A Dance with Dragons has arrived on my iPad

I woke up this morning to find George R. R. Martin’s long-awaited fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire saga downloaded onto my Kindle app on the iPad:

I love the fact that I can get books like this the instant they come out. I realize that I could be giving my local bookstore business by going down there are buying the book from them, but there are three problems with that:

1. With a book like this, any local bookstore could be sold out before they even opened.
2. It takes time and I’m a pretty busy guy.
3. Outside of a chains, there aren’t any good independent bookstores around me.

And let’s face it, this delivery system–pre-order and automatic download–is one of the big selling points of e-books and e-readers.

On the other hand, I am not yet ready to read the book. I have been stalled on A Storm of Swords for several weeks now, as I mentioned some time back. This is not because I’m not enjoying the book, but because of #2 above: I am a pretty busy guy. I simply haven’t had time to progress beyond page 220 or so. So I have about 1,000 pages left to read of Storm and then I have to follow that up with A Feast of Crows before I can think about starting A Dance with Dragons. It could be a while before I get to this book. Of course, the downside is that I have to try to avoid spoilers, but I am pretty good at that. The upside is that by the time I finish reading A Dance with Dragons (like some months from now) I will have less time to wait for the next book than people who gobble up the book and try and read the whole thing in one sitting.

So, are you ready to read A Dance with Dragons or do you have some catching up to do?