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"Now wait a minute," said Ralph Malzone. "You mean..."
"No paper!" Carl exulted. "You don't have to chop down trees
and make paper and haul tons of the stuff to the printing
presses and then haul the printed books to the stores. You move
electrons and photons instead of paper. It's cheap and efficient."
For a long time Malzone said nothing. Then he signed a very
heavy sigh. "You're saying that a publisher won't need printers,
paper, ink, wholesalers, route salesmen, district managers,
truck drivers -- not even booksellers?"
"The whole thing can be done electronically, " Carl enthused.
"Shop for books by TV. Buy them over the phone. Transmit
them anywhere on Earth almost instantaneously, straight to
the customer."
Malzone glanced around the shadows of the room uneasily.
In a near whisper he told Carl, "Jesus Christ, kid, you're
going to get both of us killed."
- Back cover excerpt from "Cyberbooks", Ben Bova
(ISBN 0-812-50319-8)
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