eAsteroid One struck just 11 weeks ago, on March 14, when Stephen King distributed his latest book, "Riding the Bullet", for free on the Internet. (See my "Book Extinction" column at CarquinezReview.com.) There were more than 400,000 download aftershocks on the first day alone, followed by relentless days of word-dust that clouded our minds and obscured truth.

The second eAsteroid struck on May 23 when Time Warner announced iWrite and iPublish.com, entities TW will use to receive and publish submissions from anybody for everybody. Simultaneously, Microsoft, Simon & Schuster (Viacom) and Random House (Bertelsmann) announced that Michael Crichton’s "Timeline" and various out-of-print Star Trek episodes would be available for free download.

When will this eAsteroid shower end and what is the future of paper-printed words?

For a perspective on these and other perplexing issues, we join our hero, eBob, and his girlfriend, iLove, on the beach where eBob is studying his ePhone, a powerful combination of cell phone, eBook and Internet assistant.

"Waddya watching?" iLove asks, spreading uSunblock, SPF 1000, on her muscled arms.

eBob works for Microsoft eToasters, a business created after the seventh government breakup of Microsoft's expanding monopolies. While he’s known for his ability to create, under extreme pressure, epiphanic, media-rich PowerPoint presentations in under 1 minute, he has recently been troubled by his inability to finish a novel.

"Actually," eBob says to iLove, "I’m reading ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce."

"Reading?" iLove says, looking up at eBob in surprise, examining his eyes to see if he’s mocking her.

Though eBob knew the work would be difficult, as an emboldened believer in the where-do-you-want-to-go-today philosophy of life, he wanted to challenge himself.

eBob had been waiting with a coworker, eVince, for yStarbucks coffee to brew. Their conversation had progressed from sports to movies and then, uncomfortably, to books, a rather odd progression, eBob had thought, especially when eVince had asked him what good eBooks he had experienced lately. eVince had said he was slowly making his way through the Modern Library’s 100 best novels of the 20^th-century, starting at the bottom of the list with "The Magnificent Ambersons" by Booth Tarkington.

Not to be outdone, eBob had decided to start at the top of the list with ‘Ulysses’.

"You should watch the movie," iLove says. "It’s probably better."

eBob shakes his head. "I clicked on an eParagraph and watched part of the movie, but it was really slow. Bloom – he’s one of the characters – was just walking along a Dublin street thinking about eating mutton kidneys."

"Is it a horror movie?" iLove asks.

"Actually," eBob says, "I’m not sure what it’s about." He selects a bookmark. "What do you think this means?" he says, clicking on the ePhone read-to-me icon. A young man’s voice reads: "Amor matris, subjective and objective genitive, may be the only true thing in life. Paternity may be a legal fiction. Who is the father of any son that any son should love him or he any son?"

"Must be having child-support problems," iLove says, shrugging her shoulders. "What was that in the beginning?"

"Latin, I think," eBob says, clicking on the translation tool. "Here it is. It means mother’s love."

iLove adjusts the picture on her media-monster box. "He’s probably upset that his wife got custody."

"I think there’s more to it," eBob says. "But I’ve checked Cliff’s eNotes and searched the Internet and don’t have a clue. "I’m going to try eProfessor," he says, clicking on the connection icon. The phone begins to ring.

A gruff, gravelly voiced man answers. "Make it fast. I’m teaching."

eBob can hear talking in the background. "If this is a bad time," eBob says, "I can –"

"No problem," eProfessor says. "eHarvard is a lot more lucrative than teaching class. Anyway, these students only understand multimedia. Where do you work?"

"Me?" eBob says, surprised by the question. "Microsoft eToast–"

"No matter," eProfessor says, cutting him off. "What’s your question?"

"In ‘Ulysses’, what does Stephen mean when he says Amor matris?"

"That’s Latin, kid."

"I know. It means mother’s love. But why does he talk about Shakespeare before that?"

"Latin’s complicated," eProfessor says. "Actually it means ‘love of mother’ or ‘love for mother’ depending on – well – a lot of things."

"And Shakespeare?"

"You see," eProfessor says solemnly, "Stephen has proved algebraically that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he’s the ghost of his own father."

"What?" eBob says, thinking that ‘Ulysses’ may not read well under the sun. "Which he and his are you talking about?"

"Yeah," eProfessor says, "it’s pretty deep. But tell me kid," he says, his voice dropping to a soft whisper, "do you think I should buy or sell Microsoft?"