Doctorow and Stross Release Latest Novels for Free

FleaPlus writes "Two prominent science fiction authors have recently released their newest novels as free downloads to coincide with their in-store releases. The first is Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, by Cory Doctorow. This is an unconventional story about an entrepreneur (who happens to be the child of a mountain and a washing machine) who gets involved in a scheme to blanket Toronto with free wireless mesh network, among other things. The second is Accelerando, by Charles Stross, which tells the tale of three generations of the Macx family (beginning with perptually-slashdotted venture altruist Manfred Macx) in the years leading up to and beyond a technological singularity."

Comments

Re:Good luck, suckers

[kotku]

Personally I like sitting in a deck chair in the sun with a nice paper book. My puter is for work or baiting slashdot copyright whingers .....

DRM

[md81544]

I love the section about DRM that Cory Doctorow has included in the preamble to the book:

DRM

The worst technology idea since the electrified nipple-clamp is "Digital Rights Management," a suite of voodoo products that are supposed to control what you do with information after you lawfully acquire it. When you buy a DVD abroad and can't watch it at home because it's from the wrong "region," that's DRM. When you buy a CD and it won't rip on your computer, that's DRM. When you buy an iTune and you can't loan it to a friend, that's DRM.

DRM doesn't work. Every file ever released with DRM locks on it is currently available for free download on the Internet. You don't need any special skills to break DRM these days: you just have to know how to search Google for the name of the work you're seeking.

No customer wants DRM. No one woke up this morning and said, "Damn, I wish there was a way to do less with my books, movies and music."

DRM can't control copying, but it can control competition. Apple can threaten to sue Real for making Realmedia players for the iPod on the grounds that Real had to break Apple DRM to accomplish this. The cartel that runs licensing for DVDs can block every new feature in DVDs in order to preserve its cushy business model (why is it that all you can do with a DVD you bought ten years ago is watch it, exactly what you could do with it then -- when you can take a CD you bought a decade ago and turn it into a ringtone, an MP3, karaoke, a mashup, or a file that you send to a friend?).

DRM is used to silence and even jail researchers who expose its flaws, thanks to laws like the US DMCA and Europe's EUCD.

In case there's any doubt: I hate DRM. There is no DRM on this book. None of the books you get from this site have DRM on them. If you get a DRMed ebook, I urge you to break the locks off it and convert it to something sensible like a text file.

If you want to read more about DRM, here's a talk I gave to Microsoft on the subject:

http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

and here's a paper I wrote for the International Telecommunications Union about DRM and the developing world:

http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/itu_drm.php

Re:DRM

[kotku]

DRM doesn't work. Every file ever released with DRM locks on it is currently available for free download on the Internet. You don't need any special skills to break DRM these days: you just have to know how to search Google for the name of the work you're seeking.

DRM does work. It doesn't have to work all the time. As long as it is still easier to purchased DRM'd stuff than search for cracked stuff on the internet there will still be sales of it and people will make money. People here kid themselves that if everything was available for free with no DRM at all content providers would still make some money. It's a war and nobody will ever trully win it. Content providers will come up with ingenious ways to protect thier new works which *will* work for a short while and then somebody will crack it. Content providers move to new tech. It doesn't have to work forever. Just enough time to cash in.

Re:DRM

[mwvdlee]

I think what is meant is that DRM doesn't stop people who want to get the media illegally AT ALL, it only inconveniences their customers.

You say a protection scheme works for a short while. With the latest protection schemes, they were hacked within a few days; most people wouldn't even have had the time to buy the player yet.

So for the benefit of just a few days of additional income, DRM inconveniences all paying customers for the rest of the DRM's existence.

DRM doesn't work since nobody who matters benefits, not the companies nor the paying customers.

Re:DRM

[AliasMoze]

On the other hand, Doctorow has had success in the past by making books available in print and via free download. His success flies in the face of the assumption that downloads kill sales. That's what much of the anti-downloading argument hinges on, isn't it, an assumption? What if that assumption is wrong?

Re:DRM

[kotku]

I think what is meant is that DRM doesn't stop people who want to get the media illegally AT ALL

Maybe it doesn't stop a core of people who know how to apply the patches, upgrade thier firmware or browse warez sites but there are plenty of people who wouldn't have a clue. These are the people the content providers have to muddle to keep them in the shops and they are the majority. It doesn't have to be impossible just inconvienient.

Re:DRM

[kotku]

I'd still pay for a paper book over a download just for the ability to sit in the sun on a deck chair with it. If E-book readers approach the quality, feel and experience of paper books I'm sure the assumption will hold just fine.

Re:DRM

[Council]

As far as the young internet citizenry goes, I'm moderate to right-wing on DRM and data liberalization (I'm fairly left-wing in real life). This might not be the best label; what I mean is that while I like the ideas of free information, I think there's a lot of bias in the debate and blood in the water on both sides. I think there are decent points and stupiditiy on both sides, and I don't know that anyone really has a grasp on what this new world is going to look like. I'm in favor of not doing anything too rash and waiting to see how it plays out.

A few points worth keeping in mind:

There's a tendency around here to consider what can happen to the exclusion of what likely will happen. That is, just because there's a way to copy something doesn't mean enough people will go to the trouble to do so. There's no theoretical problem with copying paperbacks, but the average Joe doesn't have the time or the equipment, and most in the American system get their books from legal stores.

However, as with most parts of the debate, this digital revolution introduces a new twist: once something is broken, it can spread quickly. You don't have to re-break it for each copy. So you have a legal network and an illegal network sitting next to each other, struggling for supremacy.

I think what it comes down to is that people who want to control how easy it is to get to something can do so, but only by a matter of degree. It will always be possible to get an illegal copy of anything digital. But they can probably continue to make it difficult. This might be wrong, though; maybe there is no effective stranglehold that can be put on p2p traffic as bandwidth grows. Maybe file distribution systems will allow total anonymity for everyone in a more practical sense than Freenet. I'm not sure.

Let's try to look at the possible futures:

1. Total DRM failure:

KaZaA networks get better and better, cleaner and cleaner. DRM is cracked constantly and repeatedly struck down in court.

It seems that here there are still several possibilities.

1a. First: Total artistic anarchy. No average consumer pays money for videos or music. No one is forced to watch commercials in breaks in the shows. No one buys CDs. No one pays for their movies.

1a1. There are interesting lessons of history here that I don't know very much about and someone should go into in comments. We really might see a fading of big-budget media-creation enterprises. A lot of people don't think this would be so bad.

1a2. We might also see alternative payment methods arise. There's the idea that the market can handle anything. People will pay for what they want, one way or another. Concerts or patronages become the way artists make money.

1b. Second:

Artistic anarchy augmented by voluntary payment. People buy from iTunes or donate because they honestly want -- or are convinced by PR campaigns -- to support the artists they like. I think this is sort of wishful thinking. It might go for a while. But people don't like to spend money. Maybe this will blend into the 'patron' model, with a few rich people doing basically this.

1c. Third:

A tax supporting art.

This could happen.

2. Partial DRM failure:

What we have now. DRM and similar efforts makes it hard work to get stuff illegally, but easy enough. We continue with the current system, where there's a class of people who pays, for one reason or another (usually to avoid the difficulties and risks of illegal copying), and a large class that downloads whatever they want and pays for little. The system takes a hit but continues for quite some time. Then things get hazy.

Meanwhile, DRM is making a lot of problems for people who are just trying to move things player-to-player. People lose their music and get upset.

3. DRM general success:

Re:DRM

[RAMMS EIN]

``I think what is meant is that DRM doesn't stop people who want to get the media illegally AT ALL

Maybe it doesn't stop a core of people who know how to apply the patches, upgrade thier firmware or browse warez sites but there are plenty of people who wouldn't have a clue. These are the people the content providers have to muddle to keep them in the shops and they are the majority. It doesn't have to be impossible just inconvienient.''

Err... You kind of lost me there. The people who get things illegally mostly get them of the Net. Once someone cracks the DRM and makes a DRMless version available, these people will get access whether or not they know how to circumvent the DRM themselves. So it doesn't stop them at all, just as the grandparent said.

If people can be "kept in shops" they have to go to shops in the first place. That means they are not the people who get things illegally. These are the people who are inconvenienced by DRM, just like the grandparent said. And for the record; I don't think these people are the majority anymore.

So, unless I misunderstood you, I think you are completely wrong.

Re:DRM

[David McBride]

Maybe it doesn't stop a core of people who know how to apply the patches, upgrade thier firmware or browse warez sites but there are plenty of people who wouldn't have a clue.

You're missing the point. They don't need a clue -- they can just nab a copy from someone else who does.

See Microsoft's Darknet paper.

Re:DRM

[LonghornBevo]

QUOTE from Cory Doctorow's talk to Microsoft's Research group about DRM : Raise your hand if you're thinking something like, "But DRM doesn't have to be proof against smart attackers, only average individuals! It's like a speedbump!" Put your hand down. This is a fallacy for two reasons: one technical, and one social. They're both bad for society, though.
Here's the technical reason: I don't need to be a cracker to break your DRM. I only need to know how to search Google, or Kazaa, or any of the other general-purpose search tools for the cleartext that someone smarter than me has extracted. ....
Here's the social reason that DRM fails: keeping an honest user honest is like keeping a tall user tall. DRM vendors tell us that their technology is meant to be proof against average users, not organized criminal gangs like the Ukranian pirates who stamp out millions of high-quality counterfeits. It's not meant to be proof against sophisticated college kids. It's not meant to be proof against anyone who knows how to edit her registry, or hold down the shift key at the right moment, or use a search engine. At the end of the day, the user DRM is meant to defend against is the most unsophisticated and least capable among us.
Wonderful article! Full text can be found at : http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

Re:DRM

[kotku]

"So, unless I misunderstood you, I think you are completely wrong."

Don't feel bad about misunderstanding. It is a common Slashdot problem. Perhapps you need a sauna to relax.

Re:DRM

[lisaparratt]

The worst technology idea since the electrified nipple-clamp is "Digital Rights Management".

But that means DRM must be genius, because electrified nipple-clamps are far from a bad idea! :S

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

For about 3 years I only read literature on my Palm m125 (the screen is a square a bit more then 200 pixels wide), and I don't feel I'm loosing anything. I've actually almost forgoten how it is to read a real book :-) But using the "magics" of the Internet, I'm reading books I couldn't have read and I only read them in English, thus improving my knowledge of the language.

Re:DRM

[mfago]

The books are also available at HTML and PDF, so you could always print them out. However, I've had Accelerando sitting on my (OSX) desktop for about two weeks and plan to buy the hardcover as soon as I decide if it's worth it. As you pointed out, there just isn't anything else with the feel of a paper book.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think so. If the there was DRM General Success, the protection wouldn't get any lighter/less idiotic. The companies would claim that they need to step up DRM to avoid a return to the "Dark Ages of Internet Piracy"

Good post though.

Re:DRM

[RickHunter]

But here's the problem: unless your technology explicitly precludes the possibility of freely redistributed content, it doesn't matter that only a few people will break the DRM. They just find the right off-shore host to upload it to and suddenly anyone in the world can download it and play it without having to repeat the process themselves.

Re:DRM

[doc modulo]

1b. Second:

Artistic anarchy augmented by voluntary payment. People buy from iTunes or donate because they honestly want -- or are convinced by PR campaigns -- to support the artists they like. I think this is sort of wishful thinking. It might go for a while. But people don't like to spend money. Maybe this will blend into the 'patron' model, with a few rich people doing basically this.

I think smart, aware and well-wishing people will want to encourage artists with the right attitude. People like that are on the increase because of the internet (both categories of people are).

So I think it will work well enough. Hell, he got publicity/"PR" on slashdot by releasing his book for free didn't he? Would he have gotten as much attention if he hadn't released it in his new way of looking at the world? His method already works.

In the old world, publicity was something which cost a lot of money but was easy to force-feed to the public because the public only had a couple of sources of information (well, mostly data, not information). Nowadays there's so much info on the internet that you really have to fight for people's attention.

Do we really like the type of marketing from big corporations? The manipulation, the spinning?
It's not as easy as putting it on TV anymore. You can't PUSH as much on the internet as you could push a product on TV or other exclusive, world-filling channels. You can only PULL. That's why the most compelling ways of PR will win out on the internet, and the most compelling is free and with goodwill to all mankind.

Re:DRM

[tgibbs]

DRM does work. It doesn't have to work all the time. As long as it is still easier to purchased DRM'd stuff than search for cracked stuff on the internet there will still be sales of it and people will make money.

I don't pay because the stuff isn't available otherwise--I pay for the service of providing the material in a convenient, readily available format guaranteed by the originator to be complete as he intended to present it. I'm carrying Stross's book around with me at the moment. The fact that it is available online and I could print out a copy doesn't make any difference to me; the book is more convenient.

Re:DRM

[mbourgon]

The question is, how long does it last? What happens when e-ink/e-paper eventually works and can be purchased in a "book" form, like the Sony thing? At that point, there's no real difference between the book (which you pay for) and the e-book (which you can freely download), except that the author gets paid for one. Yes, yes, I know, alternate business models, etc. I'm just curious.

