Why I love the internet

I've just finished reading so far in CJ Cherryh's Foreigner saga as I had when I left the US in 2004, which is to say, to book six, Explorer; I think I knew that there was a book seven, which my mother promised to send a year and a half ago, but now, preparing to read it, I discovered that the third trilogy is, in fact, complete, and have ordered the eighth and ninth from Akademiska Bokhandeln and Adlibris. I'll probably have all the space opera I could want within a week!

Remember the days when getting the books the bookstore didn't have was a matter of driving to the bookstore, and asking them at the desk to order them from the publisher, and no doubt spelling the name aloud? (Or, well, ordering from the Science Fiction Bookclub, or waiting until you could go to a con, if you had any desire to browse.) Today technology is my friend. I would only be happier if I could, say, download the novels immediately and still have the hardcopies on the way; but I prefer to read them on paper, anyway, so perhaps it's just as well. Thank you, internet. ♥