My LONG Wait For ‘Mark of the Thief’.

Jennifer Nielsen is one of my favorite authors of all time.

I mean that for real, because Jaron in the Ascendance Trilogy is basically the best male lead ever to grace the pages of a novel ever.

Anyway… so I was pretty excited when I heard she was releasing a new book – Mark of the Thief, FYI – and that it was about Romans and stuff because that’s just awesome.

So I pre ordered it in September, the very moment you were able to purchase it on Mighty Ape.

I watched Jennifer’s twitter updates, and read what people were saying about Mark of the Thief (Which is shortened to MOTT, the name of one the characters in her Ascendance books, btw which is just awesome!)

And I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Now here’s the thing about New Zealand. We may see the sun rise before most of the world, but when it comes to movies and books, we are generally the last to lay eyes on them.

It sucks.

Mark of the Thief officially came out last week and heaps of people have wrote that they have read it on Twitter and there are reviews (which I have read) but my Mighty Ape order still says I’ve got to wait a month…

So I am really, really bummed out.

Here’s the thing though, I can download it on iBooks.

Here’s the other thing though, I’m not going to.

I am a believer that reading is something that is intrinsically ascetic. That it involves all kinds of feelings. The feel of the pages, the way you can mark where you’re up to, the smell of the paper… all that weird stuff.

There is a lot technology has robbed from me. The ability to purchase Muppets Family Christmas and  Dragon Heart on DVD. I refuse for technology to rob me of the feelings associated with reading a book.

A real book.

You may think I am crazy, but I on principle refuse to download this book I really want, because I want to keep reading in the real, hands on, world.

In New Zealand apparently the National Libraries are moving away from hand copies of books. The thing is I have been chatting with English teachers Recently… and they aren’t super stoked about how technological learning is getting.

It’s sort of like soft drinks. We haven’t seen the impact long term, there may be vital skills which are crippled by using ONLY iPads and kindles for reading, and games and whatever. Like how it’s important to crawl before you walk because of brain wiring. Doesn’t matter how good you are at walking, if you can’t crawl, there’s a problem.

Like the fact that there are kids starting school who cant hold a pencil or use scissors… but they can use an iPad.

So on principle, I will wait for my real copy of Mark of the Thief.

No matter how much I want to read it…