Wednesday, July 05, 2006

FREE science fiction and fantasy books

BAEN books, a well known and well regarded publisher of science fiction and fantasy books has an online library with several dozen books available free for reading and download.

The visionary and recently deceased Jim Baen believed that readers would want to buy the actual books after reading them online or buy additional books by the same authors.

Here is the link to the Baen Library.

I'm very impressed with it. There are 20-40 authors, each with many books covering the entire gammut of genres: space opera, traditional sci fi, fantasy and alternate history (my favorite).

You can view the books online in html, download them in many formats and even download them to your palm or pocket pc.

I personally am interested in trying out that approach for late night reading - hoping it won't keep my wife up (less light).

This is a great site and a brilliant idea. Has anyone seen similar publisher sites with full text for free?

Here are some of the authors to be found in the library:
  1. Aaron Allston
  2. Andre Norton
  3. Christopher Anvil
  4. Lois McMaster Bujold
  5. John F. Carr
  6. Paul Chafe
  7. Rick Cook
  8. John Dalmas
  9. David Drake
  10. Rosemary Edghill
  11. Linda Evans
  12. Eric Flint
  13. Michael Flynn
  14. Dave Freer
  15. Mark A. Garland
  16. James C. Glass
  17. Roland Green
  18. Ellen Guon
  19. Karen Koehler
  20. Mercedes Lackey
  21. Keith Laumer
  22. Murray Leinster
  23. Holly Lisle
  24. Duncan Long
  25. Howard L. Myers
  26. Charles G. McGraw
  27. Larry Niven
  28. Jerry Pournelle
  29. John Ringo
  30. Richard Roach
  31. Fred Saberhagen
  32. James H. Schmitz
  33. Ryk Spoor
  34. D. W. St. John
  35. Lars Walker
  36. David Weber
  37. K. D. Wentworth
  38. Michael Z. Williamson

As you can see it's a long list. Most of the authors are well known. A friend told me that most of them have free books available for download, others have links to ebooks for purchase. I look up David Webber and found many of his books available for free download, so you might start there.

Enjoy,
regards,
makingourway

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