Re:DRM

[radish]

There's a problem with 1a. I don't HAVE to buy CDs anymore, I could download everything I want from p2p. But I don't, primarily because I want the physical disk and want the sound quality. As it turns out I buy probably 10 a month or so. Look even at Cory himself - all his books are available online for free, but guess what? He still sells plenty because people want a big papery thing they can read on the bus.

The key here is to understand that while people might not pay directly for the work in question because they can download it for free, they will pay for a convenient, collectable, tactile container for that work.

Re:DRM

[radish]

There are plenty of legal (and I don't mean Russian) music download sites which don't use DRM. I am a customer of several. They sell regular mp3s of commercial tunes and make good money doing so. Their catalogue is non-RIAA, but that's fine because none of the decent stuff in the dance music genre is on the major labels. The artists I can download from Beatport, for example, are the equivalents of Green Day or whoever - these are not minor league. If it can work for dance music...why not other forms?

Examples: Beatport, AudioJelly.

I've spent $00's on music downloads but don't own a single DRM file. I intend to keep it that way.

Re:DRM

[Suppafly]

On the other hand, Doctorow has had success in the past by making books available in print and via free download. His success flies in the face of the assumption that downloads kill sales.

Then again, Cory tends to ignore the fact that being a blog celebrity also helps him sell books, instead just focusing on the fact that he allows free downloads. Some Joe Schmoe that didn't already have some kind of following but put books out for free download would most certainly not do as well as Cory.

Re:DRM

[Master of Transhuman]

DRM does NOT work.

Nobody buys product because it's got DRM. Unless it gets in their way, nobody even notices DRM. So saying anybody is "prevented" from downloading free stuff because of DRM is nonsense. Most people buy stuff because of impulse purchases or because they don't know about or know where to find the free stuff.

That will change as broadband becomes ubiquitous and the industries move to online purchases of product. Once people make a habit of searching for product on the Net, they'll suddenly start seeing the free stuff.

Nobody is stopped from downloading free stuff once it's cracked either. You're assuming people have to download cracks, etc., which simply isn't true. Once the DRM is cracked, the product looks exactly the same as when it wasn't, and anybody who knows enough to do a download at all can get it with no hassles.

All it does is raise the cost of the product to those people who do buy it.

However, the basic point is correct - some people will NEVER bother to get free stuff, either because they're dumb or they actually prefer to get it from the people who make it for quality or other reasons. Whether those people will make a product profitable enough is another issue.

Re:DRM

[Master of Transhuman]

"At the end of the day, the user DRM is meant to defend against is the most unsophisticated and least capable among us."

Exactly! And these are EXACTLY the people who go and buy the legal stuff ANYWAY!

Which makes DRM just a way to raise costs on the product to justify a higher price tag ("See! Those pirates forced us to triple our profit margin!") It's like the oil companies - "Oh, woe is us! There's no oil left! We have to triple our profits this year!"

Makes you wonder if the RIAA is the one doing all the P2P downloading - just to create a justification for raising prices!

Re:DRM

[pythorlh]

However, this is not necessarily true of the authors over at http://www.bean.com/library/. These authors release full books without any DRM, and most of them get boosts to their in-print book sales. Baen has even released several ISOs of CDs full of DRM-free versions of books Baen publishes. They put these CDs into some of their hard-cover books, and it helps sales. There is plenty of evidence that DRM free publishing creates wealth.

Re:DRM

[FLEB]

I see far too much of this idea of "No fair! Widespread success takes more than just making the status quo!" Yeah, it's the Internet and the "new economy". That means that you do have to get found in the gigantic drone of crap that's already out there. That's the disadvantage. The advantage is that if you have the ability, it's a whole lot easier from there on out.

I would have to say that the free-book giveaway has probably greatly helped his success. As for the Joe Schmoes, well, your Internet's right there! Gather an audience! Stop being a Joe Schmoe and attain success! It's not like blog fame really requires much beyond eloquence, intelligence, and some webspace.

Re:DRM

[Mordant]

What's wrong with electrified nipple-clamps?!

Re:DRM

[swelke]

DRM does work. It doesn't have to work all the time.

That depends greatly on what you think the point of DRM is. If you feel the point of DRM is to inconvenience users and make it more difficult to use the stuff they've bought in nonstandard ways, then no, DRM doesn't have to work every time. On the other hand, if you feel that the point is to make it impossible for massive copying of the work to happen, then DRM does indeed have to work all the time. As soon as DRM fails exactly once, the un-DRM'ed copy exists. As soon as the data exists, then the copying part is easy (that's what p2p is all about). No joe-schmoe user ever has to understand how to break DRM, they just have to know how to use some p2p app, which they've proven remarkably adept at doing.

People here kid themselves that if everything was available for free with no DRM at all content providers would still make some money.

You seem to be contradicting yourself here, but you're free to do so. I'd just like to mention that Docotorow does, indeed, sell copies of his books that are available free with no DRM. While not a general disproof of your point, it's at least a contrary case.

Content providers move to new tech. It doesn't have to work forever. Just enough time to cash in.

No DRM procedure actually provides copy prevention for very long. The longest I can think of is the CSS on DVDs. Does anybody know of a DRM scheme on a mass-market product that worked for a long time? Anyway, these days they don't even last long enough to "cash in". They just still manage to sell copies because most users either don't don't feel it's worth the effort to get a copied version, don't know how, or feel it's more morally appropriate to buy one.

Re:DRM

[braindead]

I think we can look at computer games: they have been fighting DRM longer than music has. Initially, no game was protected. Now, some games can be copied trivially (i.e. no DRM), many are protected to the extreme (require the CD to start, or even require an internet connection to start(!)). And yet, hacked versions of the games are easily available. This is similar to your scenario no 2.

And what happens? Most people buy games (possibly because we feel the makers of the game deserve our money), and the industry is still very alive and prosperous.

So my prediction would be that music will go the way of the video games: lots of yucky DRM and there will still be freeloaders, but not enough to entirely trash the system.

I can't say I'm happy with the current state of video games protection, because none of the non-independent games I bought will work once their CD gets scratched. I cannot make backup copies.

Maybe we'll see more independent work? That's certainly happening these days with video games.

Re:DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, seeing that you can kill a healthy man with about a second's worth of a hundred milliamps across the heart (people can start dying down near 25mA), and considering the positioning of the nipples...

Re:DRM

[danzona]

What happens when e-ink/e-paper eventually works and can be purchased in a "book" form, like the Sony thing?

How much of the cost of a book is in the materials, printing, distribution, and shelving of the physical book? Would the ebook you describe sell electronically for $3?

I haven't bought a book (for myself) in years. I use the library. This is a system wherein I pay to a subscription service and get to read all the books I want, with the caveat that I can't have too many at the same time and I may have to wait a while for a specific title. Now that I mention it, I do the same with movies (Netflix). And console games (Gamefly).

Don't get too hung up on people who will read the book without paying the author for it. Peole have always loaned books to friends, sold books to used bookstores, or just left them behind on the train for somebody else to read. All of these methods result in somebody reading a book without paying the author, and yet the writing industry hasn't collapsed.

Re:DRM

[HiThere]

Would you have bought them if you didn't download them?

If not, then the vendors didn't lose anything. Personally, I feel that anyone willing to put up with reading things on a Palm is either so short on storage space, or so short financially, that they probably wouldn't have bought the printed copy if that's all that was available.

If you don't feel you're missing anything, I must wonder what trade-offs you are contemplating. I can't think of much of anything I'd willingly read on a 200px X 200px screen. At keypunch resolution that's 33 char X 22 lines...and keypunch lettering was never intended to be read in more than brief spurts.

Re:DRM

[dillon_rinker]

His method already works.

True. But his method doesn't scale. If 500 other authors released a book this month for free, sans DRM, it wouldn't be news. If every book was available as a free download, how would the authors make money? Note that the answer is not "How could..." ANYONE can make up guesses and suppositions; ANYONE can decide that the world should work the way they want it to.

The real question is "How do you ensure that most of the rich people make more money when the world has changed in the way you want it to change? And how do you prove that you're correct?" The rich people run things; if you can show them how they'll make more money, they'll do your bidding. if you can't convince them that changing the status quo will make them richer, you'll have to force them to change, either through government intervention, unlikely because the rich people ARE the government, or through force of arms. I don't think you could find many people willing to kill over DRM.

Re:DRM

[WNight]

I agree with the earlier poster who said that a DRM success wouldn't be any good for the consumers. We are living in a period of DRM success - just look at anyone who owns DVDs and doesn't use DVD Shrink.

They are forced to watch trailers on many disks (Sixth Sense for one), can't screenshot or record a quick excerpt, and often can't play it to secondary video devices.

This world of DRM Success shows that nobody in charge cares about the customer. Stores refuse to take back broken movies like Sixth Sense, or even ones that for a software glitch refuse to work in computer players (I have a few that won't play in PowerDVD or Xine). And then there's the fact that using non-authorized software is illegal. I'm not allowed to try to fix this.

DRM is never going to not suck - there will always be reasons for wanting to prevent things that people are free to do with unprotected media like books (annotating, removing unwanted pages, skipping dull crap). Studios don't want you to do anything to their media, or watch it any way other than they intend. Allowances for consumer choice would be a hole their ideal total DRM, as such, they'll fight against you ever getting choice.

Re:DRM

[JamesTRexx]

You mean the Baen Free Library.

Re:DRM

[pythorlh]

Damn. That figures that the only place I spell it wrongly in the whole post is in the link. I even previewed. Thanks for the correction.

Re:DRM

[JamesTRexx]

Well, you know about Murphy and his law... You're welcome. :-)

Re:DRM

[AliasMoze]

The status quo sometimes really does gets in the way, though. Sometimes it doesn't, but in this case (and in the case of new economic models) it stifles even the discussion of new ideas. The resistance to an author giving away a free book is a good example. People say it won't work long after it already has, because they're stuck in an old believe system.

Needless to say, venturing into new territory and new systems requires some devil's advocates, but it also requires some pioneers, those who challenge what we think we know - with action. Doctorow, for whatever reason (it doesn't matter), is doing that, testing out theories. He's putting his money where his mouth is, so what's the problem?

What if we find out that giving books, music, and movies away doesn't affect sales at all? And why are so many people resistant to even asking the question? Because they think they know what they don't.

Re:DRM

[Coyoteold1]

I agree. I have been saying for years that copy protection and other forms of DRM create difficulty and inconvenience for legitimate users of products, without doing anything other than giving pirates an interesting way to spend a few hours.

At several places I worked (that legally purchased software), it was easier to use cracked versions of software (especially those requiring dongles), than to use the expensive thing purchased out-of-box.

Worse, part of DRM laws have nothing to do with actual copy prevention - they exist to allow litigation against legitimate criticism or competition.

I do believe that software and media piracy is theft. And I believe that the creator of a technology or a piece of art, or whatever should benefit from it's use.

But I think that Digital Rights Management, as it exists, to my knowledge, does more harm than good, and tends to inconvenience legitimate customers.

I am also concerned that some of the DRM laws set precedents that could conceivably have much darker consequences than someday not being able to share a book with a friend.

Re:DRM

[FLEB]

Hmm... I think we might be arguing the same side of the issue. My thesis was "Although it may not work to simply write a book (the status quo) and put it online for free, putting a book online may be a booster when you also supplement it with other buzz-builders, such as building a rapport and community around yourself."

Re:DRM

[AliasMoze]

Oh, oops, my bad. I see what you mean.

great way to go

[genomicssheep]

I have just read the first few paragraphs of both, one book is perhaps not to my taste, the other has been added to my Amazon shopping cart. If more authors were to do this, then I am sure that many more of us whould while away our working hours discovering authors whom we really shouldn't. I prefer dead tree, but free-and-online is the *best* distraction in the office.

Re:great way to go

[bcrowell]

Both books are listed on The Assayer, my site that catalogs free books and accepts user-submitted reviews. Reviews of either one (Doctorow, Stross) would be greatly appreciated!

Can I redistribute them?

[automaticus]

Wow, really great idea! Has anyone gone thru the fineprint? Can I redistribute them?

Re:Can I redistribute them?

[charlie]

The "fine print" in each book is a standard creative commons license.

In the case of my own, I've picked no-derivs no-commercial; as long as you're not redistributing the book for profit or creating new works derived from it, I don't mind what you do.

Re:Can I redistribute them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, thank you very much!

Re:Can I redistribute them?

[Kiryat Malachi]

Crap. Not only do you write stories I really enjoy, but you have a 4 digit slashdot ID? Awe. Shock. Science fiction fan lust.

(Seriously, though. I've truly enjoyed everything I've read of yours, and I'm impressed that you decided to release under Creative Commons. Been following Manfred in Asimov's for a couple years now, and looking forward to following the clan further in Accelerando.)

Don't want to sound cynical but

[kotku]

Being anti DRM is the flavor of the month with a certain demographic. This little rant above and the release of a non DRM'd book is great marketing. Look he got himself posted on slashdot!!!!

