Yog's Notebook, blog edition

This week's post is a roundup of links to some fine sf offerings available for free online. They generally fall into two categories: works that authors have decided to release under a Creative Commons (or similar) license, and works that are in the public domain due to their age. Most people will be comfortable reading a short story or two on their computer, but for longer book-length works, you might prefer to use a PDA or video iPod. This is also a way to sample several chapters of a book before buying a print copy.

A good starting point is manybooks.net. Their science fiction section contains 274 modern and historical works. These can be downloaded pre-formatted for a variety of ebook readers, or as a PDF. The collection includes Accelerando, winner of the 2006 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and Blindsight, nominated for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

There are also several e-zines that publish a rotating selection of stories, available for free on the web. Strange Horizons, one of the longest-running and most recognized publications in this category, updates weekly. Subterranean Press recently switched their quarterly magazine from print to the web. The spring issue features stories and essays by Elizabeth Bear, Charles Stross, Mike Resnick, and Bruce Sterling. Ideomancer and Coyote Wild are also worth checking out.

Finally, authors also maintain collections of their work available online. Cory Doctrow shares his work primarily through a podcast, but text versions of several of his stories and novels also exist. John Scalzi has a novel and several stories linked from his site. And members of the Science Fiction Writers Association (SFWA) recently declared an "International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day", wherein science fiction writers who have published work for pay each offered their work online for free. The roundup of contributions is on Jo Walton's blog.

I've found these resources to be a great way to discover new authors. There are several writers whose books I purchased specifically because I liked the work they had online. I hope this helps other people find new and interesting things to read too.

Labels: books, ebooks, free, science fiction, sf

Kurt Vonnegut died last week, as a result of head injuries incurred through a fall in his apartment. Throughout college (where I was, in part, a Literature major) and the subsequent years of voracious reading, I had somehow never read anything by the much lauded American author. His work had been described to me as everything from satire to post-modernist dystopianism, anti-war diatribe to science fiction; one thing everyone mentioned when recommending Vonnegut was that the man's writing was funny (something I believe is extremely important to the enjoyment of any book; there are very few writers not named Woolf or Faulkner who can - or should try to - write edifying and/or entertaining literature without injecting some overt humor).

By coincidence, I read my first Vonnegut book, Cat's Cradle, just a few weeks ago, as the monthly selection for our book club. It was as bizarre and intriguing as I'd hoped it would be, and most definitely qualifies as Sci-Fi in my opinion. The book, written in over 120 small chapters, has at times an almost poetic timbre to the narrative, a very spoken quality. The science-fictiony aspect to the story doesn't become apparent until about midway through, when we are introduced to a substance known as Ice-nine, which causes water to freeze at very high temperatures. Without giving away too much of the plot, I'll just say that what starts out as a fairly prosaic story about a reporter evolves into a pretty fantastic set of circumstances.

Vonnegut has the delightful ability to cram layers of texture and meaning into crisp and witty sentences that sometimes read as crass bon mots. His dialogue, in particular, elicited the most laughs from me, where his often cartoonish characters ineract in some frankly ludicrous situations. Ludicrous; yet within the confines of his self-contained universe, gripping enough to allow the reader to suspend disbelief with ease and enjoyment.

Whether you are a fan of sci-fi, or more "literary" writing (and my opinion of the distinctions therein will wait for another blog post), you must see to it that you read some of Kurt Vonnegut's books. I myself am very excited to read more from the man who said that he is sure that "evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer.... That's why we've got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap."

Labels: Cat's Cradle, ice-nine, Kurt Vonnegut, literature, sci-fi, Vonnegut

Yog's Notebook is starting a new blog to feature short reviews and other things that catch our eye, updated weekly. Check back to see what's next.