Read an E-Book Week Roundup

Well, Read an E-Book Week has ended and I did manage to finish up the book I was reading at the start and nearly finish the next one I started (Made to Be Broken by Kelley Armstrong). The E-Book Week only giveaways have ended, but I now have enough free books to keep me busy for weeks. There were literally hundreds of giveaways (too many to even attempt to get them all, even if every one appealed to you) and I think I downloaded a couple of hundred to try (on some I grabbed every format, in case there were problems in conversion or as a hedge against future hardware changes, so it's a bit hard to tell). I may not read them all and I'll definitely be more likely to drop one that doesn't grab my interest in the first few pages, but there are bound to be a number of gems in there -- several books I'd had on my wish list turned up free this past week, so I know there are good ones in the pile. But, if you didn't get your fill, I have rounded up a few last freebies and bargains to round out the week.

The first-ever completely online world science fiction convention Flycon 2009 has been going on this week and Vera Nazarian is offering her novella "The Duke in His Castle" as a free PDF download this weekend only. From the comments, it appears you'll still be able to grab this one on Monday, as she'll leave it up for those who don't check their computers on the weekend and those in other time zones.

There are a number of other freebies from FlyCon are available: Chris Dolley has posted Resonance in several formats (including Kindle-compatible mobi), The Admonishments of Kherishdar and The Aphorisms of Kherishdar are online reads (the latter is also available in paperback). Two audiobooks are also available: Spherical Tomi: A Novel of Despair, by Jack Mangan, and Temple of Cod (the first third of Brine, registration required), by Adrienne Jones.

Chris Howard, who released SeaBorn as a free PDF earlier this week, has another ebook, nanowhere, as a free ebook, available in several formats.

Jeffrey Carver, author of The Chaos Chronicles, has previously made Sunborn available as a free PDF, but now, for a limited time, has posted several other formats as free downloads. The PDF should remain free, but the additional formats are coming down when this one is released as a Tor ebook (which could be anytime now). And if you haven't picked up the Chaos Chronicles, they are on the same download page, also in several formats.

Jeffrey Thomas's Deadstock, a science fiction thriller, can be downloaded in PDF and mobipocket reader format. His latest, Blue War: A Punktown novel and Punktown (coming in April), aren't yet available in ebook format, but you can always click on the "Kindlize me" link for the paperback version.

If you're ready for a break from fiction or want to polish up a few work skills, be sure to check out the How to Think Like a Programmer series at Green Tea Press.

Leaving the purely free realm, there are a few bargains in the Kindle store. Pacific Avenue, by Anne L. Watson, is on sale for a penny.

Darksome Thirst by Morven Westfield is $3.98. This is a witches and vampire book, but promises to be a different kind of vampire, for those tired of good vampires or bad ones that run in packs.

BARRACUDA by Mike Monahan is marked down to $0.99 (be sure to check the price - the older listing for $7.96 is still there). Detectives, an island paradise, mafia, yakuza and a barracuda eating the tourists - what more could a story need?

Last, an online comic, Digger, is now online with free archives going back to the beginning (2007). Until recently it was a subscription only comic; now it's all free and updated every Tues and Thurs.

Free Ebook: Chris Howard's Seaborn

Seaborn by Chris Howard is available as a free download (see below). This was scheduled to move to the Kindle, but has apparently been backlisted, so Chris is setting it free. Either format should convert fairly well to the Kindle (although the margins are a bit off).

Synopsis

Corina Lairsey has just clawed her way free from one controlling relationship when she finds herself in another-only this guy, Aleximor, has really gotten under her skin. Literally. A 400-year-old sorcerer who gathers the drowned dead off the ocean's floor for the King of the Seaborn, he's inside her head and is wearing her body like a wetsuit. Corina desperately schemes to regain control of her self, fighting against time as Aleximore trades pieces of her life away in exchange for power over the path between the worlds of the living and the dead . . . Kassandra is the King of the Seaborn's granddaughter. She comes from the sea, but has spent her whole life in exile on the surface, struggling to control frightening powers she barely understands. She declares war on her murderous grandfather and manipulates her family, friends, oceanic royalty, and the US Navy to aid her- but Aleximore intends to use Kass to carry out his revenge against the entire Seaborn royal line. And she's also fallen in love-one more struggle for an already troubled soul.

Free download in PDF or HTML format.

Read an E-Book Week, Day 6

Nanya by Huang Chin-tsu, edited/translated by Edward C Patterson, is a a 12th Century, Sung Dynasty, manuscript. Read online or download the book in three section (under the Files link).

