generally recommend the death arc or city watch. Rincewind is the canonical start though, so its also good.
Just reading them is good. Don't over think it too much.
Don't underthink it too much though, there are arcs and while it wouldn't be too awful to read an arc out of order, it could be more confusing than necessary.
Yeah night watch is amazing but would struggle without guards guards. And without the context of Wyrd Sisters a lot of what deals with Lancre would be lacking what it can be
Darn, would have loved to pick this up!
Working on collecting their fancy edition of the books.
Lame, I would have picked this up, I own the physicals and have acquired the digital versions, would love to get the digital version on Kobo.
Thanks, this is a great deal!