Free Stuff

[avis de rapina]

My, this place looks rather empty.

Here's something that I hope will liven it up.

I'll be the first to admit that I've radically cut down on my book purchases ever since I re-re-discovered fanfiction. But there was a time when I all but lived in the Science Fiction and Fantasy sections of my old school library. Reading was a habit that has remained with me to this day.

I was addicted to SciFi and Fantasy stories. I hunted them out and the environment was target-rich. I've lost more books to termites than most people even own. Over the years my tastes have become more eclectic. The majority of my purchases are now manga, but even those are fewer than before.

Why? FF.net for the most part. I re-discovered fanfiction in 1991 when the Internet phenomenon finally became mainstream here. I downloaded like crazy in my off-hours. School and work meant that I could only read for at most an hour a day. Work finally won. Three years ago, I had more free time. I looked for an old Wonder Woman lemon that I vaguely recalled. Yahoo led me to AFF, which in turn led to FFN. Ranma was one of the most prolifically updated; it happened that the anime was being broadcast by the AXN channel. I gave it a try. I was hooked.

Nowadays I use MobiPocket to convert downloaded fanfic html files and read them on my mobile or PDA. I've collected thousands of chapters and I'm making my way through them. A losing battle, but what the hey. It's free stuff. Thus my diminished book purchases.

But I can never ignore my first love. And from what I've seen on some of the other threads, I can tell that some of you also share a love for the SciFi and Fantasy genres. (A lot of you are familiar with Dune, The Lord of the Rings, Monty Python and Spinal Tap at any rate.)

Here then, in an effort to stimulate more book-based fanfics outside of the Harry Potter franchise, is a link to a motherlode of free stuff. Gentlefilk and fen, I present The Baen Free Library, home to works by authors such as Eric Flint, David Drake, John Ringo, Mercedes Lackey, David Weber...

What other publisher actually gives out free downloadable versions of best-selling books in a variety of formats? As if that were not enough, if you buy a hardbound copy of their books, they usually include a CD with full versions of more books. I completed my e-book collection of Weber's Honor Harrington series that way.

Come on! The books are out there. Maybe some of you are also fans of some of these series. Isn't it time to write in the 'Book Fanfiction' forum?

 

[SoulGriever13]

and for that which is not on Baen - here's their CDs, all nice and neat and online and most of all, free. All of Honor Harrington and more Weber than you can shake a keyboard at, a shitload of David Drake's stuff, some Lackley and Flint, some others as well ... yeah, first I went there, I was gone gone gone for longer than strictly advisable.



-Griever

 

[tridentwatch]

i download free ebooks from mirc on a pirate channel i know

google saerch: ebooks afaiktoit

 

[Christopher Robin]

I think a lot of servers have ebook channels, or at least they used to. #bookz works a lot of places, I usually use undernet.

Although you can get books on torrent sites, too, depending on which one. Well, book collections, just one book would be too much trouble like that.

I don't buy books much anymore, I can't afford any, especially since I read like fisking mad. I've been known to buy a new book and be done reading it by the next morning.

 

[Sunhawk]

I think a lot of servers have ebook channels, or at least they used to. #bookz works a lot of places, I usually use undernet.

Although you can get books on torrent sites, too, depending on which one. Well, book collections, just one book would be too much trouble like that.

I don't buy books much anymore, I can't afford any, especially since I read like fisking mad. I've been known to buy a new book and be done reading it by the next morning.

Used book stores. I have well over a thousand scifi/fantasy paperbacks, almost all bought at used book stores for a dollar or two.

And yeah, I read fast and frequent, but I also re-read stuff quite a bit. Once you've mastered that trick, you can read a book dozens of times in a dozen years or so.

 

[Mantech1]

Heres a free E-book version of "Accelerando" by Charles Stross. Its a science fiction story with some interesting concepts (mind uploading, AI, the Singularity, Dyson Spheres made from rice sized computers, etc).

http://www.accelerando.org/

Just page down until you see: Accelerando available for download


One option available here in Raleigh, North Carolina is the Wake County Libraries' Fall Book Sale, on the last two days you can get either a bag or box and fill it up for only a few bucks. I'd post more info however I don't know where its going to be held this year, when I know I'll post it here.