SciFi Magazine E-Books

[Bob Russell]

I've been visiting the Palm Addicts forum recently and find a lot of interesting things there. The ebook vs real book discussion has been especially good. For example, this post by Paul Biba about Fictionwise having electronic subscriptions for some science fiction magazines...

There is one thing about ebooks that most people don't know about - magazine subscriptions! I love ebooks and read quite a lot of them, but to me magazines are wonderful ebook material. Fictionwise (www.fictionwise.com) has subscriptions to Asimov's, Analog, and Fantasy and Sicence Fiction magazines. I get a new issue "delivered" every month and have a little surprise every 30 days. I used to subscribe to the paper editions, but unlike books I always discarded them. As they are disposable I don't feel guilty when I delete them, and in some ways the ebook fom is better because I can always find the orginal copy back on the server in my library. When I had "real" copies if I threw it away it was gone forever. Fictionwise also has subscriptions to mystery magazines, so if you are a magazine reader - take a look.

Another good reason for ebooks is that they are an excellent source of out-of-print books. I am a Richard Burton fan, for example. Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890) was an English explorer, who, among other things, was the first "white" man to enter Mecca - he went in disguise as an Arab. All his books are out of print, including his monumental 16 volume translation of the Arabian Nights. Blackmask, however, (www.blackmask.com) has released all of this works on their site and they are now available again. All the Blackmask ebooks are free, so if you want classics or out-of-print works take a look over there. (By the way, I have noticed a number of sites charging for classic ebooks when the same books are available for free from Blackmask. Always check there first.)

I'm not a big SciFi fan anymore, but I do think I'll check out Sir Richard Burton.