Tag Archives: EBook

How to fill your ereader

Reading free Sherlock Holmes EPUB

Back in January when I bought my ereader, I had doubts whether I would be able to find enough quality content to read on it, given that I don’t buy DRM which still dominates the market. By now I have found enough sources; in fact, I am not quite able to read it all. Here is what I have been reading, in arbitrary order.

Commercial

For free

  • Baen Ebooks has a free library.
  • Smashwords has many free titles; it is common for authors to give away extended prologues or even first volumes of series.
  • The Firefox plugin GrabMyBooks allows you to pack any web content as EPUB ebook. I regularly do so with CACM and Flash Fiction Online.
  • There are some books floating around the open source community. For example, I discovered Pro Git recently.

Stallman-free

  • Project Gutenberg offers English classics that have entered the public domain in multiple formats.
  • Gutenberg DE is the German version. Sadly, there are no downloads, but you can grab the text.
  • Project Runeberg is the Swedish version of Project Gutenberg. They have download as plain text and HTML which is easy to convert.

Over these last year or so, EPUB has been entering more and more publishing heads. I am particularly excited about Tor’s move to drop DRM; huge amounts of science fiction and fantasy are viable in electronic form now. Tor has a nerdy audience (both readers and authors) so maybe they felt more pressure than other publishers; let’s just hope that their example catches on.

Once tools for creating EPUB books become better, it will be increasingly simple to offer ebook versions of your content, be it fiction book, scientific article or tech tutorial. In my opinion, the phase of early adopters is past: with the spread of EPUB, ebooks have left the confines of big publishing houses behind and become a medium of the crowd.

Richard L. Sanders: The Phoenix Conspiracy

Richard L. Sanders: The Phoeanix Conspiracy
Story:
4/5
Characters:
4/5
World:
2/5
Humor:
3/5
Action:
3/5

Calvin Cross is a successful and loyal officer in Intel Wing, the Empire’s intelligence organisation. He is so good that he has been given his own command, the stealth frigate Nighthawk, despite the fact that he is only a half-citizen and therefore stuck at a junior officer rank. His latest mission has been to track down rogue warship captain Raidan who used his position to destroy civilian alien freighters without provocation. Raidan is tried by a tribunal and found guilty, but his motives remain unknown. The prisoner escapes under suspicious circumstances—hijacking a dreadnought in the process—and Cross is again ordered to find him. Cross suspects foul play as several facts do not add up and decides to investigate the underlying situation rather than hunting down the fugitive. While he tries to keep up appearances his mysterious opponents act to stop Cross and his crew no matter what.

Phoenix Conspiracy has a solid, but not brilliant setup. The futuristic world is very similar to ours despite the fact that humanity travels across space; culture and technology appear unchanged for the most part. It works well enough for this kind of story as the reader feels comfortable from page one and can completely focus on the intriguing plot. The conspiracy is nicely set up and the characters are likeable yet complex enough to feel real, including heart-felt emotion and sometimes funny, sometimes nerve-wracking conflicts. Only the ending seemed a bit too hasty and shallow for my taste; but then, this is only part one of a series so I will give Sanders the benefit of doubt, assuming the rabbit hole is deeper than it seems. Phoenix Conspiracy managed to captivate me and I had a good time reading it. I certainly look forward to the sequels!

Get this great read in a variety of formats for free and DRM-free on Smashwords.

Adrian Hall: Feng Shui Assassin

Adrian Hall: Feng Shui Assassin
Story:
4/5
Characters:
3/5
World:
3/5
Humor:
1/5
Action:
3/5

Harvey Barker is on a revenge trip in modern London, killing the people he holds responsible for his sister’s death. He is a professional assassin, but an unorthodox one: he kills using feng shui, manipulating chi and karma to kill his targets without anyone the wiser. But he is not careful enough this time. Detective Amanda Morgan can not shake the feeling that a couple of apparently tragic deaths are connected. Meanwhile, the remaining members of the group Harvey hunts down try to recover and strike back.

I needed to suspend a lot of disbelief regarding the manipulation of chi and karma. The concept seems confused at times, but experienced manga readers should have no problems accepting it. Hall’s prose is not perfect but good enough so it does not distract from his decent story. He builds a good amount of tension towards the end, finishing a very entertaining and thrilling book.

Get this good read in a variety of formats for free and DRM-free on Smashwords.

Some Short Stories

Richard L. Sanders: Betraying Nexus
3/5

David Sartof: Gloria
5/5

Mark Aragona: Vector
2/5

All happy about my new Kobo Touch, I went and downloaded a couple of short stories for free at Smashwords.

Richard L. Sanders: Betraying Nexus — Jason is a mind bender of Nexus, a global, secret organisation that prevents crime by changing the intentions of potential criminals with them non the wiser. Jason has just brought down a former friend and colleague gone rogue; now he is to be promoted. When he discovers why Nexus works at all, his loyalty falters.
The story has an interesting setup and a good conflict. It may have worked even better in a longer format, I think; as it is, the amount of progress made feels too much for the timeframe. If you liked the movie Minority Report, you like this story.

