Tor – Geek Book

Tor has launched their new social, sci-fi, fantasy and much more, blogging, new fiction, super duper site. Right now there are 2 short stories up and available to read/download. They are “After The Coup” by John Scalzi, and “Down On The Farm” by Charles Stross. Both in worlds developed by the authors in full novels. Scalzi’s story is in the Old Man’s War universe and is a great read. Stross’s story is from his “Laundry” stories, which I don’t know but I liked this story. Nice mix of magic, math and computing.

On top of all that, for a limited time every ebook and piece of art they made available during their promotional period leading up to the launch of the site are all available right here. Every book is available in multiple drm free formats. I’ve read 3 so far and loved all 3. I’m working on my fourth now. There are over 20 total and so I’ll have lots of fun stuff to read for some time.

If they stick with what it says in the post – all this will no longer be available 7 days from now. They will shut it all down after the 27th. The artwork is also amazing and available in a wide number of sizes. This is when the Down Them All plugin for firefox really comes in handy. Right-Click, Save As just wont cut it for this much awesome stuff.

Spin

Posted on 28 March, 2008 by bookGeek

I remember the first time that I read “Childhood’s End”, the classic by Aurthur C. Clarke. Clarke wrote the story well before I was born and I came across it at a young age. This tale of the end and beginning of the world had a profound effect and I was entranced. As I recently read Robert Charles Wilson’s “Spin”, I was reminded once again of that same sense of awe and the weight of humanity and its dreams. It was just as I finished the book that I saw in the news that Clarke had died, and I guess that cemented the association in my mind. “Spin” is an incredible tale, and not just a copy or derivative of Childhood’s End. In fact what they have in common is a mood or sense of gravity, not plot or devices. That Wilson won the Hugo Award for Best Novel with this book is absolutely no surprise.
Continue reading “Spin” →

Free Sci-Fi/Fantasy E-books

Posted on 17 February, 2008 by bookGeek

If you fill out the form at Tor.com they will send you an email a week, with a link to download a free e-book from one of their authors. You also become entered in a drawing to win an Asus eee PC Galaxy. Not bad. There will be, I think, 12 ebooks total. They come as PDFs with no DRM. Nice.

I’ll have a review of the first, “Mistborn” by Brandon Sanderson as soon as I finish it.