It is a bit like Metallica in reverse. Hard angry men encouraging other young angry men to break societies rules but wait .... somebody is downloading our music for free, lets run to the establishment.

Just as Metallica is hard and angry for *marketing* purposes when it suits them I can't quite believe this guy is anti DRM for any reasons other than it is good marketing for the moment.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[AliasMoze]

There's a slight difference between what Doctorow's doing and what Metallica did. Metallica was trying to throw fans in jail. Doctorow is trying to give something away.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[kotku]

The difference went left and you went right. Back up a bit think a little and take the other road.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[D'Sphitz]

uhhh, I don't think Metallica's stand was for marketing purposes, if anything it was the worst move of their careers, and they (Lars to be specific) have as admitted as much.

Why can't you take a stance or even a stand without it being a marketing move? It's certainly issues they (Metallica and this author) would know about, it's not like their injecting their opinions into world politics or something.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[charlie]

Considering that Cory is employed as the tech evangelist for The EFF in Europe, and is currently leading their campaign to block the broadcast flag for DRM in hi-def TV, you might want to re-think your idea that he's anti-DRM purely for pose value.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[kotku]

Maybe I should explain again ....

Metallica are *hard angry men* for marketting purposes.

Docotwrolwow ( or whatever ) is *anti DRM* for marketing purposes.

----

Metallica tells people to go out and break societies rules because that message matches thier audiences demographics.

Doctorwatchimac tells people to go out and break DRM because that message matches his audiences demographics

----

Metallica spat the dummy when people did just as they told them to and broke societies rules. It just happened that the rule they broke bit Metallica on the arse.

So what will it take to piss off Doctorwathimecallit. For starters why don't you go and scan his non downloadable books and place them on the internet and watch for the reaction.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[kotku]

Valid point! Mod him up !

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[the_womble]

scan his non downloadable books and place them on the internet and watch for the reaction.

He or his publisher will use you, that is sufficeint reason to stop people doing it, therefore DRM is not necessary.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[CatherineOmega]

Ten years in the future, Cory is being interviewed on an up-and-coming videoblog streamcast via camera phone.
"Why did you do it, Cory? Why did you pretend to fight DRM all this time?" asks the interviewer.
"I did it... for the power."

No, Cory truly is as passionate as he claims to be. He's released every one of his books for download, and evidently intends to continue to do the same.

Speaking of which, Charlie, are you planning on releasing the results of your Accelerando-for-free experiment? Have you been able to infer any patterns yet? Is Cory on to something here?

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[mouthbeef]

"For starters why don't you go and scan his non downloadable books and place them on the internet and watch for the reaction."

Well, the last time it happened, I scanned it back in and re-released it under a CC license.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[TheoMurpse]

He's not anti-DRM for marketing purposes. Have you read BoingBoing at all the past few years? Have you paid attention to the EFF? It's his fucking job to go around Europe and push the Creative Commons and anti-DRM. And it doesn't pay well at all. So don't tell me he's in it for the money.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[Bander]

Classic.

"Whoever wrote this doesn't know a thing about Kurt Vonnegut!"

I've really enjoyed EST and DAOITMK, and I'm looking forward to your latest. In my opinion, the cover art alone should be enough to move physical instances of it.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that Cory is employed as the tech evangelist for The EFF in Europe, because he believes in their goals, you might want to re-think your idea that he's anti-DRM purely for the money.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[mbbac]

You can only be cynical when you're informed. Right now, you're just ignorant. If you want to become cynical, you'll need to do a little research on the history of Cory, his books, and DRM first. Then come back here and post another cynical comment if you haven't changed your mind once you've gained some perspective on the matter.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[Romeozulu]

Yes, but that says Cory has alternate motives as well. Cory does make make is living off of writing books, be does not depend on it to put food in his mouth, that coupled with downloadable books being far worse than paper ones to enjoy (for most people, not all), makes this more of a "stunt".

But it is no secret that I have no love for Cory. I think his milatant attitude is not helping the cause for copyright reform and relastic DRM soltutions.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[Romeozulu]

That should have said:

"Cory does *not* make his is living off..."

Sorry

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[mouthbeef]

"But it is no secret that I have no love for Cory. I think his milatant attitude is not helping the cause for copyright reform and relastic DRM soltutions."

It's news to me, anyway. Does that mean you don't want your birthday present? Crap. What am I going to do with this Speak and Spell I modded to include "soltutions" and "milatant"?

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[Jherek Carnelian]

I think his milatant attitude is not helping the cause for copyright reform and relastic DRM

Relastic DRM, is that like craptastic? Because I that's about the best DRM can ever get.

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[Anonymous Coward]

So what will it take to piss off Doctorwathimecallit. For starters why don't you go and scan his non downloadable books and place them on the internet and watch for the reaction.

For starters, why should anyone listen to your uneducated ramblings if you can't be bothered to at least copy-and-paste the guy's name?

Re:Don't want to sound cynical but

[M1FCJ]

Metallica? Hard and angry? Not since 1988! Since then I've stopped listening any crap they come up with. The most angriest they were was around 1986 and since then they've grown up to become boring old farts.

Fodder for net-publishing statistics

[soma_0806]

This should provide some really useful numbers for those looking into e-publishing and those looking to how much impact an electronic release could have on paper-publishing profits.

If there is not a large amount of interest in the electronic format when the books are free, then it will send a strong signal that we may not be receptive to the medium yet. Particulary as these are both books whose readership would be more likely than the average reader to be open to electronic format (I wouold guess, not facts to back this up.)

Alternatively, if both books sell poorly in the paper format, but do pretty well on the electronic release, it could give publishers some idea of what kind of impact e-books could have on the market should whatever security measure they implement be cracked (because they usually are). However, as this target audience is probably more e-friendly that others, the data may unrealistically inflate the prospective damage.

I personally spend far too much time staring at my screen already. Give me the paper version any day.

AC

Re:Fodder for net-publishing statistics

[aussie_a]

If there is not a large amount of interest in the electronic format when the books are free, then it will send a strong signal that we may not be receptive to the medium yet

Or it could just be that they suck. Big-time. And word has gotten around. The summaries don't exactly leap out at me, and there are a TON of free works out there on the world-wide-web that are good (thanks in large part to Project Guttenberg).

Having said that, I've bookmarked the stories and will be checking them both out in the near future, merely because of how they've released it.

Re:Good luck, suckers

[KDan]

Just you wait till e-paper comes of age... then you'll sit in a deck chair in the sun with a nice sheet of e-paper that can display more books than you can shake a stick at.

Daniel

Re:Good luck, suckers

[kotku]

And that will be the same year I can run an AI on my computer posting witty comments to slashdot.

Stross totally rocks

[billstewart]

Lobsters is a really really strange short story, and you should go read it, ideally online while sitting in your favorite pub. Singularity Skyis a novel exploring a post-Singularity world, nanotech, clashes of cultures, reaction to post-scarcity economics and human (and post-human) creativity. It's deep stuff, and simultaneously a fun read, and he's an interesting guy to talk to if you're ever on the correct coast of the correct continent or island.

Re:Stross totally rocks

[charlie]

Just in case you were wanting to read the first chapter of "Accelerando" without downloading the entire novel, I'd like to point out that Lobsters (as mentioned in the preceding post) is effectively the first draft of Chapter One.

Re:Stross totally rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

and you should go read it, ideally online while sitting in your favorite pub.

You are joking? It's bad enough with Television pervading Public Houses without more screens and sheep staring at them. If you want to watch a TV screen or look at a computer STAY AT HOME or are you really that insecure that you can't watch Televison without the need for dozens of people around you? Pah!

Re:Stross totally rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

ideally online while sitting in your favorite pub

Yeah while listening to your iPod...why bother going somewhere 'social' if all you are going to do is peform what is essentially 'antisocial' (and frankly ignorant) activities...I tell you what, iPods and Laptops, do people actually SPEAK to each other anymore?

Re:Stross totally rocks

[elrous0]

Yeah, I've been following Stross for years in Asmimov's and Dozois's "Best of Science Fiction." He's a great writer. Very few writers do post-humans better.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to the Lobster ship. But, don't worry, I'll leave another version of myself behind to handle any followup posts.

-Eric

Re:Stross totally rocks

[drsquare]

I've read it and I'm not really impressed. For a start it's in first-person, which strikes me as being a gimmick, and gimmicks are usually a sign of a lack of ideas, or a lack of confidence in the material by the author. A good book doesn't need gimmicks.

Secondly, the style of writing is really bad. It reminds me of that book which was mentioned in a Slashdot article the other week, that 'The Escapist' thing. The same school-boy level of writing. Over-describing everything, throwing in adjectives and technical jargon in every other word just to appeal to geeks, without any of it actually contributing to the story. In fact there's so much jargon, by the time you've got to the next sentence you've forgotten what was in the last one. Something about neurons or patents or heads-up displays or something.

It pisses me off when people write stuff that's full of buzzwords rather than filling it with any actual content. It's like management speak, but in a novel. The author thinks that if he mentions enough technology, all the geeks will like it, even if it's not very well written.

We should encourage people who can write, not just mindlessly buy books because it's 'sci fi' or whatever.

Although I approve of the distribution model, even though ebooks are crap. It's a much more democratic process than going entirely through print.

Re:Stross totally rocks

[KlomDark]

I disagree. I'm thinking all the tech speak is comfusing you. First person is a gimmick? Sounds like you're trying to imitate a professional critic who thinks the way to seem professional is to hate everything.

Just finished reading Singularity Sky last week, and am about 2/3s through Accellerando, and it's really the most interesting two books I've read in a long time. Although nothing like Known Space/Ringworld, the writing reminds me of Larry Niven in his prime.

Just my opinion, but I really enjoyed Singularity Sky and am very much enjoying Accelerando. Stross CAN write. Can you read?

Re:Stross totally rocks

[drsquare]

I disagree. I'm thinking all the tech speak is comfusing you.

It doesn't confuse me at all, I understand it, except the words he's made up. But just because I understand it doesn't make it any good. I could mention some piece of technology in every sentence but it wouldn't make it enjoyable to read. 99% of it doesn't contribute to the story, it gets in the way of it.

First person, I didn't mean that, I meant 'present tense'. It's not first person at all, I do that sometimes, write something completely unrelated that I'm subconciously thinking rather than what I'm actually writing about. But yeah it's a gimmick. There's a reason books are nearly always written in past tense. This present tense gets old fast, and once the novelty wears off it's just irritating.

Sounds like you're trying to imitate a professional critic who thinks the way to seem professional is to hate everything.

No, the way to be a professional critic is to criticise things that are bad and to praise things that are good. This book is not good. It seems that these electronically-distributed books aren't all that up to scratch, and it's nothing to do with being a snob.

Face the facts: if this book wasn't sci-fi, no-one would be interested in it. Good books transcend the genre, bad books don't, they're only of interest to fans of the genre, and they'll read it even if it's a shit book just because they like the subject-matter.

Imagine if someone wrote a book about a computer programmer, who spent all his days downloading MP3s and configuring Linux. It could be the most boring book in the world, with nothing happening, terrible writing, full of typos, stilted unnatural dialogue, no interesting characters, the main character a self-indulgent potrayal of what the author wishes he was like, pretty much the worst book in the world, but all the geeks would love it because it's about Linux and programming. That's the sort of thing we're dealing with here.

Although nothing like Known Space/Ringworld, the writing reminds me of Larry Niven in his prime.

In which case, I don't look forward to reading books by Larry Niven.

Re:Stross totally rocks

[LetterJ]

While I agree with the "school-boy" writing comment, I think you meant written in the present tense rather than first person (from what I read of it before I wanted to chuck my monitor out the window). And, present tense usually IS a gimmick.

First person would be, "I woke up tangled in bright-white sheets, an IV shunt freshly pulled from my arm. I reached to pull back the sheet from my face and was denied by the leather strap restraining my left hand." 3rd person would be "He woke up ...." Either one, made present tense becomes "I wake up" or "He wakes up".

Writing, like so many other things, has modes that shouldn't be attempted by amateurs. When writing fiction, 3rd person, past tense omniscient narrators are the easiest to write, by virtue of the fact that's what readers are most used to and comfortable with. When straying from any of these by shifting from 3rd to 1st (or heaven forbid 2nd) person, by shifting to present tense, or restricting a 3rd person narrator to a "single camera", that shifting draws attention to itself and shines an extra light on the writing.

If the writing is good, the light makes it look even better. However flaws in the writing become more obvious as well. As such, making the shift for reasons like "It's edgy" or "I want my future world to seem like it's happening now" tend to be less convincing than things like big plot twists that are emphasized by the narrator being kept in the dark about the situation, etc.

