June 10, 2010

Tao Lin rip-off to go head to head with iPad

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Has Melville House author and provocateur Tao Lin inspired a new iPad competitor? At the Global Post, Jonathan Adams writes “Move over iPad, it’s the eeePad.”

Tao Lin, whose forthcoming novel, Richard Yates, will be in stores this September, published his first novel, Eeeee Eee Eeee, with Melville House in 2007.

Adams calls the eeePad, created by Taiwanese computer giant Asustek, “perhaps the most promising” of the iPad-inspired knock-offs on display at the Computex trade show in Taiwan’s capitol city, Taipei.

The device, which is expected to be available early next year, has “all the cool stuff the iPad lacks: a USB port, a webcam and support for Adobe’s Flash player. It’s also got a nifty keyboard dock.”

Although Adams infers that the eeePad is a “not-so-subtly named tribute” to the iPad, it seems more likely to be an even less subtle appropriation —- the word “rip-off” comes to mind -— of Taiwanese-American Lin’s onomatopoeically named novel.

Contacted via email Lin commented, “I think they’re Paypal’ing me my royalties soon. I look forward to being contacted about a eeeee eee eeeePad featuring a dolphin-shaped monitor and quotes from my novel emblazoned on its exterior.”

Dan O'Connor is the Managing Editor of Melville House.

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