Well, everyone is climbing on board the next-gen bandwagon, and it's about time, too. We all know that several homebrew applications which allow us to read ebooks or view comic books on the Nintendo DS are already out there, but (correct me if I'm wrong) for the first time, an author has officially announced that he and his publishers will be compiling some of his work in a format which is custom-tailored for the DS, the Wii, and the PS3.

British sci-fi and fantasy author Darren Reid has just given the announcement that he would be releasing free ebook versions of his novel "The Lord of Darkness and Shadow: The Chronicles of the Shadow Book One". The said ebook has been optimized for use with the browsers of the mentioned consoles, and will be followed by further releases within the next few months.

Other titles that are already scheduled for distribution by the end of this year and by early 2007 would be "Two Wizards: A Chronicles of the Shadow Prequel", the graphic novel "Xevicom Forever", as well as another unnamed project.

Could this be the start of a new trend among the literary world? Would we soon be reading Shakespearean Classics, "The Iliad", "Harry Potter", and (gulp) Jude Deveraux novels on our high-def plasma TVs while waiting for a demo to finish downloading? Neil Gaiman, are you reading this? Because I already have a list of titles that I would love for you to please get on the Wii. Please?

And lastly, who says that novelists can't be modern? Ah, if only Douglas Adams was still around... I could almost picture him inspecting his Wii-fied ebook, using a Wiimote to scroll through the pages. Either that or the old man would spend hours making Miis.