So, by shifting the tense to present (and moving it to the future would take even more skill) is a deviation that will call attention to anything else that's "off" in the writing. In this case, as with much sci-fi (especially the bad stuff), the focus is really on just trying to create a world and spend the entirety of the text describing just how cool that world is. The fact that the characters need some conflict and movement through the story is just a burden. This is frequently why sci-fi authors are, among genre authors, particularly drawn to present tense. It lends itself well to just rambling for pages on what the narrator sees, smells and touches. There's an appeal to this, which is why there's also a market for it among sci-fi geeks who just want a long description of a world, in which they can imagine their own stuff.

Re:Stross totally rocks

[HiThere]

The problem with, e.g., Singlarity Sky, is that the scenario isn't plausible. Mind you, I'm not sure HOW one could construct a post singularity scenario that was plausible, Accelerando probably comes as close as is possible, and it does that by largely keeping the viewpoint in a character that is living in a backwater (well...not in the Lobsters sequence...but that's slightly pre singularity).

OTOH, I find that I can't really believe that the singularity will happen quite as quickly as he predicts. (If you read Lobsters carefully, you will find a definite year for the current events specified...and it's now too close to be credible, I think.)

OTTH, science fiction isn't an attempt a prophesy, it's an exploration of what might happen. An attempt to show people things that they wouldn't otherwise have thought of. In that sense they are both successes. How entertaining each is is left to the individual reader, but I thought Lobsters to be the most important story I encountered a couple of years ago. It suffers a bit from being a short term prediction, but it disguises the predicted year, so you can ignore that if you want to. Or you can suddenly realize what year this IS being predicted for, and feel the immense surge of acceleration.

Re:Stross totally rocks

[julesh]

I've read it and I'm not really impressed. For a start it's in first-person, which strikes me as being a gimmick, and gimmicks are usually a sign of a lack of ideas, or a lack of confidence in the material by the author. A good book doesn't need gimmicks.

First person a gimmick? Give me a break. First person novels are a great tradition, and until very recently were more common than 3rd person. OK, it's in present tense, which is less common, but hardly a gimmick; scores of very popular stories have been written like that.

Over-describing everything, throwing in adjectives and technical jargon in every other word just to appeal to geeks, without any of it actually contributing to the story.

I disagree that there's an overuse of adjectives. OK, the 3rd sentence is pretty rich, but the rest seems fine. I'll agree there's a lot of jargon. I'm not sure what Charlie was trying to achieve there, but I suspect it was less "appeal to geeks" and more "give a realistic flavour of the future he has envisioned". As in, "I have seen the future and it's full of jargon."

In fact there's so much jargon, by the time you've got to the next sentence you've forgotten what was in the last one.

When reading something like this, I find it easiest not to try to follow the jargon. If you spot something you don't quite understand, just let the context give you a hazy idea of the meaning. That way you're not constantly looking for the dictionary; but you'll understand enough to understand the story.

favorite doctorow pieces

[lennarth]

Let's spread the link-love!

0wnz0red is my favorite of Doctorow's. Some of his other short stories published on salon.com are Truncat, Anda's Game and Liberation Spectrum.

Also, slashdot has previously covered Cory in an O'Reilly interview and his take on DRM. There is, of course, more.

Re:favorite doctorow pieces

[JeremyALogan]

In the interest of spreading "link-love": How can you discuss Cory Doctorow without even linking to his site or mentioning that he's an editor at BoingBoing?

Stross is not no-name, troll

[billstewart]

Not sure whether to feed the trolls here, or what. Stross has had a bunch of short stories and a few novels published, and many of them have been shortlisted for Hugo or Sturgeon awards, but if you don't read British Scifi or his technical books or well-known scifi magazines, you may not have seen them. He's writing them for the purpose of writing them, though he may be releasing them this way to make a point (or to avoid dealing with traditional editors.)

Cory gets published a lot in his sets of circles, and while I find "sez" annoying, there's a lot of worse stylistication around.

Re:Stross is not no-name, troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the best part about him releasing a non-DRM'd eBook is that you just run a search and replace and the whole says/sez issue becomes moot.

I smell new business opportunities

[RAMMS EIN]

This is great! People publishing things outside the established copyright monopolies can only be a Good Thing. Now everyone can get the material in the format they want: electronic for the "paper is dead trees" crowd, and nicely bound for the "I prefer to sit outside and read a book" crowd.

Who's going to bind them? Well, that's where the new business opportunities come in. Small-scale production of books is wholly different from the large scale printing that is the norm nowadays. And as we lower the threshold to getting one's work published, I think we're in for seeing more and more interesting works appear. Printed GNU/Linux manuals, perhaps?

Re:I smell new business opportunities

[vidarh]

You're late. There's already several print on demand publishers that happily take almost any book you throw at them. Search for "print on demand" and you'll find quite a few with warying degrees of optional extras. Some of them will get your book into the main catalogues and will make the book available to for instance Amazon.

In addition, there's at least one company working on a small cheap print on demand / binding machine intended to be cheap enough for bookstores to offer print on demand in store.

E-books in the bathtub? No thanks....

[billstewart]

I probably won't dig up a hard copy of the short story Lobsters, and I'll probably buy Iron Sunrise on dead trees before getting around to reading Accelerando online or in print. But Stross is a good writer, and book formats work better for longer works than e-books usually do, though back when I was commuting by train there were a number of books I read on my palm-pilot.

Offspring from washing machines-- B-O-R-I-N-G

[scovetta]

...This is an unconventional story about an entrepreneur (who happens to be the child of a mountain and a washing machine)...

Dammit, we already have an overabundance of stories about children bred from washing machines. Can't these people come up with something original???

Re:I'm guessing they won't get read.

[torpor]

i think cory saw Pynchon doing a lot of things he thought were cool, and is pretty much clone-clone-clone'ing his way to the bank. cory is to punk like neo-cons are to conservatism.

i find his (cory) writing style dry and un-fun. something about it just oozes post-bubble ego in ways which remind me of the kinds of person the 90's techno-revolution produced, and which most sensible technology people tried to avoid in avid conversation. they always gotta have the latest toys, always gotta be on top of the science-de-jour, utterly boring and spiritless narcissists who do really little more than annoy.. just not legitimately punkrock enough. i feel like i'd enjoy cory a lot more if he'd been a smack addict for 10 years of his life, and i can't stand smack addicts either.

still, xeni is pretty hot, in that 'washed up pseudo-intellect trash at the back of the blade runner lot' kind of a way. can't fault the boingboing'ers for letting her have her turn on the soapbox.

Beyond?

[m50d]

The whole point of a technological singularity is that it's a singularity. There's no way to look beyond it, because the afterwards is not going to be like anything we can imagine.

Re:Beyond?

[vidarh]

You miss the crucial difference between fiction and non-fiction. Of course we can imagine what it would be like after the singularity - it is our ability to give meaningful predictions of the future that is reduced. That doesn't mean we can't try. We just have to accept that the odds of being correct will be tremendously low, but in this case being right isn't the point. Being interesting and thought provoking is.

Re:Beyond?

[kirkjobsluder]

I thought the point of a "technological singularity" was to create a market peddlers of a new geek religion.

Kind of hollow...

[drewcaster]

I believe DRM is futile. However, it's real easy to release a 320 page book online as a protest about DRM when *nobody* wants to read a digital version or spend $80 to print it. Doctorow has little to risk by doing this.

When we have a large install base of portable ebook readers that are as easy to use as books (and as prolific as iPods) I'd be curious to see if Mr. Doctorow keeps giving digital ones away for free.

Let's play Cory Doctorow Bingo

[acb]

This is an unconventional story about an entrepreneur (who happens to be the child of a mountain and a washing machine) who gets involved in a scheme to blanket Toronto with free wireless mesh network ...using transceivers shaped like Disney tiki-kitsch objects, whilst being pursued by a cartel of DRM monopolists.

Re:Let's play Cory Doctorow Bingo

[Anonymous Coward]

"Small crowd of wannabes and fans?"
Check!
"Egotistical blogjerkers and people who constantly act like they're on a firstname basis with him?"
Check! ...
BINGO!

Re:Let's play Cory Doctorow Bingo

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you validated that it's the real Cory? Pull the string in his back - what comes out?

"Talking points from Lawrence Lessig rewritten in leetspeak?"

Check!

"Anger management issues?"

Check!

"Buzzwords like meme, bot, blog, wifi assembled into a random order and dropped into quotation marks?"

Check!

It's the real Cory or a very good clone...

Re:Good luck, suckers

[KDan]

Exactly. With a bit of hacking around you can even get the AI to read the books for you. That way you can terminate yourself and let the AI live your life more efficiently.

Daniel

Re:Free as in Crap (or, "if it were any good,...")

[cygnusx]

I find Cory novels difficult reading but I have read Accelerando and it totally rocks. About the only criticism some people have had of this book is that it you need to take breaks while reading it because of the sheer number of ideas and imagery thrown at you per paragraph (Accelerando is a very good title for the book, IMHO)

Some choice quotes from the book to give you a feel for the writing -- despite the technobabble it actually reads quite well in context and has a kind of manic humour driving it along:

"Uh, I'm not sure I got that. Let me get this straight, you claim to be some kind of AI, working for KGB dot RU, and you're afraid of a copyright infringement lawsuit over your translator semiotics?"

* * *

"Am have been badly burned by viral end-user license agreements. Have no desire to experiment with patent shell companies held by Chechen infoterrorists. You are human, you must not worry cereal company repossess your small intestine because digest unlicensed food with it, right? Manfred, you must help me-we. Am wishing to defect."

* * *

"Nyet!" The artificial intelligence sounds as alarmed as it's possible to sound over a VoiP link. "Am not open source! Not want lose autonomy!"

* * *

Manfred walks on, hands in pockets, brooding. He wonders what he's going to patent next.

* * *

He's the guy who patented using genetic algorithms to patent everything they can permutate from an initial description of a problem domain - not just a better mousetrap, but the set of all possible better mousetraps.

* * *

There are lawyers in San Diego and Redmond who swear blind that Macx is an economic saboteur bent on wrecking the underpinning of capitalism, and there are communists in Prague who think he's the bastard spawn of Bill Gates by way of the Pope.

* * *

His fiance and sometime dominatrix Pamela threw him over six months ago, for reasons he has never been quite clear on. (Ironically, she's a headhunter for the IRS, jetting all over the place at public expense, trying to persuade entrepreneurs who've gone global to pay taxes for the good of the Treasury Department.) To cap it all, the Southern Baptist Conventions have denounced him as a minion of Satan on all their websites. Which would be funny because, as a born-again atheist Manfred doesn't believe in Satan, if it wasn't for the dead kittens that someone keeps mailing him.

* * *

Oh shit, thinks Manfred, better buy some more server time. He can recognize the signs: He's about to be slashdotted.

Another ebook you may enjoy is Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen -- it's a bunch of short stories so it'll be easier to sample.

Charles Stross novels

[Motor]

Stross' "Singularity Sky" is a great read, if a bit odd. While reading it I did get the impression that it relied on knowing beforehand what a singularity was, and what causality violations are. It had a kind of spent-the-last-few-years-reading-slashdot mentality, and I worried that it relied on too much geek-background to be widely enjoyed.

I finished "Iron Sunrise" a month ago... also a cracking read. Starts with a fantastic description of a star being "iron bombed" and its subsequent destruction, along with billions of people living in the system... and a creepy cult called the Remastered (creeped me out almost as much as Vinge's 'focus' in "A Deepness in the Sky").

Re:Charles Stross novels

[HiThere]

Well, it might be unfair to expect a science fiction reader picked at random to know what a "technological signularity" was...or perhaps not. It's not a new concept, since Vernor Vinge popularized it long ago in a series of novelettes (since rewritten into novels).

OTOH, causality violation is a standard physics argument whenver people start talking about time travel. It's physics-speak for the grandfather paradox, in all it's variations. I first saw it use in the title of a short story along about 1990 (I think it was "Rotating Cylinders and a Global Causality Violation", but I'm not quite certain). That was used in Analog without much explanation at all, except what could be fit into the body of the short story (not bloody much!).

Actually, I find the concept of iron bombing a star to be more in need of explanation...though I think the idea is fairly clear.

Re:Good luck, suckers

[kotku]

Human: That way you can terminate yourself and let the AI live your life more efficiently.
ALICE: Oh I see. No I don't think I can do it.

Re:Free as in Crap (or, "if it were any good,...")

[stimpy]

well, "free downloads to coincide with their in-store releases." pretty much makes your post pointless.

New Things?

[Matrix2110]

I am sorry people, but the likes of Cory Doctorow are beyond even the collective mind of /.

You academic types rave over Neil Stephenson while the people like Cory are doing far, far more to bring understanding to the common folk.

Cory is well grounded and hangs out with the like of Lawrence Lessing and that tart Xeni (NSFW) plus the other crew over at Boing-Boing.net

Good Stuff, fellow /.'ers .

My sig sucks, but it plays over a modem to this day.

Re:New Things?

[Anonymous Coward]

"people like Cory are doing far, far more to bring understanding to the common folk".

You've missed the point. He's incomprehensible to "the common folk" (thanks for patronizing us). He looks just like another hyper-tense Atkins dieting geek.

What about printing?

