Research and Reflection and Raves about Moon+ Reader

Today, I wrapped up the last little bits of The Secret of Trees, the latest Jobber’s Tale which should be releasing later this month. I’ve described it as a noirish cross between Hellblazer and High Fantasy. The adventure takes place in WormWood and there is an evil Tree King, a sinister green-scaled demon in a simple grey suit and a wheelchair-bound professor. This one has something for everyone, but inexperienced jobbers are best advised to steer clear. I predict blood will fall and a jobber who isn’t too quick might end up in on a funeral train bound for ChalkChain.

I’m going to do something a bit unusual for me of late and fuel the fires of my imagination with a bit of daylight reading. I did some over the weekend and it was a pleasure and I’m getting lots of ideas for things. Naturally, what I read influences my works and is usually tangentially, if not directly, related to the projects I’m juggling. I’ve been reading about dark matter and some science fiction classics by Clarke and some Poe and some superhero treatises with a touch of some zombie and steampunk and Cthulhu thrown in good measure. Not all at the same time, but with my Nook Color, it’s not unusual for me to jump between genres and works with a quick touch.

I did some experimentation with my Nook Color yesterday and upgraded it to the CynaogenMod and I decided it was not for me. It looked slick, but I lost the Android Market and I lost access to the Nook store. For some folks, that may not be a big deal, but I like my hybrid device, and I’ll be investigating a way to get the few features I’d like to have on the NC–such as Hulu and Netflix–without sacrificing the main point of the device for me, which is reading. ClockworkMod worked perfectly to restore my NC to its previous state, so I learned a few things. Dig a little deeper on the features of the mod I’m about to install. I knew a lot of what it could do, but didn’t realize the shortcomings it held for me. I learned the backup worked like a champ. And, I learned rooting them is not that big a deal, provided you take your time, and follow directions closely. I also learned about Moon+ Reader which has become my favorite e-reading software, though I just started using it yesterday.

Moon+ Reader gives you lots of control over how what you’re reading is presented. You get a broad range of font choices. You get lots of nifty background images (and it looks like you can add your own) and you can customize the color of your fonts to your heart’s content. I prefer basic black in most circumstances, thank you very much. I do like how you can turn hyphenation off and on, do a few additional font tricks, and you can fully justify the page, enable/disable page flips, and customize what touches do on different parts of the page. Some other features I’d like to see in ALL e-reading software (at least for touch devices) is being able to run one’s finger up and down on the left side of the screen to adjust brightness (very slick) and the right side of the page to adjust fonts on the fly. This is especially great when you’ve got a real page-turner in your hands and are getting sleepy, but you want to push forward just a little more.

This app has made reading epubs a lot more sexy. They don’t feel like free books and just show how a bit of love for presentation can impact the reader’s perception. Currently, I’m reading Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke and I started out with a pretty vanilla book. I was reading it for the love of the work, right? However, now that I’ve tweaked it out using Moon+ Reader, it feels like I’m reading it from an old pulp digest and it makes all the difference in the world. For those new to epubs, Moon+ Reader gets you started, by giving you access to a Net Library. Again, this is something I’d like to see other e-readers offer. Within moments, you can install Moon+ Reader on your Android phone and be reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes thanks to the way the Net Library connects to Project Gutenberg and a number of other free epub websites. If you’ve never considered e-reading or weren’t certain it’s for you, this is definitely a great way to find out.

Until next time, I bid you, dear reader, adieu!