David Sartof: Gloria — Oliver finds himself inside a remote cabin deep in the woods. He holds a bloody axe, standing above another man tied to a chair. He is going to kill this man, just like he just killed his own wife. Oliver just does not know why.
Fascinating short story! The amount of twists the author put in with so few words is amazing.

Mark Aragona: Vector — An alien race carefully investigates earth. Suddenly, one of their scout parties ends up in the middle of a beginning zombie apocalypse. What happened? Is there still a way to settle on earth in a peaceful way, maybe even help humanity survive?
Interesting idea and good writing, but the twist came too soon; the ending seemed more like an afterthought. Reversing the answers to “what” and “why” would have worked better. There is potential for much more in this one!

I have never really read short fiction before but I know see that it has its appeals. Maybe I will go back for more, but first I have to read some free classics and gratis novels.

Mehr zu elektronischem Lesespaß

Jüngst schrieb ich vom Sony PRS-505S, den Thalia bald hier in Deutschland verkaufen wird, und brachte mittlere Erwartungsfreude zum Ausdruck. Kurze Zeit später schockierte mich das Erdferkel mit der wenig einfühlsamen Formulierung, Thalia brächte “veralteten Müll” auf den Markt. Nun, veraltet mag stimmen, aber ob das Gerät Müll ist, hängt wohl von den Anforderungen ab, die man daran stellt. Verglichen mit den von ihm verlinkten Geräten von iRex ist der Sony natürlich extrem featurearm, hier möchte ich aber auf das Verhältnis auf Preis und Leistung hinweisen. Möchte man nur lesen und legt weniger Wert auf einen digitalen Notizblock im gleichen Gerät, muss man nicht so viel ausgeben.

Amazons Kindle 2

Amazons Kindle 2

Wahr ist allerdings, dass wir hier verglichen mit unseren amerikanischen Verbündeten sehr schlecht wegkommen. In den USA bringt Amazon gerade den Kindle 2 heraus. Der direkte Vergleich fällt mir mangels Tiefenwissens nun schwer, aber er kann wohl neben einem besseren Display hauptsächlich mit kostenfreiem Dreibandzugang zu Wikipedia und dem EBookstore von Amazon glänzen. Auch wenn das natürlich den Akku aussaugen wird, empfinde ich es als eine ungemeine Bereicherung: Es ist möglich, ohne PC und (W)LAN unterwegs neue Bücher zu kaufen und zumindest oberflächlich zu recherchieren. Außerdem hat der Kindle 2 das Oxford American Dictionary eingebaut. Interessant, dass das für Native Speaker offenbar ein attraktives Feature ist, für uns Außerenglische könnte das jedenfalls potentiell nützlich sein. Der Kindle 2 kann also wesentlich mehr als das, was wir hier zögerlich angeboten bekommen, und kostet weniger.

Eine Sache habe ich noch zu den Preisen von EBooks nachzutragen: Es ist offenbar noch nicht klar, ob die Buchpreisbindung für EBooks gilt oder nicht. Um sicher zu gehen, halten sich die allermeisten Anbieter also anscheinend erstmal an sie. Sollten die zuständigen Stellen festlegen, dass die Buchpreisbindung tatsächlich auch für EBooks anzuwenden ist, steht das natürlich potentiell einer erfolgreichen Marktbildung hier im Lande entgegen. Der Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels ist natürlich der Ansicht, dass das so sei.

Den Zweck der Buchpreisbindung habe ich übrigens immer noch nicht verstanden. So, wie Wikipedia die Motivation darlegt, bekomme ich den Zusammenhang zwischen Maßnahme und Ziel nicht gebacken. In anderen Märkten existiert doch auch Vielfalt ohne Preisbindung, zumal es zur Zeit ja auch rein im Ermessen der Verlage liegt, wie viel ein Buch wert ist. Und das führt regelmäßig zu höheren Preisen als im Ausland, und das bei fast schon notorisch minderwertigeren Ausgaben (wer kennt nicht die Einheitscover mancher Verlage?). Lediglich der Handel bekommt die Möglichkeit abgesprochen, von der “Unverbindlichen Preisempfehlung”, wie es anderswo heißt, abzuweichen. Das schützt natürlich kleinere Händler, führt aber fast schon zwangläufig zu einer Art Kartellbildung.
Inwiefern die Buchpreisbindung letztendlich wirklich den Markt für EBooks verhindert, sehe ich als offen an. Denn Taschenbuch- und Harcoverausgaben des gleichen Buches dürfen unterschiedliche Preise haben; dann sollte für eine elektronische Version ein dritter Preis möglich sein. Wir werden sehen.