I don't know if anyone else has tried these, but there are a HEAP of free SF books available FREE of charge on the Baen website.

These books are from many well known SF authors, including (but not limited to) David Weber, David Drake, Lois McMaster Bujold, Eric Flint, John Ringo, David Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

The link showing just what's available is http://www.baen.com/library/

The books can be downloaded in HTML (ideal for isilox), MS Reader, Palm (Mobipocket Reader), Rocket and RTF format (RTF docs saved as HTML and then converted with isilox make a very nice isilo book, BTW)

There are dozens of free books to choose from!

Regards,
Craig.

The Baen Library rocks. They don't have iSilo format by default, though, but it's easy enough to convert the html versions.

I should say that Baen has other e-Book offerings, too. The WebScriptions program on their site gets you electronic versions of newer books which you can purchase individually, or receive as part of a monthly subscription package. All of their content is distributed unencrypted in several reader formats, including HTML, which can be converted to anything.

Also, lately, some Baen hardcover books have been coming with CD-Roms which include selections both from the Free Library, and from Webscriptions. I got War of Honor by David Weber last year, and it came with ALL of the rest of the Honor Harrington books on the CD-Rom. The license agreement said "This disk and it's contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold." I take that to mean I'm allowed to do this (http://subversatile.net/ebooks/iSilo_HonorHarrington.zip).

Enjoy.

Incidently, the contents of the CD have also been made freely available on the web, at http://honorverse.pdabooks.org/index.htm

Read your little hearts out... :D

From our friends at Baen Books (http://www.baen.com) comes volume 2 of the esteemed Baen Electronic Library: The Aldenata Disk! This CD comes free with Hell's Faire, book four of The Legacy of the Aldenata series by John Ringo.

Following the precedent of the Honoverse CD, it includes all three of the previous Aldenata novels, Several other books from John Ringo's March series, and a crapload of bonus material. Among the goodies are an audio version of Hell's Faire, two additional John Ringo audio-books, The Legacy of the Aldenata d20 Roleplaying Game, an abridged version of the Honorverse disk, showing a sneak preview of what's available in volume 1 of the library, and about a dozen bonus novels from Baen's catalog.

The complete list of titles is:


John Ringo
A Hymn Before Battle
Gust Front
When the Devil Dances
Hell's Faire
Hell's Faire (audio)
March Upcountry
March to the Sea
March to the Stars
A Ship Named Francis (audio)
Let's Go to Prage (audio)

John Dalmas
Soldiers
The Puppet Master

David Drake
Killer
Paying the Piper
Grimmer Than Hell
Seas of Venus

Eric Flint
1632
1633
Mother of Demons
The Philosophical Strangler
Forward the Mage
Pyramid Scheme

Keith Laumer
A Plague of Demons

David Weber
The Service of the Sword
On Basilisk Station
War of Honor

Leigh Kimmel, Richard Waechter-Williamson & Shane Gries
Baen Books Posleen FanFic


To round everything out, you also get a collection of Sluggy Freelance comic strips, and an mp3 track of "The March of Cambreadth," by Heather Alexander.

All of the titles are presented without encryption in 5 formats: HTML, MS Reader, MobiPocket Reader, Rocket REB, and RTF. Everyone has a reader for at least two of these, and there is a tool somwhere to convert the HTML or RTF versions to any other format. I currently have about 10 Baen books converted and loaded in iSilo on my Palm.

Licensing is simple: According to the publisher, you're free to copy these and pass them around, but you can't sell them.

This torrent is for an .iso image of the CD-Rom. You can use any major CD-Burning software to run this off to disk, and enjoy the books freely. Before anyone bitches that it's not a zip or rar-file of the disk contents, please note that I did not make this torrent, I only found it. It's already got 4 seeds, including mine, and as of this posting nobody is on it. I thought maybe some of you would enjoy getting it too.

Please when you're done downloading this, stay on the torrent tracker a while to share with other people. After all, someone stayed on to share with you. If you need a BitTorrent client, this one (http://bt.degreez.net/) is my favorite. If you don't even know what BitTorrent is, you can visit the Official BitTorrent Site (http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/) or read this excellent FAQ (http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/).

So have at it (http://f.scarywater.net/aldenata.iso.torrent)!

Ah, if only I still had the connection I had when I downloaded the Honorverse CD image.... <sigh>. I am _not_ going to try this with a 28.8 connection!

IF the books can be given away though, what are my chances of getting copies of the RTF John Ringo books (except for Hymn Before Battle) emailed to me??? Please???

Craig.

your email address isn't in your profile.

Doh!

ca_barnett@yahoo.com.au

Thanks!

your mail-server rejected my mail because it was too large, so I did the next best thing:

http://subversatile.net/books/aldenata.rar (8.78MB)

Thanks! I didn't realise the archive was going to be that big, or I would have provided an alternate address (Yahoo Australia only gives me a 6MB limit).

<downloading busily awa>

Craig.

are you done yet? I'm trying to free some space on my host.

Yep, I've go them, thanks muchly!

Craig.