Interesting, as living in a moderately-sized city (about a million people), we had good indie bookstores before the chains moved in, so there was a noticeable loss of options. Last big-chain bookstore I went into, I checked out the sci-fi section: 90% Star Wars and Star Trek books, and authors like PK Dick were entirely absent, despite the fact that the store is absolutely huge. Most of the store’s selection seemed to consist of stacks and stacks of whatever the best-sellers currently are (I think a lot of the space is also devoted to things that aren’t books, e.g. cards, CDs, etc.). The closest real indie bookstore left, which is about an hour away, manages to fit more books and magazines in a tiny fraction of the space, somehow. The ability to browse makes it substantially superior to Amazon, but I rarely go there.
