Electronic books

E-books

One of the things I enjoy in life is reading. I discovered e-books several years ago and have become a firm believer since then. The number of different formats available for a wide ranging number of devices makes them useful for both travel and home. After all, where else can you build a library of several thousand volumes in the storage space required by a few CDs? For all of their advantages, they also have in my opinion some serious deficiencies. The most serious is a total lack of cataloging capability for the libraries. Another is the entire question of Digital Rights Management (DRM) that some publishers insist on inflicting on readers. Having said that e-book readers have some problems, I still enjoy obtaining and reading a wide variety of e-books using several of these devices.

Two of my favorite sources of e-books are Blackmask Online and Baen Publishing. Blackmask is filled with thousands of public domain literature that ranges from the serious to the pulp fiction of the early 20^th Century. I have downloaded and read many titles from this site and barely scratched the surface. Baen Publishing provides a free library of sixty or so title in modern science fiction and fantasy that a reader of that genre can’t afford to miss. In addition, they have a service called Webscriptions that lets you purchase and download either individual titles or subscribe for a monthly fee to get their latest releases. I use the former method as I’m still trying to fill in some of the series from my favorite authors that they publish.

Baen has some of the best in their field and I’d be remiss in not mentioning some of the authors by name. David Weber, John Ringo, and David Drake are among my favorites when it comes to military SF. Eric Flint has created an alternate history series, 1632, that is unique in that he has opened it up to not just other established authors, but also to new and unpublished authors who want to try their hand at expressing themselves.

Lest we forget the ladies, Baen publishes works by some of the greatest. Lois McMaster Bujold has created a stellar series with the Miles Vorkosigan character. For the fantasy buff, Mercedes Lackey always can be counted upon for a good story. I would caution people to go lightly with the Serrated Edge series. Child abuse as a topic, even to point up the criminal nature, can be a little trying and I only finished one book before I couldn’t take it anymore.

For those who get really serious about e-books there are a number of site that provide a place to purchase and download many current e-books on many topics. My personal favorite is Fictionwise, but there are others that can be found easily with a simple web search.

I’d be very remiss in covering this topic if I didn’t mention the fine work by the people at Project Gutenberg to create a repository of public domain works in electronic format. They are always in need of volunteers and cash donations. Last time I looked they had over 13,000 works finished and were ahead of schedule in their ambitious plan of a million volume library. Please check out their site and support them in any way you can.