Books created on-line are they God's gift to humanity?

[Peter Giordano]

Bruce said:
>     Not to drag this out, but I believe a science fiction novel
>     (Assemblers of Infinity?) by Anderson and Beason was set, designed and
>     laid on on-line, except for the cover artwork.
>
>     If this doesn't make the cut, I'm out of suggestions.

I say:
Quite awhile ago Stephen King and Peter Straub wrote a book together in
which they shared the text in progress via modem (I know that this
doesn't make the cut because they didn't do it while sitting in their
jockey shorts but wait ...) - Did the fact that they shared the text digitally
instead of via mail effect the content or meaning of their work?  Perhaps there
is a doctoral thesis in that

A big deal is being made about this as a superduper new and innovative
way of publishing books - I, for one, don't believe this but let's for
arguement's sake say that ***** is the first of this sort of thing  - Where
does that leave us?  Would this in anyway add to the content of the text -
Is our understanding of Pynchon, Pynchon-L, or the future of the book
enhanced because this particular author can download Acrobat 3.0?  There
are chimpanzees that can download software - Ultimately the book
in question still has to go through the same print process as the most
recent compilation of Garfield

On the other hand, if the producers of this book wanted to be innovative they
would realize that they would have had to produce a digital text which could
be universally distributed (i.e. a web presence) - Unfortunately they would
have to compete with a lot of people

I do not mean the above as a flame - I'd really like to know why such a claim
adds any significance to the value of the text

Peter Giordano
Williams College
Williamstown, MA