[dshaw858]

The e-books are free, but you have to pay for the actual books. Okay, that's pretty nice of them, and it makes sense to me. But what if I decide that, for ease of reading, I want to print out my e-book? Am I legally allowed to print it? If I'm allowed to distribute the free e-book (and I don't know if I am), couldn't I print many of them, and give them to people at Barnes & Noble? There are some borderlines there, and I'm quite interested in figuring it all out.

- dshaw

Re:What about printing?

[charlie]

Yup, you can print the book out. It'll cost you as much as buying the hardcover and the result will be less pleasant to read, but you can do it.

You can give copies to other folks. The hitch is: you aren't allowed to sell it. Neither can the people you give it to. If you violate that part of the license, publishers' lawyers will come after you.

Again: you're only granted these rights for the book, as a book. You can't edit or remix it, or make a movie based on it, without asking me for permission. (Clue: I'm not hard to get in touch with.)

If you strip the internet out of the equation, basically you've got roughly equivalent rights to my book that you'd have to a book you borrowed from the public library -- except nobody's going to fine you if you're late returning it. Which is the whole idea of the exercise.

Re:What about printing?

[braindead]

Yes, you can print them.

Both Doctorow's and Stross's work are released under the Creative Commons license. They are explained here. There are several variants, but they only differ in what you can or cannot do to redistribute the work. As far as what you do in the privacy of your own home, they are all the same: they say that you can do whatever you want with the work. And, yes, that includes printing. It's also OK for others to print it for you, even if they charge you for the privilege.

Re:What about printing?

[mouthbeef]

I've laid out Someone Comes to Town in two PDFs (one in A4 and one in Letter) that are optimized for very low-paper-consumption printing; if you have a duplexing printer, you can get my whole 300+ page novel onto fewer than 70 sheets and then side-staple them.

Many publishers are distributing advanced reading copies to blurbers, chain-buyers and reviewers in this format. I find it very convenient since it let me carry around a dozen copies of the book in the months before it was coming out to give to reviewers and blurbers I met in my travels.

By contrast, the traditional system for ARCs (still in use in the majority of cases) is to print and bind a softcover facilime of the edition for advance distribution to the trade. These "proofs" or "bound galleys" cost more than the hardcover to print (on a per-unit basis) and are in perpetually short supply -- it's heartbreaking to get an inquiry from a major newspaper or magazine for a review copy of your book before it's printed and to find out that all the ARCs have been distributed and there's no budget to print more. The low cost and nonexistent setup charges for printing galleys laid out like the PDFs I'm distributing means that your editor's assistant can just print off and staple together another galley whenever there's a demand.

Re:What about printing?

[I confirm I'm not a]

...Am I legally allowed to print it? If I'm allowed to distribute the free e-book (and I don't know if I am), couldn't I print many of them, and give them to people at Barnes & Noble? There are some borderlines there, and I'm quite interested in figuring it all out.

I figured this was a simple case of RTFA... until I read Cory's license! The license is a new CC license, Developing Nations 2.0. IF you live in a developing nation (using a UN definition) you can:

• to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
• to make derivative works

...provided you give an attribution to Cory. No mention of the North, so I guess your question still stands. Sorry! Anyway, interesting license. I'm still not sure how sensible I think it is; I remember big problems with the BSD license (IIRC) in the post-Apartheid world: there were licenses prohibiting use in South Africa, which were clearly unnecessarily restrictive after the demise of apartheid. I don't know if a similar situation could occur with this license; what happens, for example, to a distributor in $THIRD_WORLD_COUNTRY when said country gets upgraded to developed world status? Must they burn the copies they've produced?

Re:What about printing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Corry, I've read your other two books and I must say I enjoyed them thoroughly, and i'm looking forward to reading you new one.

Keep up the good work.

Re:What about printing?

[po8]

You and Charlie have my sincere admiration both for your handling of your literary work and for your friendly and open participation in the web culture. You're also both excellent writers. :-)

I'm really surprised, BTW, that professional publishering houses don't own print-on-demand systems (e.g. InstaBook) just for producing ARCs. AFAIK these things have plenty of capacity and are cheap enough to operate that you should be able to give out high-quality facsimiles as needed...

Re:What about printing?

[Henry V .009]

I'm not sure that copyright law in America is such that it can restrict you from selling a copyrighted work that you have obtained legally.

What an author can do is say something like this: You are not permitted to make copies for the purpose of selling them.

Re:Good luck, suckers

[ceeam]

Why wait? A $200 PDA will probably pay off for itself before you need battery replacement on eBooks alone. Also it is a nice pocket DB, notepad, reference tool (PDA dictionaries are a blessing if you learn foreign language(s)) and a game console.

Hints: you need a good (around $10) antiglare "screen-protector" and a book-reader with "RTA-like" scrolling. For PalmOS I may recommend this: http://sourceforge.net/projects/palmfiction/

Re:Free as in Crap (or, "if it were any good,...")

[Siener]

I dunno - maybe i'm wrong and these two books are crackin' good - but if they poured their guts into it, they'd want money. They're probably just cast offs or other stuff they couldnt get published elsewhere.

This book, like all Cory Doctorow's other books, are published in paper form as well. If you don't like getting them for free, hop over to Amazon and buy them.

Same goes for Charles Stross

Baen Free Library

[Bigman]

If you want DRM free sci-fi to read and or download, then try Baen Free Library. I've passed many a happy hour reading some excellent books there.
Eric Flint, an author and acting librarian for the above library, points out that sales of the in-print versions of some of his books actually went up after posting them for free in the online library. I read some of David Webers books there, and went out and bought them; despite the fact that the genre (space-opera) was not one I would usually go for. Eric points out in one of his articles on the site (Prime Palaver #1) that the biggest obstacle facing little known authors (and thats the vast majority of them) is their obscurity. Publish free on the internet, and people will read your books, tell their friends, and go on to buy the books you subsequently write. Perhaps that explains why sales go up when you give stuff away for free; I can't see how the same logic wouldn't apply to music.

Re:Baen Free Library

[TopShelf]

I thought the idea was that they give each copy away free, but make that up on volume...

Free SciFi? - Check Scalzi's "Agent to the Stars"

[ZaMoose]

If you haven't gotten the chance, you should also check out John Scalzi's (author of Old Man's War) Agent to the Stars which he originally released as a "shareware" novel online but has freed up in its entirety.

It's an entertaining story about a benign race of aliens that want to befried humanity. However, they look like giant globs of snot and communicate via a complex smell-based language, many of whose smells are thoroughly repulsive, if not completely nauseating to humans. In order to figure out how to introduce themselves to humanity, they hire Hollywood's hot new agent and, well, you'll just have to read the rest.

Let it be said

[braindead]

I don't see it in the comments yet, so I'll say it myself: thank you Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross!

Okay, so dRM's bad, right...

[91degrees]

So why does everyone providing non-DRM publications seem to be giving them away? If they're that convinced in people's honesty, prove it. Make money!

Re:Okay, so dRM's bad, right...

[jurt1235]

The answer to your question from the website of Cory Doctorow:
* Short Term
In the short term, I'm generating more sales of my printed books. Sure, giving away ebooks displaces the occasional sale, when a downloader reads the book and decides not to buy it. But it's far more common for a reader to download the book, read some or all of it, and decide to buy the print edition. Like I said in my essay, Ebooks Neither E Nor Books, digital and print editions are intensely complimentary, so acquiring one increases your need for the other. I've given away more than half a million digital copies of my award-winning first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and that sucker has blown through five print editions (yee-HAW!), so I'm not worried that giving away books is hurting my sales.

Re:Okay, so dRM's bad, right...

[91degrees]

Why doesn't he use this mechanism to generate direct sales? Are people simply not willing to pay money for digital content?

Re:Okay, so dRM's bad, right...

[jurt1235]

I interviewed some of my friends who love to download, and I asked them when the price was low enough to start paying for pirated content: 0

Apparently some people will never be willing to pay for certain content. For myself I like it when I can decide if I like music enough to pay for it before buying. My reason to buy is, that I will listen more often to the CD and not just once. So what he does with the book is handy. Else I would have to read it in the store for a part (up to 5%, did that a lot with books, love Borders cafe), and then decide to buy it or not.

So there will be people who appreciate the other persons creativity and decide that they are willing to pay for it, others will borrow it at a library for stuff which they do not want to own (like listen once, read once (Ok, read most books only once anyway)), others decide that they do not want to pay for anything at all.
In the last category you also find the "crazy" collectors: They own thousands of songs & movies (and sometimes share those again), do not listen to all of them even once to check for quality, burn cd/dvd from it and just do not use it.

When I download something, I do not take care of it if it is not interesting, it will just get lost on my harddisk, gets erased at a reinstall, and I do not miss it. When I like it, I buy it, and store it nicely on a CD so I can use it again later.

Re:Okay, so dRM's bad, right...

[Secrity]

"So why does everyone providing non-DRM publications seem to be giving them away? If they're that convinced in people's honesty, prove it. Make money!

It seems that the current business model for authors who provide non-DRM digital copies is to give away the digital copies and sell the dead tree copies. It is the license model that they have chosen for these books and it appears that at least some of the authors believe that releasing non-DRM digital copies improves the sale of dead tree copies. These authors do not need to prove other peoples' honesty any more than any other author would have to. It appears that at least some of the authors that release non-DRM digital copies of their work ARE making money.

Technological singularity

[TuringTest]

There's a SF world called Orion's Arm based on a post-singularity scenario.

It's collaboratively created and published with a Creative Commons license.

Damn kids!

[KamaDragon]

Back in my day, we didn't have sticks to shake at books! We had to shake our fists and use our imaginations!

Re:Good luck, suckers

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I like sitting in a deck chair in the sun with a nice paper book.

I'm sure the two authors would love it if you purchased a paper copy of their books.

Re:Good luck, suckers

[FlopEJoe]

I agree a paper book is better.

But I also like to have over a hundred fiction and reference books, TV/Movie transcripts, opinion columns, and all my project's documentation on my Palm. I can grep for anything and annotate anywhere without writing (ruining) paper. I can read it anywhere and choose from any title in real time. On the bus, business trip, airport terminal, or waiting in line. No need to decide what books to take on a trip with limited luggage space. I don't know how many times in the Pre-Palm days when I chose the wrong books to take.

But that's just me.

Re:Baen Free Library[Mod Parent up!]

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT UP! The Baen Free Library is by far the most successful experiment in DRMless, Free distribution of Copyrighted material to the point where Jim Baen, the owner of Baen Publishers, provides CD's with his books that state, "REDISTRIBUTE! COPY! Just don't Sell it!". He continues to demonstrate how one can use a free distribution model in publishing to continually make a profit. While not everything is released immediately for free, Baen does a webscriptions method where a full novel is around $5, many others release their first books(or even entire series over time) for free through the library. Flint has also done a good study on sales increases due to release of novels for free. Not only on the released novel and series but across the board on his entire set of released books. The desire for dead tree copies of books may have a lot to do with the ability for this model to work, but it does work. if more publishers followed it then it would help a great deal to improve book sales.

Personally I spend nearly a hundred bucks a month on new books, and I predominantly buy baen or baen authors who are publishing under another publisher, because I know what I'm getting.

Re:Good luck, suckers

[ozmanjusri]

Human: That way you can terminate yourself and let the AI live your life more efficiently.
ALICE: Oh I see. No I don't think I can do it.
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

Not a good long term strategy

[samuel4242]

I think giving away a book at publication gets plenty of attention today, but I wonder whether it will help much when it's not news any longer. When hundreds of authors follow his lead, as they will, it won't be Slashdot-grade news. Does anyone believe that they'll all sell tens of thousands of books just because it's free? Oh, I'm sure it will lure some people in. Perhaps the sales lost to the free loaders will always be cheaper than paying for ads. Lord knows that good advertising isn't cheap. So maybe it's still a viable strategy. But the 104th person to do this won't have the same success as the first.

Re:Not a good long term strategy

[HiThere]

Well, it kept Lobsters fresh in my mind since it was published. I've long since lost the copy of the magazine, but every so often I end up printing out the short story to reread it.

That's no proof, but it's a part of why I intend to buy Accelerando.

Re:Not a good long term strategy

[1davo]

I must disagree with this sentiment. ___ Before finding a reference to Charlie's Accellerando in a discussion (not a lead story) here on /. last week, I had no idea who he was.

I downloaded the story and was immdeiately blown away. After reading the first third I searched out his website http://www.antipope.org/charlie/ and found the bookstore in Scotland http://www.grassmarket.net/featured/Transreal_Fict ion.htm where I could order an autographed copy.

In the process of trading a series of emails to order it, I found Mike Calder at Transreal Fiction to be most kind and helpful in sorting out how to get the book delivered. That done I finished the 2nd third of the downloaded book and was even more amazed by this work.

I am now awaiting my autographed copy so I can finish the book.

Hats off to Charlie and Cory for sharing!

Now to your argument about the 104th writer...

I think the ten-thousandth author will succeed or fail with this approach based on the quality of their work.

