Recently I read an amazing hard sf book Blindsight by Peter Watts which unfortunately is not available in e-book form as of now, though the author may put it up at some point under cc license. However he has the first 2 books of his Rifters tetralogy free under cc license at his web site rifters.com, in html and pdf formats. They are very good also and I ordered the rifters 3-4 immediately from Amazon, again unfortunately not available in e-book form. The specific links are:

http://rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm

http://rifters.com/real/MAELSTROM.htm

Liviu

Thanks for sending this. I'm well into Starfish.

Thanks, Liviu.

Actually looking more carefully through Mr. Watts' site I discovered that these links were posted here in 2005 with some other formats for the books too.

http://rifters.com/real/links.htm

I had no idea about that and anyway I think that Mr. Watts books really deserve a lot of exposure so he can get to publish another book. What I would find useful if somehow these recommended sites could be centralized somewhere, so we could look them up whenever we join this forum.

Liviu

Note: Peter Watts has a third book out in the same series as Starfish and Maelstrom. It's been published in two parts, as Behemoth: B-Max (http://www.amazon.com/Behemoth-B-Max-Peter-Watts/dp/0765307219/sr=8-4/qid=1163061909/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4/102-5774507-8617758?ie=UTF8&s=books) and Behemoth: Seppuku (http://www.amazon.com/Behemoth-Seppuku-Peter-Watts/dp/0765311720/sr=8-2/qid=1163061909/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-5774507-8617758?ie=UTF8&s=books). He is well-deserving of your purchases if you enjoyed the first two in the series.

He also has a very well-reviewed new book out: Blindsight (http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765312182/sr=8-1/qid=1163061909/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5774507-8617758?ie=UTF8&s=books).

I poked around the site a bit earlier this week and did see the Behemoth books. I'd like to say that I will read through the entire series, but I've never been one to do that. Maybe I should this time just to experience it.

He also has a very well-reviewed new book out: Blindsight (http://www.amazon.com/Blindsight-Peter-Watts/dp/0765312182/sr=8-1/qid=1163061909/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5774507-8617758?ie=UTF8&s=books).


As mentioned in my original post Blindsight is the book that turned me to Dr. Watts. It is an absolutely amazing hard/literary sf book. The rifters books (of which I finished 1,2 and started 3) are good but Blindsight is to my mind as Spin by RC Wilson was last year, the unexpected sf book that blows you away. Two very interesting reviews are :

http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=522

http://speculativereviews.blogspot.com/

Liviu

In LRF format (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20950) is Starfish. Coming soon is PRC and IMP.

Rifters 3 & 4, as one volume "Behemoth", as well as "Blindsight", are available in various ebook formats on Feedbooks: http://www.feedbooks.com/discover/author/193