Black Ice by Madeleine Miles and The Realm Of Magic Kingdoms by christopher parrish are both available as free PDF downloads over at LuLu.com.

C.C. Finlay's The Patriot Witch is available as a free PDF download. The rest of the Traitor to the Crown series, unfortunately, is scheduled to release on paper only at this point: A Spell for the Revolution (in May) and The Demon Redcoat (coming in June).

If your tastes run more to SciFi than Fantasy, head over to Concept SciFi and pick up the first four issues of their magazine (PDF and Mobi formats). Then bookmark the site, as the April issue is coming up.

The Heritage (Olivia) is available at Will Ashon's website. It's a printer's proof PDF, as the book was ready to go to print and the publisher pulled out, which not format well if converted for the Kindle. Still, he's put the entire thing up for free (along with a rant against the publisher, so be warned ... he was pretty mad when he posted it and it shows).

Read an E-Book Week, Day 5

I took day 4 off to read. After all, isn't that the point?

This first one isn't free, but a bargain buy of a children's adventure story (looks to be aimed at the tween crowd, as it is 330 pages in the print version and like all good fairy tales has darker side), a category where it can be a bit harder to find good ebooks: The Legend of Witch Bane by Kevis Hendrickson. It's been getting great reviews and looks like a good one for those whose kid's have been left behind in this weeks reading links.

For the slightly older teens, Harper Collins has a free read of The Vampire Diaries (online only), with the full text of The Awakening and The Struggle. They also have a sneak peak inside The Return: Nightfall, the latest in the series. I've tried their free reader before and mostly it motivated me to go buy the book instead, if it was interesting, as reading 500 pages on a backlit screen would make my eyes bleed. These particular titles are only available in paperback - so if you want real ebook versions of them, make sure to click on the titles, then on the Request on Kindle link below the cover pictures. In the meantime, these free reads will only be online until March 27th, so you'd better read quickly.

Tor has posted a new freebie, Charles de Lint’s Spiritwalk. It's a little late in Read an E-Book Week and the "monthly free read" doesn't quite come out monthly anymore, but free is free (you do have to register and log in before hitting the download links). Spiritwalk (1992) is the sequel to Moonheart (which is available in ereader format at Fictionwise). Spiritwalk is currently out of print, although Tor has a trade paperback reissue scheduled for mid-2010.

If you haven't picked up Mars Girl yet, you should definitely download a copy and be prepared for some laughs. You can get pretty much any format or read it online, along with "Webisodes", small scenes cut from the final book (just like the deleted scenes on most DVD's these days).

The Textile Planet, another humorous science-fiction novel, is now available as a free ebook! Download the PDF version or send an email to get another format (.html, .lit, .lrf, .mobi, and .rtf) direct from author Sue Lange

David Sklar (Shadow of the Antlered Bird) has a number of free fiction and poetry ebooks/ereads and satirical articles available.

Plough Books in England has more than 80 Christian/Spiritual titles in nine languages at no charge. All are in PDF format.

For a change of pace, be sure to get this month's free audiobook (hey, it's a book and it's "e", even if you don't "read" it) from Christian Audio. They have a new free audiobook each month, with your choice of MP3 (Kindle compatible) or WMV format. This month it's Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Unabridged) by Donald S. Whitney. Just use the coupon code (it's MAR2009 this month) and you won't have to enter any other payment info (you do have to create an account and they send you emails each month to notify you of the new freebie).

Free Ebook: The Treasure of La Malinche

The Treasure of La Malinche by Jeff Hepple.

The ordinary life of college professor Margaret de Vega is forever changed when she discovers the six hundred year old memoirs of La Malinche containing the secret to finding the lost treasure of Montezuma. With the aid of retired Special Forces Colonel R.A. Lincoln, Doctor de Vega undertakes her treasure hunt along a rapidly deteriorating United States – Mexican border.

Jeff was kind enough to let me post this free book here for Read an E-Book Week. Just click on the cover and it will download (if you have trouble, try right-clicking and using the Save As... selection). The ebook is in PRC format, so you can just copy or email it to your Kindle or use Calibre to convert to another format. You can also buy the Kindle version at Amazon ($2.39, with free amazon backup/sync), or get a trade paperback for $19.95 from his website. If you like this one (or just don't want to miss out), rush over to Amazon and get The Treasure of La Malinche Volume 2 (The Legacy of La Malinche) as well, as it is currently on sale for $0.99 (trade paperback $19.95 on his website). He also has published Gone For a Soldier, which deals with the Revolutionary war and the 800 page volume has received good reviews.