I bought the entire suite of Schmitz "Hub" novels

[Julian Morrison]

I'd never heard of any work of his except "Witches of Karres", but even famous as that is, I actually prefer the other novels. Start with "Telzey Amberdon" as an outstanding example.

After first reading them online on the Baen site, I realized they fell within the small category of "good for infinite re-reading" books, and bought hardcopies from amazon.

Books and free downloads

[chrisranjana.com]

Free downloadable books are a boon to the needy people located in underdeveloped countries

Re:Free as in Crap (or, "if it were any good,...")

[eddiec]

"Lobsters", the short story which became the first chapter of Charlie Stross's Accelerando was short-listed in the short story category for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards of 2002. This was not a one-off, he has been nominated in this years Hugos for Best Novel with "Iron Sunrise" and twice in the Novella category for "The Concrete Jungle" and "Elector".
I can heartily recommend Accelerando, it makes Neuromancer look like a pastoral fantasy.

Also available in Second Life

[Nijika]

I picked it up a few days ago in the welcome area. Haven't thumbed through it yet. The great thing about reading it in Second Life is the book rezzes like 2 stories tall.

Re:Good luck, suckers

[onegear]

i disagree with your statement. not only is this a great PR move on their part but now many people will download the book, figure out that they really like it but realize that reading the book in that format is difficult. then, they will purchase the hardcopy.

official Torrent links

[Devistater]

I love sci fi books, I'm glad someone is doing this. I have a palm m500 (all other palms suck for pure book reading) set up specifically to read books.

Anyway I think the site is /.ed it took about 5 mins to load here so I'm going to paste the direct bit torrent links that are on his site:
RTF text format:
http://files.machinima.com/torrents/accelerando-rt f.zip.torrent
HTML:
http://files.machinima.com/torrents/accelerando-ht ml.zip.torrent

He has like almost a dozen formats (pdf, palm doc, ascii, etc etc), so check out his page for more.

It's called Print-On-Demand

[jockm]

And there are several companies who do this. CafePress, Xlibris, iUniverse, and Lulu are all examples. I use Lulu to offer printed copies of my novel. That is not to say the big publishing houses are going to shrivel and die tomorrow. They can promote books far more efficiently than most individuals can, and it is functionally impossible to get a self published book reviewed or sold directly though brick and mortar bookstores.

Is there anyway...

[Digital Vomit]

Is there anyway we can mod Cory Doctorow up?

Just finished Someone Comes to Town

[DoorFrame]

I just finished reading Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town last night. (Good timing, eh?) Not only that, but I read the whole thing on a palm pilot for free with permission, which made me feel better than all the books I've read on the thing without permission. Anyway, it's pretty good, but I'd say Doctorow earlier works were stronger. The "unconventionalness" was sort of it never really seemed to get explained or justified. I guess that was probably the point, but I got to the end and felt like there was still more story that I missed out on. I guess I felt something similar at the ends of his previous novels as well, but they just seemed more self contained.

Anyway, check out Eastern Standard Tribe and his first novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Both of these are also available for free download from the above linked sites.

Re:Just finished Someone Comes to Town

[dubious9]

I'm glad I've found someone I agree with. Other reviews I've seen just exult SCTSLT as a marvel of scifi uniqueness. However, I found it to be frustrating. Though I found it compelling, you're right, I wanted more explanation.

The flashbacks interrupt the story flow, and little devices he uses are sometimes painful. Especially that device that repeats a single sentence and fills in content in parenthesis. The characters are memorable and the dialogue was good. But I felt like I wasn't getting it. Like somehow I had to look deeper to extract meaning. However, it was meaning that I never got.

The social commentary was evident and poignant. The descriptions were lively and vivid. But overall, I found it to be lacking and even frustrating to read (ie "Oh god, why another flashback, we were just getting to the good part!!", "What the hell *is* he??").

If Cory is still reading down this far, I wonder if anybody shared this kind of review. You're evidently a gifted writer and I'll dive into your other works. SCTSLT, though isn't my cup of tea.

Re:Just finished Someone Comes to Town

[DoorFrame]

Wow, that was just chock full of missing words and poor grammer wasn't it? Jeez, I've really got to proofread these things before I put them online.

Re:Just finished Someone Comes to Town

[good-n-nappy]

I agree. But I don't think it was the unconventionalness that I minded so much (although the first few pages did have me trying to resolve the metaphors...his mother is a washing machine?)

I liked the story overall but I didn't like the ending. I don't mind ambiguous or unresolved endings but this one just left me unsatisfied for some reason. It felt like it was building to a tremendous climax or catharsis but then just fizzled out. For example, I can accept that I don't know the outcomes of the characters. But I was left not even knowing the larger motives for their actions (e.g. Brian). So I can't even speculate on why it ended where it did. Or where it might go from where it left off.

One other aspect that bothered me was the character of Krishna. I found him to be inconsistent and unbelievable in his interactions with Davey. Surpisingly, in a book that required so much suspension of disbelief, this was one of the biggest distractions for me.

Not just the famous authors

[jockm]

Unknown authors also release their novels free on the net. Then they use venues like Slashdot to help get the word out. For example, I am doing that just now. Oh wait, I've said too much...

OK that was shameless self promotion, and I'll not repent. But it is great that more established authors are out there doing this. It adds an air of legitimacy to all of us who are trying to use alternative means of publishing or promoting our works.

Re:Not just the famous authors

[ThousandStars]

No offense, but the net is filled with terrible, unreadable novels, and if anything demonstrate the usefulness of real publishers, who ensure a certain level of value in what they produce. I downloaded the first part of your novel, and half the first paragraph is below:

I'd like to say that I rode back into town like the conquering hero, but that would be a lie. I didn't even slink in through the back door. There was no one who knew I was coming back, which I suppose echoes they way I left.

In the first sentence of your novel you use a cliche, and the third contains a glaring typo. Even the cliche is wrong -- it goes "like a conquering hero."

Given the obvious mistakes, I'm unsurprised that you found little traction in the traditional publishing world.

Re:Not just the famous authors

[jockm]

Well it isn't I, per say, who used the cliche. It was the main character. Hopefully it was clear it was a cliche, which is why he used it. As for typos, yes there are some. If you think that is why it was passed over, well I have read the rejection letters, that was never the problem. I have gotten better traction than most first time authors.

Re:Not just the famous authors

[jockm]

And yes I know it is per se not "per say," that is what I get for typing too fast

Re:Not just the famous authors

[ThousandStars]

If you think that is why it was passed over, well I have read the rejection letters, that was never the problem.

Defending mediocrity leads one on the road to nowhere. Shoddy proofreading is doubtlessly part of the problem, though.

I have gotten better traction than most first time authors.

If you're giving away all your nominal work on the net, then you're doing worse than real authors, who get paid.

YMMV. Don't shoot the messenger.

shut up idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

haha nice try moron, but you just got punkd

Ethel's Gonna' be pissed.....

[Anonymous Coward]

> who happens to be the child of a mountain and a washing machine

when she finds out what Billy's been doing!

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town?

[slapout]

Is it just me, or are they running out of good titles for books?

Re:Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town?

[HiThere]

It's just you. Titles can't be copyright, so nothing stops someone from reusing the old ones, if they so desire. (And it's been done.)

You could even write a book titled
"Moby Dick by Herman Melville", and if you published it anonymously, you'd give any interested librarians a lot of grief, but most would probably just decide it wasn't worth the effort to give you shelf space.

Voluntary choice to publish without DRM is OK

[wheelbarrow]

I think it is a fine thing that Doctorow, a content producer, made a free and voluntary choice to release his content without DRM. Likewise, I also think it is a fine thing that I, another content producer, can make a free and voluntary choice to release content with DRM.

We already live in this perfect world. All choices in this matter are voluntary.

Re:Voluntary choice to publish without DRM is OK

[cmiller173]

Yes, but have you released it with DRM in the format of my choice? For example the Ray Kurzweil Reader (see http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/ 04/1125202&tid=216&tid=99&tid=14 for more info) was released for free but with DRM in a locked Adobe PDF and only in that format. I am unlikely to ever set at my computer and read this despite it being interesting but if I could put it om my Palm I would. I have never read any novel length work on my computer but have read several on the Palm both free and for pay.

In Doctorow's instance he released the PDF's and relied on his fans to do the conversion to various formats (and is happy to host those versions on his site as well) saves him work and spreads his work farther. There are instances where I have gone to the trouble of breaking the DRM on a piece of media in order to use it on another device, but I respect the creators rights and don't distribute them!

You say all choices are voluntary but you make it hard for your content consumers to make their choices.

Re:Voluntary choice to publish without DRM is OK

[mouthbeef]

"In Doctorow's instance he released the PDF's and relied on his fans to do the conversion to various formats..."

Actually, I did one better: I released the book as printer-optimized PDFs, as well-formed XHTML, and as clean UTF-8 text. Converting from PDFs sucks.

Re:Voluntary choice to publish without DRM is OK

[wheelbarrow]

The consumer has the ultimate voluntary choice. They can buy the product or not. There is no force applied in my scenario. Contrast that with the ripping of DRM'ed material. In that case you are forcing the distribution against the producer's wishes.

Where is the content ?

[jonv]

Dissapointed no one has posted the entire book as a comment

Re:Good luck, suckers

[drsquare]

I wouldn't want to take $200 worth of fragile electronics to places where I read. Like at work, or in the garden, or wherever. Things like that get stolen, I can leave a book outside whilst I go inside to get something and if it's robbed (which it won't because people don't steal books, at least the ones I read), then it's only a few quid to replace it.

And it only takes one scratch or spillage or dropping to ruin that $200. A book can take all sorts of abuse, like months in the bottom of my bag. Yeah it'll be ragged but the writing will still be there, in nice high-dpi text, rather than jagged letters on a shitty LCD screen.

Books are much easier to read, in far more conditions, than even the best e-book reader. Also you're in complete control of the pages, rather than just pressing buttons, which psychologically is an important factor.

I for one don't trust computers, they're unreliable, bulky, expensive and over-engineered.

Re:Baen Free Library[Mod Parent up!]

[Evangelion]

Do they publish anything other than military SF?

Seriously, I'd like to support them, but I find that genre mindnumbingly boring.

Thanks for posting that.

[PotatoHead]

Your actions, in that case, caused me to think a little deeper about this issue.

I've always been in your camp where DRM is concerned. However, I understand some subtle thing I'm not sure I did before.

Let me know if I have this right, because it's important:

In a world of interconnected people and computers, information flows more or less freely. It has to if the whole thing is going to actually be able to do anything of value to us.

I've got a work in the hopper right now. I think I'm going to do what you are doing, if I am lucky enough to see publication. I'm going to do it, not only because its the right thing to do, but its also the thing that makes the most sense.

In that world, you don't mind if your works are read by people you don't know because through them they can come to know you. For an author, that's a good thing all around. (As a budding author, I hope I can see similar success someday.) However, what you don't want is others making money from your work without your due compensation. Nobody works for free.

Your act was interesting in that the motivation for it is not obvious, I believe, to ordinary people at first glance. (I'm a geek, but I think I am ordinary for the most part.)

The media companies want to protect their ability to make money. They do this by using rule of law to deny others the ability to profit from their "works". However their actions come at a significant negative cost both financially and socially. This is why they have a dim view of "pirates" because they represent not only lost oppertunity costs but real expense costs as well.

However, you showed that you can still deny others the right to profit from your works while at the same time gain where they currently lose.

If the scanned text is officially available, why bother to get it from somewhere else? That's a very subtle way to compete with free and I am almost completely sure the big corps just don't get that. (Perhaps they will someday before we all lose our ability to compute freely.)

Not only is it good competition, but it's a bonus in that you have a chance to advocate your beliefs to them and suggest other works and express yourself personally all while denying the freeloaders their means to profit.

That's a world I can live in far easier than a one filled with draconian laws that make me feel dirty and used.

Nipple

[furrywithwings]

Speaking as one of the pro-Nipple clamp crowd, please compare your awful DRM to something that's really repugnant like, smelly fish, or bad houseguests. Some of use LIKE our nipple clamps, electrified.

Re:I'm guessing they won't get read.

[tgibbs]

I haven't read the Doctorow, but I'm nearly finished with Stross's Accelerando. I think Stross is one of the most original modern SF writers, and a very good writer to boot. I think Accelerando is the best thing he has done to date (although the Hidden Family series and The Atrocity Archives are arguably more fun). I'll be amazed if Accelerando is not in the running for the Hugo this year.

really retarded DRM...

[advocate_one]

Here... a classic example... upgrade acrobat and you find yourself locked out of those items that you've purchased...

10,000 copies sold in 2.5 years == success?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cory's publisher says that 10,000 copies of "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" have been sold in the 2.5 years it has been out in hardcover and paperback. If this is success, I'd hate to see failure or mediocrity.

Cory's a commited activist and a great blogger but as a novelist I'm sorry to say he can't match other new writers like China Mieville or Richard Morgan, not to mention oldsters Gibson, Sterling, Stephenson, Ballard, etc. Cory's genius is in using his blog to get as much publicity as the aforementioned writers even though not nearly as many people are reading his novels.

