Free books (Kindle) 4 titles by Norman Spinrad [Science Fiction Award Nominee]

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by dwig

I downloaded the short story collection New Worlds Coming and while I haven't read it yet I can say it is truly a poorly assembled book ...

There's actually a note in the front of that one saying that Spinrad grabbed the e-texts for that from various quote-unquote "online sources" (i.e. the darknet), apologizing for the formatting.

Apparently he just copy-pastes stuff into some sort of Word doc and runs it through Calibre, judging by the large Calibre logo graphic at the front of the Look Inside sample for Mexica.

But yeah, it's just as well we're getting stuff for free (for a limited time), considering that he's not putting any real effort (or is just completely clueless about how-to*) into making nice e-versions of his books and just dumps up the uncorrected backlist text in the Kindle store and still charges at least $3 a pop for it (not unlike certain major publishers, come to think of it ).

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who's 1-clicked and pointed out the newer freebied titles. I'm hoping that a few more will show up, though that'll probably jinx the chances now.

* Which is kind of backed up by his official website, which looks like an escapee from the Geocities shutdown.

[Dr. Drib]

Unfortunately, last year he apparently had (and still may be?) suffering from stomach cancer. He doesn't look well in the recent photos I've seen.

The luxury of Time (again, unfortunately, if he is still unwell), may be significantly reduced for him and (perhaps?) he just wishes to get his books out there to his public in ebook format.


Don

NOTE: There is a lot of speculation on my part, but I think most understand the gist of what I'm saying.

[ATDrake]

That's very sad to hear. I had no idea he'd been unwell.

At least he's trying to get his stuff out as legit e-books, even if they're not being done very well*, which is more than what could be said of a lot of his similarly-aged peers *coughRayBradburycough*.

* It is very rarely that I say that the Smashwords Meatgrinder might actually be an improvement, but if Mr. Spinrad started from a decently organized Word document according to the SW formatting guidelines, it would probably turn out better than whatever he's been submitting to DTP.

[bgalbrecht]

I think there are some other authors (for example, Walter Jon Williams) who are also starting with darknet editions for their out of print backlist, but are using the darknet editions as a starting point, and are taking the time to correct the errors. If Spinrad has been seriously ill lately, that may explain why he's skipped the editing/proofreading/reformatting steps. However, it makes it hard to justify buying his work at new book prices if it's poorly proofed and formatted, especially when I have it in print.

[Dr. Drib]

Here's a link to his blog, in which he explains his condition.

It was dated July, 2010.

http://normanspinradatlarge.blogspot...cer-diary.html



Don

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Sadly, neither available to Canadians (or outside the US, I'd wager), but thanks for the heads-up!

All these titles appear to be available free in Canada now.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

All these titles appear to be available free in Canada now.

Trying from 3 different browsers with my region correctly set still says that the historical novel Mexica is "Not currently available", same as it was at the beginning of the thread.

All the original 4 titles + Osama the Gun were always available in all regions, but roughly half of Mr. Spinrad's catalogue appears to be geo-restricted to the US, perhaps due to initial unfamiliarity with the DTP region rights settings, since he certainly should have the distro rights to his own long-out-of-print and undoubtedly reverted catalogue.

Also, I note with a certain amount of pleased glee that some of these are now in the top #10 rankings for Kindle books, albeit in totally wrong categories:

AEIAutobiography is now #1 in "Journalist" memoirs, and Mexica is #3 in Nonfiction > History > Americas.

Thank you all for your awesome 1-click work!

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Trying from 3 different browsers with my region correctly set still says that the historical novel Mexica is "Not currently available", same as it was at the beginning of the thread.

All the original 4 titles + Osama the Gun were always available in all regions

Ooops, sorry ... mis-read your intent that only these other titles were excluded.