Is the Sony e-reader any good? ?

I travel quite a lot and when I'm away I tend to read a book a day - over 2 weeks, this adds up! An e-reader or similar would be very useful as it is much more portable than 14 books, but I have some concerns. I know that the Sony e-reader works in conjunction with Waterstones, but I've heard that there are limited books available. I've also heard that it can be clunky to use and that the "pages" turn very slowly, which would drive me bonkers. I've heard good things about the Amazon Kindle, but this is unlikely to be available in the UK anytime soon because of mobile networking issues. Are there any better options? If I can't download my latest Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Meg Cabot, Janet Evanovich novels etc, this type of technology is not going to be much use to me. Any comments/advice would be welcome.