Article that quotes Cory's publisher

Re:10,000 copies sold in 2.5 years == success?

[AliasMoze]

Granted, Stephen King loses more copies in the mail than Doctorow sells, but that isn't the issue. The issue is whether the free e-books have hurt, helped, or had no effect on Doctorow's numbers. It seems that the giveaways help.

how long till they get sued....

[cyclomedia]

...because providing scifi works for free undercuts the big scifi companies proft margins and is therefore bad for competition? see: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/13/02 22247&tid=141&tid=17 and the one about the french bus company and the car-pool

Re:Good luck, suckers

[dextroz]

...Things like that get stolen, I can leave a book outside whilst I go inside to get something...

You must not read p0rn then... it will get robbed faster than you can grab a stick!

Who is Cory Doctorow and why does he...

[grikdog]

...get free advertising on /.?

Seriously, I've heard of the dude, but not of anything he's written. Is he Required Reading at the Donald Trump Online University School of Fine Reading or something? Believe me, if this guy DESERVED to be on the Reading List Hell list, he would be.

Cornucopia of File Formats

[colanut]

Looking at the sites, I'm pretty surprised at the amount of file formats that are available. But it is also overwhelming. I don't have any particular kind of ebook reader. Sometimes I read off my laptop in bed, but its as not comfortable as a book to me, and I doubt I would ever sit at a desk and read long form text either. Of course no one is going to build the ultimate device to my specifications. Still, I'd really like a trade paperback sized document reader with bookmarks, searching and a dictionary. Oh well.

Anyway, it looks like Stross has several basic format, but the formats from Doctorow, and his legion of fans, is out of hand. PSP and iPod ready, two(!) kinds of Newton formats, cell phones and several kinds of Palm/Pocket PC. Cripes man. I suppose that is the benefit of CC and embracing your fan base: free conversions and translations, in addition to your regular marking. I'm sure there is a fetish subculture in there: painfully converting text files to obscure hardware/software platforms.

Still, I'll probably have to just order off of Amazon like a schlub. When are those roll-able OLED ePaper devices coming out?

Re:Cornucopia of File Formats

[adevadeh]

I just read _Someone_ on my iPod Mini! 300+ pages three sentences at a time. Actually, it wasn't too bad. Certianly beats printing it out, or luggin my laptop along. I'd do it again if I found more content in iPod format.

Creative Commons Developing Nations License

[Kidbro]

I had no idea it existed, but this Cory fellow is apparently releasing his books under the Creative Commons Developing Nations License.
In essence, it says that you can not only download the work, but you can also make money on it - as long as you live in a developing country, and do not make any money on it in a High-Income country.

Way cool.

Re:Creative Commons Developing Nations License

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait... I must be interpreting this wrong.
If you're in a country with a low-income, you can profit off of a work that people can already get for free anyway? Sure, the seller turns a profit and can start some shreds of a business that way, but aren't the customers getting their hard-earned dollars ripped off? I'm just not sure if that helps or hurts the economics of low-income nations.

Re:Creative Commons Developing Nations License

[Kidbro]

If you're in a country with a low-income, you can profit off of a work that people can already get for free anyway?

Well.. yes. That's one of the things you can do. I guess you wouldn't succeed if you didn't add any value to it though. I believe that residents of developing nations of more cost sensitive than those if high income countries.

If you add value though, you wouldn't be ripping people of, would you? Added value could, for example, be any or a mix of the following:
* Printing
* Translation
* Public reading
* Performances based on the work
* Anything else anybody can think of that's cool

You wouldn't be "ripping customers off" if you sold translated copies of the book in a country where most people can't speak English.

Re:Creative Commons Developing Nations License

[HiThere]

How do you expect to get the book translated into "minor tongues" if you don't allow people to earn money doing so?

If people in an area are relatively wealthy, you may have fans that will do the translation as a labor of love, but you're unlikely to get it translated into, say, Urdu that way.

I'm not saying this is a good choice, or a bad one, but it certainly has some practical points to argue from.

Accelerando Is Good!

[Master of Transhuman]

I've read it. Very cool stuff in there about future tech.

The cat is the coolest character. A real Transhuman!

Re:Accelerando Is Good!

[HiThere]

No. The cat would need to be a transfeline.

Re:Accelerando Is Good!

[Master of Transhuman]

Yeah, but he's got the right attitude!

Re:Good luck, suckers

[selsine]

Well then instead of downloading the book purchase a paper copy. I don't see the problem here.

Review of Stross "Accelerando"

[rjc5]

Charles Stross has released a novel called "Accelerando",

http://www.accelerando.org/

under a license which says you may not create derivative works from it (an action defined by a judge) or use the work for commercial purposes.

The novel is not as easy to start as other Stross' books. (I have read "Singularity Sky", "Iron Sunrise", and the "Family Trade", all of which I consider `page turners'. Singularity Sky begins with the line `The day war was declared, a rain of telephones fell clattering to the cobblestones ...'; it is about an `out of context problem', an adventure story about what happens when a sigularity-blind government tries to deal with Von Neumann replicators.)

As I said, I had troubles. Perhaps the beginning of Accelerando comes from an earlier period in the writer's life. In any event, my troubles went away. I could not set aside the middle and latter parts of the book; either I got more interested in it or by the time he wrote those section, Stross had learned to write more attractively. (With interruptions, he wrote the book over the period 1999 - 2004.)

Regardless of the beginning, several of the ideas in the book are wonderful and new to me.

One contemporary issue is the dropping cost of information reduplication. `Accelerando' takes the notion of copying a step further. What if you can inexpensively and safely copy people?

To quote Stross:

Do you get one vote for each warm body? Or one vote for each sapient individual? What about distributed intelligences?

I had not thought of this question. What if Stross copies himself 60 million times, and each copy registers to vote, and no one else makes copies of themselves?

(This book is an example of inexpensive copying, so inexpensive that I did not consider it a cost at all: I did not have to obtain `Accelerando' on paper, which is what economists call a `rivalrous' good. The novel contains a straightforward extrapolation of the lowering cost and integrity of copying...

(A `rivalrous' good is one in which your use `rivals' mine. Thus, we both cannot wear the same shirt at the same time. If I consume paper, you cannot consume that same paper. Non-rivalrous goods are those which we can both have at no or little extra cost. Laws are an example: my obeying a law does not prevent you from obeying it. Likewise, the information content of a book is an example. Your reading a book does not prevent me from reading it.)

Another question revolves around solar systems in which there is a great deal of rapid networking:

"They've got a scarcity economy all right," says Pierre. "Bandwidth is the limited resource, that and matter. This whole civilization is tied together locally because if you move too far away, well, it takes ages to catch up on the gossip.

Scarcity is felt to be even worse if the entities are electronic rather than biological. That is because their thinking speeds may be a million times faster than human. Then, in conversation with someone 100 light years away, instead of taking 200 years for each turn around, the subjective time from a human point of view is 200 million years. That duration is much longer than the time between the death of the dinosaurs and the present.

Stross' concept, by the way, provides one answer for David Brin's question in his paper

The `Great Silence': The Controversy Concerning Extraterrestrial Life http://skew.ot.com/three/random/silence.html

which, as it says, was written

... to catalogue the factors which would determine and/or predict the likelihood of contact with extra-terrestrial intelligent species ...

Suppose every civilization that could communicate be

Re:Baen Free Library[Mod Parent up!]

[kashani]

They do publish some fantasy, but military sci-fi seems to be their big niche. Some of it is okay, but as someone who likes military literature in general the majority of what they publish is crap compared to some of the better books out there like John Stakely's Armour.

kashani

Prominent?

[RapmasterT]

I must be using a different definition of "prominent", cuz I've never heard of either of these guys.

If they are so prominent

[Banner]

How come I've never heard of them?

This is just an attempt by them to get their names out there, and hopefully increase sales. I can't say I blame them, and if it works, good for them. But from my sources in the publishing industry, the jury is still out on this technique.

And please don't quote the Baen Free library at me. Jim Baen does talk a good game, but he has yet to show any actual proof to the publishing industry that his library has brought him in any more money than traditional sales methods for the same cost.

Re:If they are so prominent

[grikdog]

Well said. When I say it, I get moderated off topic ... NAFT.

Re:If they are so prominent

[Banner]

Yeah, well, they moderated me a 'Troll'. How I was a troll though is beyond me...

Re:I'm guessing they won't get read.

[VAXcat]

The lack of capitalization in your post makes me suspect you saw e. e. cummings do something you thought was cool...

Kelly Link

[X_Caffeine]

I was sorry to see that this list didn't include Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen, which was released under the Creative Commons last week to coincide with her new novel, Magic for Beginners.

I like to tell people that she's the female Neil Gaiman -- she's writes with a similar adult fairytale sense -- but she's a much deeper and more mature writer. Check her out, tell a friend.

Nobody?

[ppp]

I believe DRM is futile. However, it's real easy to release a 320 page book online as a protest about DRM when *nobody* wants to read a digital version or spend $80 to print it.

I read a lot of books on my Palm PDA using iSilo, and Cory conveniently provided his book in that format, along with several other convenient formats. Why would he do that if he didn't want people to take advantage of it.?

So speak for yourself, please.

Re:Nobody?

[stoolpigeon]

Yeah-- it is not literally nobody-- but statistically it is probably pretty close.

I'm like you. I dig on e-books. Shoot, I read the last first 5 harry potter books on my laptop. Then I went out last week-end and bought them all in paperback. There really is no comparison.

I don't think what Cory is doing is 'hollow' but it isn't the same yet. The parent has a pretty good point.

You need a little Zappa

[Anonymous Coward]

Specificaly, the album "Just another band from L.A."

Side 1 was a single song, "Billy the Mountain," about a draft-resisting mountain and his lovely wife Ethyl, who was not a washing machine but a tree. And they are childless.

If you like fiction about counterculture mountains, Zappa and the Moters is where to find it! ...I'm not sure if it's still available, tho

If it has DRM...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't expect me to buy a copy. I'll not pay good money for a crippled product. If it has DRM and I really want to read it that badly, I have Kazaa and bittorrent and you, sir, can go straight to the unemployment office where anybody who thinks DRM either works, is a good idea, or is in any way moral or ethical belongs.

If I find DRM in it after I get it home, I'll return it to the store. You, sir, are a moron, as are all the other people who convinced you to to cripple your wares.

There are two kinds of people in this argument: honest people who believe that most other people are also honest and who realize that DRM is stupid, futile, and immoral -

And those who are thieves who think everyone else is a thief. This, stupid sir, is the main reason I refuse to buy merchandise crippled by DRM. Thieves usually try to steal from you. I don't like thieves.

You can't sell me a song I've never heard. I'm not buying a book by an author I've never read. No author has ever starved because of people checking books out of the library, but lots starve because they have never been heard of.

Why should I read a book by a stupid thief?

Billy's cheating on Ethel with a washing machine?

[lwriemen]

It had to be said. ;-)

Reading Accelerando, you become the lobster...

[geekotourist]

With Lobsters you've been handed a fine rich beer of a story by Stross. Smooth, tasty, has a bit more of a kick than most. You nod with empathy for the lobsters and kittens, thinking Manx has a good point.

But its only chapter 1 of Accelerando the book. And in each subsequent chapter he's distilling things down, speeding things up. By the 2nd half of the book he's handing you pan galactic gargle blasters as his chapters. Never mind a brick wrapped in lemon: his book is a porcupine wrapped in velvet. Once you're done quite a lot is going to stick with you.

You get jealous of the lobsters and start worrying heavily for yourself. You remember that feeling of being a top-of-the-techworld Silicon Valley type going to Japan for the first time. Jetlagged in Akihabara, it hits you that you're a bit behind the curve: your portables are Model-T's and Japanese teenagers are choosing their Ferraris. And Charlie is telling you that the feeling is only going to get worse. And permanent. And your kids and grandkids'll have to deal with it too. Better hope your grandniece's "My First Pharma Lab" can make a nice TetraValium, you'll need it.

The technologists can tell you why the Singularity is Near- why today's technologies are leading towards it. But it takes a book like Stross's to remind you that we're not just contemplating a technologic switch equivalent to tool-making and upright walking, or even lungfish thinking about a permanent stay: we're the anaerobes wondering what happens if the atmosphere switches to oxygen, but we keep on producing oxygen by-products anyways.

...a few hours of slackjawed cartoon watching and the worry mostly fades away, but you never get all of the quills out. Or at any rate, its a very good read-- better be on the Nebula and Hugo shortlists. It isn't a perfect book, writing-wise, but he's got the Sensawunda: the rest comes with practice. That a great author is going to get better is cause for happiness.

The real issue with music downloads

[Anonymous Coward]

Fans don't want DRM. Most don't care, right up to the day they can't transfer all the tunes they've paid for to new hardware. But absolutely no one is paying money to have DRM as an added "feature" on the music they buy.

