My regular Google Alert for major SF awards has turned up an interesting post on a blog dedicated to eBooks. The post starts by noting that Michael Andre-Driussi’s Lexicon Urthus is currently going for between $119 and $284 on Amazon (second hand – it is out of print). It is good to know that people place such value on study of the Book of the New Sun but, as the Garson O’Toole points out, it would make so much more sense if works such as Andre-Driussi’s were available as annotated eBook editions of the original. Then you could actually read the book and look up the annotations as you went along. So much easier than footnotes (though I do dearly love Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell). Might we actually have found a purpose for eBooks at last?

Of course for such a thing to happen, various other things have to line up. To start with Gene Wolfe may not want an annotated edition made available. Equally Tor may not want the book available in electronic form. And of course someone would have to do the work. But it is an interesting concept.