The Best Places to Find Science Fiction eBooksMay 11 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line FictionWise, Baen Books, and MemoWare offer quality eBooks for science fiction and fantasy lovers.
I've said it several times - I prefer reading on my Palm to reading paper books. That doesn't mean I've given up on the old fashioned way entirely, just that when given the choice of formats I'll always choose eBooks. Luckily one of my favorite genres, science fiction, is quite readily available in eBook formats. It makes sense that eBook sellers would embrace science fiction - many folks who read eBooks are gadget lovers and other geeks, most of whom have a natural affinity for sci-fi. There are many eBook sellers, most of whom sell at least some sci-fi. FictionWise, Baen Books, and MemoWare are a cut above the rest. FictionWise http://www.fictionwise.com FictionWise launched two years ago as a science fiction and fantasy multi-format eBook store. Concentrating on short stories but also selling novellas and some novels, FictionWise only resold previously published stories from the best. Most of their authors were Nebula or Hugo winners and nominees. Over time, FictionWise has steadily added other genres, but they still focus heavily on science fiction and fantasy. They've greatly expanded their author list and slowly lost their focus on short stories (at this point new material is probably half novels and half shorts). They also carry eBook editions of most popular science fiction magazines. Today you can find works by such notable authors as Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, Lois McMaster Bujold, James Patrick Kelly, Michael Burstein, Greg Bear, Nancy Kress, Ursula K. LeGuin, Larry Niven, Robert Silverberg, and David Weber. Most books are available in DOC, PDF, iSilo, Microsoft Reader, eBookman, Hiebook, MobiPocket, and Rocket formats, but FictionWise also recently started selling books in Secure MobiPocket format. Books in that format can only be read on one specific registered Palm, Pocket PC, or eBookman device. FictionWise has been getting more expensive over time, and with the addition of secure books, some of their books now cost more than the corresponding hardcover editions. The multi-format books remain less than or equal to the paperback editions in almost all cases (but ever inch closer to the paperback prices). That said, they often offer free stories including many of the Nebula and Hugo nominees from the current year near award time. FictionWise offers a frequent buyers program that's expensive but worthwhile over time if you buy more than an infrequent book or two. Members get 15% off, extra sales, extra rebates, and other benefits that do add up. In addition, new titles are always discounted the week they become available and you can also get a small rebate for buying them the first day. Fictionwise also instituted weekend specials that are personalized to the buyer's taste and offer rebates of up to 60% off the normal price. They handle carts quite well, maintaining a permanent list of what's in your cart and allowing you to keep items in the cart without actually buying them. All discounts and rebates show up in the cart on a book by book basis so you know exactly what you're going to end up paying from the start. Perhaps the best feature of the site is the bookshelf. This is an area that has a list of each eBook you've purchased, information about the book, a place to select a download format (if it's multi-format) and download the book, and a place to rate the book after you've read it. You can also download all of the books on your shelf at once and recommend books you've purchased to others (which generates a 10% off coupon for them). Searching works pretty well but browsing can be somewhat painful at times. The site is well organized into genres, and in the case of science fiction, some sub-genres but within each you can only see 25 titles at once. In some cases there are several hundred books and I'd prefer the opportunity to say "show me 100 at once". That said, I've seen a lot worse. FictionWise has been my favorite place to find science fiction since it opened. Although the increasing prices and the decision to support secure eBooks bother me, I still look there first. Baen Books http://www.baen.com/ Baen Books is a traditional publisher that offers high quality science fiction novels in a few eBook formats. They have both a free library and a web subscription plan. The Baen Free Library has approximately 40 free novels available in HTML, DOC, Microsoft Reader, Rocket, and RTF formats. They are all books sold in paper formats by Baen Books, often first or second books of longer series. The free selections include titles by Eric Flint, David Weber, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and David Drake. They have more military science fiction than any other sub-genre, although other types of books are available as well. You can browse by author, title, or series but can't easily see all titles in the library at once. Given the small number of books, this leads to a lot of extra navigation if you just want to browse. The Baen Webscription plan is a very interesting way to purchase eBooks. Unlike the free selections, the Webscription books are sold as a monthly subscription. For $15 per month you get four complete new books before they are available in paper format. Offered in serialized format one quarter of a book at a time, the partial books are only available in HTML but the final completed books are available in all of the formats supported in the free library. When you purchase a subscription you choose to buy the books started that month. There is no obligation to buy every month or have an ongoing subscription. You will continue to get all four parts of the books for any month you purchase even if you don't buy the books available in subsequent months. This is nice since you can read a large number of sample chapters of that month's selections to decide whether you want them rather than blindly investing money month after month and hoping for the best. MemoWare http://www.memoware.com MemoWare is the largest repository of PDA-formatted public domain eBooks on the web. As a public domain site, most of their catalog consists of older material and thus they don't have a lot of science fiction and fantasy. Visit MemoWare for Tom Swift serials, for H.G. Wells, for Jules Verne, for Edgar Rice Burroughs. You can also find some nice children's fantasy including all of the Oz books. Titles at MemoWare are available in different formats. Although the bulk of books are in DOC format, some are in iSilo or TomeRaider or Plucker or even other formats. They are user-generated and donated so there is no official quality control. However, most titles are converted well. They also rely on users to classify the books they submit properly so you may infrequently see books you don't consider science fiction floating around that section. MemoWare is extremely well organized and easy to search by either author or title. If you're looking for science fiction, use the scifi link on the left side of each page (or in the middle of the top of the main page) and browse away. Like FictionWise, you'll only see 25 titles at once. Summing Up There are many other places to buy and download science fiction eBooks. Most general eBook sites will have at least a small selection of titles. However, none of them come close to the quality and quantity of material available at FictionWise, the electronic previews of upcoming paper titles available at Baen Books, or the sheer quantity of free books available at MemoWare. Happy reading!  |
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