And most musicians aren't wild about it. Especially if they are trying to build an audience. They want to get heard. They want to get new fans. Putting free MP3s up on the web certainly doesn't hurt. Ask yourself, how many CDs have you bought because you heard a couple of songs off of them and liked them. You heard them on the radio, at a concert, at a friend's house, or in recent years, on the web.

So, who gets hurt? The middleman. RIAA. The record companies perform a number of functions for the artists. But they are becoming obsolete in some of them. The argument for bundling all of those services is become much less compelling. If you have a band, can record your own CDs, sell them at your concerts and through your web site, a record company has to make a good argument that it can do more for you.

Musicians have never loved their record companies. The fans don't actually want to pay an extra mark-up for services the record company provides. They are middlemen begging to be disintermediated.

Accelerando Technical Companion

[bhouston]

The fine folks at Wikibooks has begun work on a technical companion to Charles Stross's most recent novel. You can find the Accelerando Technical Companion here.

Star Dragon is free, too

[mbrother]

I publish hard sf with Tor, like Cory, and my first novel is available for free download from my webiste. I'm currently completing revisions on my second, which should be out late next year.

Re:Star Dragon is free, too

[julesh]

I finished reading it yesterday. Good stuff, thanks for sharing. :)

Re:I bought the entire suite of Schmitz "Hub" nove

[HiThere]

Unfortunately, the original stories were better than the Flint editions. In some he even rewrote the ending to be much weaker.

Schmitz was a better author than Flint is an editor.

Shameless Self-Promotion

[CheeseburgerBlue]

Hi, you know me -- I'm that cheeseburger who wrote The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster which was Slashdotted a couple of months ago.

My new science-fiction novel is also on-line, being issued as a serial in blog format. If you're not a big stupid retard, check it out!

Simon of Space

Accelerando Technical Companion

[FleaPlus]

Stross' "Singularity Sky" is a great read, if a bit odd. While reading it I did get the impression that it relied on knowing beforehand what a singularity was, and what causality violations are. It had a kind of spent-the-last-few-years-reading-slashdot mentality, and I worried that it relied on too much geek-background to be widely enjoyed.

Some of us over on Wikibooks have started putting together a "technical companion to Accelerando, available here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Accelerando_Technical _Companion

Hopefully this can help provide some of that "geek background" for Accelerando. Here's (the current version of) the introductory description:

This is a technical companion to Charlie Stross's latest novel, Accelerando. Stross's book can be quite dense in unusual technical terms and concepts, which can sometimes be quite confusing to readers unfamiliar with them. The purpose of this companion is to help alleviate any confusions the reader may have, as well as to introduce new confusions by giving the reader an idea of the current state and expected future of the technologies described in the novel. Wherever possible, brief information on relevant research papers is provided.

The novel is available as a free download from the official site, and will also be available for purchase in bookstores on July 1, 2005.

The first part of this technical companion is a glossary, intended to explain and elaborate on concepts without giving away plot details. Keep in mind, however, that simply knowing that the novel involves a particular term may be a spoiler in some sense, so some may wish to defer consultation of the glossary. Indeed, part of the appeal of Accelerando is the sense of confusion one gets by being exposed to the technical flurry.

The second part is a chapter guide, where chapter-specific commentary is given. This is bound to be chock-full of spoilers.

New Business Model

[Vagary]

There was a major change in the business model for games just as bandwidth was approaching the size required to make pirating them trivial. That same bandwidth that was about to destroy them allowed many of the most popular titles to be online multiplayer. Online servers make for very reliable DRM, and users support it because circumventing it would also allow cheaters.

This suggests a very reasonable business model for musicians if no other IP authors. Hmm...

Re:New Business Model

[braindead]

This suggests a very reasonable business model for musicians if no other IP authors. Hmm...

Online concerts! Genius!

I think you're onto something.

Publicityhound

[marbahlarbs]

Craphound is a good name for Doctorow. His writing is really just awful. I've had the misfortune to have read quite a bit of Cory's writing, and it's just terrible. All of his books are little pieces of his interests, strung together with buzzwords and little phrases he's attempting to make catchy. In reading his work, the actual story isn't quite that bad, but it's missing a background that makes sense, and the strong scifi that intrigues. His mother is a washing machine, and his father is a mountain. It's very clever, but doesn't go anywhere, and detracts from the story. I read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and the Doctorow's whole idea of whuffie, the future replacement for currency, seemed so stupid to me that it ruined the book. Doctorow and his fellow talking heads might like the idea of cashing in on popularity, but I find the whole idea repulsive. I've stopped reading boingboing after reading Doctorow's work. It's a collection of links with a healthy helping of "look at me!" "look at me!" with a "too cool for words" attitude.

eBooks

[ppp]

Yeah-- it is not literally nobody-- but statistically it is probably pretty close.

The parent implied it was an empty gesture, not that it wasn't for everyone. It's nice to know that people like me are statistically close to "nobody".

I enjoy good-old-fashioned paper books, but I also enjoy ebooks on my Palm PDA, as do a number of my friends. I know of couple of people who use their PDAs for that alone. With a built-in lighting source, it's very convenient, and I also grab some reading time while in line at the grocery store, or in the waiting room at the doctor's office, or while I'm getting my car serviced. Carrying dozens of novels on a small pocketable device is very cool.

Ebooks are very poplular in the PDA community, for Palm OS and PPC. They're not for everyone, and they're not going to replace books. And I'm grateful that there are a few authors willing to give them away, even if I am "statistically insignificant."

Re:eBooks

[stoolpigeon]

You aren't insignificant as a person. But come on. I like e-books too. And you have friends who do. But in the grander scheme of things, we are a really small group. That's all I'm saying.

I don't agree, like I said, that it is an empty gesture-- I'm just looking for realistic perspective.

Right now, if I were an author, I would give away electronic versions of my work too. (As a matter of fact I intend to publish a couple things through lulu and do just that) But when e-books get to be as good as dead-tree, I'm not sure I'll feel the same about it.

Waiter, there's a manifesto in my soup!

[Cataleptic]

I'm relatively sympathetic to Cory Doctorow's politics, and understand that as a card-carrying evangelist for the EFF, I ought to expect a little evangelizing in his fiction. I read, and enjoyed, his short-story "I, Robot", because although the preaching came across a little thick, it nevertheless 'fit' into the story.

However, in Someone Comes To Town, I felt the 'internet for the masses' story was completely and utterly peripheral to the 'real' story, and in fact was solely there to provide a platform for more evangelizing. It's almost as if it started out as a short story about a guy called A.* whose mother was a washing machine and whose father was a mountain... but instead of promoting it to a novel by fleshing out the characters a little more (particularly Krishna and B.*), and giving the ending a little more coherence, Doctorow simply bolted on a completely unrelated rant about how cool city-wide WiFi access would be.

It seems to me that he had a perfectly good fantasy story, but for some reason felt obliged to add some gratuitous geek-friendly content instead of fleshing the fantasy out some more... one example of this is the use of the word 'blinkenlights'. As a geek, I appreciated it, but as a reader, it felt completely out of place.

good ebook reader?

[AussieVamp2]

What is good about a palm m500 in particular compared to others? (I have never used a hand-held ebook reader).

Re:good ebook reader?

[Devistater]

I'll quote from some posts of mine in another forum.

no other palm units than the m500 fit my needs.

At first I purchased the new Zire 21 which is monochrome screen for $99 because I thought that would work. I was SHOCKED when I got it home and found out it was the first palm since the original Palm I that does NOT HAVE A BACKLIGHT!!! I cannot live without a backlight that I can turn on to read in dim lighting conditions. So I returned that and made an exhaustive review of all palm models past and present to find one(s) that would fit my needs.

I previously had owned a palm VII which was great, but it is even older and has very limited memory, only 2 megs and no expansion card slot (although it still had the internal battery, backlight, monochrome screen). So I wanted one that was a step up from that.

After extensive research, the m500 emerged as the only possible model to fit my needs.

It depends on your needs. For me I wanted:
a) monochrome screen, not color; to extend battery life.
b) built in battery so I could drop it into cradle to charge and not have to worry about replacing batteries all the time
c) a backlight so I could see the screen in dim lighting conditions. Like if I'm waiting in a movie theatre for movie to start and I got there 45 mins early to get a good seat
d) preferably an expansion card slot so I could add some extra memory for books if I wanted

If this list of features is what you want, there's actually only ONE model of palm pilot that supplies them all. The m500. Its discontinued but can still be easily had on ebay (which is where I got mine, for about $50). And I got one in mint condition and all the original parts and accessories and manuals, and the built in battery works great.
It has 8 megs of built in memory (enough for a dozen books or more), and I have a 64 meg SD card I have in it that I got for free after rebate from office max.

The m5xx series of palms were until recently the king of the hill. Its only been since they started the zire and tungsten series that the m5xx series was discontinued. Anyway, you can still find plenty of them on ebay, and I found a mint condition one for $50 which was 10 times better than that cheap piece of crap zire 21 that I paid $99 for in officemax.

Now perhaps your needs are differant, perhaps you dont mind shoving in AAA batteries every few days, or perhaps you want a color screen with built in wireless internet so you can browse the web and you want to pay $500 for your palm. Thats fine, then one of the other models will suit you. But in my case I had very specific needs and I choose a specific model.

Out of the entire line of palms sold today, only the Zire 21 is monochrome screen, and as I said, that lacks a backlight (in addition to having no expansion slot).

When I read paper books I can go through about 100 pages an hour, and I read in every spare moment. I typically have a dozen or so books on my palm. I usually only have to recharge my palm about once a week or maybe twice even with my mutiple hours a day of typical reading habits, and that includes using my palm as my alarm clock. I can set a number of differant fonts in differant sizes, there's plenty of options in palm fonts to d/l on the net.

Re:good ebook reader?

[AussieVamp2]

Thanks for that, sounds good. I wouldn't buy a 500 buck PDA that is for sure. Cheap and long lasting sounds good to me too. I read about that fast as well in general, so I will look into this.

Thanks again for taking the time.

Re:good ebook reader?

[Devistater]

No problem, no trouble. Most of that was stuff I wrote earlier this year for other ppl asking about the same kinda things. Like where to legally get free ebooks. Since I'm into the palm thing I got into the thread about it and was posting places to legally get free ebooks, and the palm I liked, etc.

Re:good ebook reader?

[AussieVamp2]

Just thought of one more thing - any idea or comments about readability for the grayscale screens vs the color?

Thanks again

Re:good ebook reader?

[Devistater]

I only use greyscale palms to extend the battery life between charges. I've never been impressed with color on a palm since my primary reason to use one is reading ebooks. I've never given it a serious try though.
But I'm sure there are local stores you can try out the color screen at if you want to find out.

Re:good ebook reader?

[AussieVamp2]

Ok, thanks. Was just wondering about black/white versus the gray. Long battery life is going to be good. Taking a weekend trip shortly, so can just take the reader, loaded up, and cut down on space used.

I now have a M500 via ebay.com.au (thanks for the suggestion, had never bought anything from there before).

Might even improve my reading speed to take in a screen at a time with a bit of luck!

Re:good ebook reader?

[Devistater]

If you need any advice on book reading software, or software to help convert ebooks to other formats or anything else lemme know.

Here's a good ebook reader that can do txt and html:
http://www.plkr.org/

I also grabbed a 64 meg SD card from officemax on sale for $10 after rebate. So if you see a good sale on something similar might want to grab one.

I use a simpler one that only does txt but I always have to convert first then.

I dont mind helping a fellow palm ebook reader out just give a yell if you want more info.

Re:good ebook reader?

[AussieVamp2]

Cool, thanks. I had actually put plucker on there already, as Accelerando that was mentioned here recently was in that format. By do text and html, do you mean read them natively on the Palm, e.g. just copy files over? Or it converts them happily then you copy them over? Had not read all the details yet.

I actually went over to Dick Smith's the other day, and they had 2 64 meg MMC cards cheap (as in way cheaper than I could see them on the net), last 2, discontinued, not getting anymore, so that was nice, as well.

Thanks for the advice. If I have any more questions, I will let you know.

Re:Baen Free Library[Mod Parent up!]

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. They do a good deal of fantasy, and sometimes it isn't even their books, but rather the author I get to follow(such as Wen Spencer). Baen does only publish either Sci-Fi or Fantasy, but within those two Genre's they are some of the better ones. Check out Tinker(Wen Spencer) as a definite non-military sci-fi/fantasy book.(It's Science Fantasy is the only way I can describe it)

Round of applause, that Corey!

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely unanswerable! (-:

Mod it do to "relastic", too? (-:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he's been dewitched. Someone's cast an unspell on him. Who says you need to be literate before you can successully criticise?

Oops.

[Anonymous Coward]

facilime

This time you've got to mod your Speak'n'Spell.

Awwww, c'mon! Y'ain't _trying_!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do I download the TeX of it? How about the .RNO file[*]? No? Then how about a CCGL stream[**]?

Cheese! I wish people would start publishing in a variety of formats!

Notes:
* If you know what this is, you're too old
** if you know what this is, your plotter's too old, too