Freebies Bonanza

From Tor's sparkly new site:

"...for some months now, Tor.com has been making free, un-DRMed electronic editions of particular Tor titles, one per week, available to people who register at the page which has been temporarily holding down the tor.com URL. At any rate, now that the life of our doughty little holding page is drawing to a close (shed a tear), we thought we'd make everything we gave away there--all the novels, all of the desktop wallpaper--available for one additional week, starting today and running through Sunday, July 27."

The full list is here and looks pretty tempting - included are Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain, John Scalzi's Old Man War and many, many more. If only I had some kind of electronic reading device to hand!

Free Books

Wow - if you are fan of Fantasy then pop over to Pat's Fantasy Hotlist and check out this giveaway! There are thirty books being given away and I am seriously impressed. Books include full sets of L. E. Modesitt, jr.'s Recluce Saga, Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's The Deathgate Cycle & Stephen R. Donaldson's first two Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Wow.

"A few weeks back, I posted a list of novels/series which I believe should be more widely read, especially by the new generation of SFF fans....I got on the horn and contacted a few editors to see if they would be interested in giving away these "older" titles. I was pleasantly surprised that most were indeed interested and ran along with the idea!

I normally encourage everyone to participate, but this time around I would like that only those who have yet to discover these SFF series register for these giveaways."

I remember reading Tad William's Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series just before I went to uni and I could not put the books down. It was my first introduction to SFF (well - an author that was not Tolkein or a book not designed for children) and my copies are battered with the strain of re-reading. Years ago I read the Thomas Covenant Chronicles too and they might be due for a re-read as I see that there is another book on the horizon.

I've not read the Deathgate Cycle so fingers crossed!

Baen Books

Today I had a most lovely surprise. I received a copy of John Ringo's There Will Be Dragons for Christmas and realised that it was part of a series. I popped them onto my green metropolis wish list, had a little pootle around some bookish sites in search of copies and then forgot I needed them.

Finding the book next to my upstairs PC prompted my memory and I asked google for some help in locating the books. Locate them I did and even better they were free! The good people at Baen Books have an online library of books you can download - and they tell you why here. I think it's a great way to sample authors I have heard of (but not quite got around to reading yet) and I look forward to downloading more.

I also thought I'd share the first book's cover art as it's pretty special. Although what you can't see from amazon's picture is that the mountainous background is a lovely shimmery silver. :D