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Neil Gaiman Book "American Gods" Free Online
Denial93 writes "Geek favorite author Neil Gaiman has just made his multi-award-winning bestselling novel 'American Gods' available online for free. It's a trial by the publisher, and runs for one month. Gaiman writes in his blog: 'If it works, and people read it, then a) we may be able to put up another book and b) sooner or later they'll simply let us give away the book in electronic form....' It's an excellent book and much deserving of the many prestigious awards it has been getting."
Looks like you forgot to check the anonymous box there, bud...oops.
Living With a Nerd
I've been intending on reading this one for quite some time now, so this will be perfect. I usually read on my lunch break and have worked my way through just about everything I'd wanted to read. This will be my first experience with a whole book in digital format. I lack an E-Reader so I guess this will show me if I really want to get one or not.
Like most /. comments this adds nothing to the conversation, fails to inform, enlighten and educate. However; I strongly suggest you read American Gods.
Script kiddies ate my sig.
Excellent!
... and back to the topic at hand, this is an excellent book!
I'm glad to see that publishers are trying this out. Tor has a promotion running, in which they email you non-drm'd books (usually book 1 of a series) every week.
And, ever since I bought my prs-500, it has been difficult to stay legit - I have a hard time buying a book online for the same (or very similar) price to a real, dead tree paper book. Sure, I could feel good about saving the environment, but why does it cost the same to deliver an electronic book as it does to sell a hard copy? I thought shipping and handling, stocking and middle men markups had something to do with the high price of the written word... *sigh*
My knowledge of mythology comes from the standard Greco-Roman stuff in high school plus whatever Norse you can pick up by reading "The Mighty Thor" comic books.
While most of reading "American Gods" was fun, I could see many references going over my head, and it was kind of like low-level overflights by a jet fighter. Whooooooosh!
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The kind of stuff he does here, if other people did it the reaction would be "Gee, isn't he full of himself, 'look, ma, I'm writing real good!'" It would come of as affected and hackish. But the reality-bending stuff he does in here, it's just real weird good. Been a fan of his since Sandman. He has a way of turning reality sideways, making you suddenly aware of the audience before you and the stage machinery behind -- that literally happens in a few places. Strange, chewy brain candy.
I would also highly recommend Good Omens, a collaboration between himself and Terry Pratchett. How to describe it? "Imagine if Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett wrote their version of the Omen and Rosemary's Baby, the Christian Apocalypse before Left Behind became so cheesy-popular. Yes, it's exactly like that. Go read it."
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Just a quick look seems like its a online only thing. Is there a "download" link I'm missing? Thanks
of reading entire novels online. I mean, lets be honest here, American Gods isn't exactly a slim book, that's a lot of text to scroll through, using a reader or not.
I know there are a lot of people out there that seem to prefer the format, but for me part of the enjoyment of reading is getting away from everything else, including the computer.
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
I thought I would be able to download a TXT file or a PDF of this book. Nope, no download. Instead I can browse it through the publisher's site, which is not only a bit slow, but also eye-straining. The images of the pages are so compressed it makes it unenjoyable to read. If only there was some way to rent books locally.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Nah, look at his user page. Most of his posts are at 0, some are at -1.
Well, we like you. [hugs]
So will the publisher at least provide a partial refund for the book since I bought it a few months ago, akin to what Apple did for the original iPhone purchasers. I am kidding of course since I believe in the free market and I felt the book was worth the investment. The people that overpaid for the iPhone then complained are idiots. They felt that the product was worth the price, just because it went down does not entitle them to a rebate. This is like venture capitalists and investors who put money in a company that goes under and sue for their money back. You knew the risk going in!
Anyway it is a good book, sorry for the rant.
My boy, my boy!
"If we can disintermediate effectively, the synergies of offering electronic downloads with rights management that preserves our revenue stream and allow us to leverage the long tail yadda yadda yadda ..."
Of course, there's nothing to stop the AUTHORS "disintermediating" the publishers ...
Kevin Smith on Prince
I was reading this book some years ago and my mother saw the cover and asked me 'American gods? Like money and power?' to which I responded 'No, Odin and Thor'. She gave me a smack for being a smart ass.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
Absolutely painful. While Mr. Gaiman and his publishers are free to do as they please, I'm unimpressed. No pdf? Nothing I can take with me when I'm sans net? I can appreciate that this probably seemed like a really "edgy" idea in the boardroom, out here in the street they just come off looking, well... old.
:-)
Also, the horribly clunky "Web 2.0 interface" is a hoot.
C-x C-c
The way they're releasing it requires a fairly large high resolution screen even to read, due to the way the web page is laid out and the image-based page viewing. I can't imagine reading this even on a full-time connected handheld... so it's missing the largest potential pool of readers.
If someone with an iPhone or equivalent could comment on how readable it is on the small screen I'd be interested in knowing how far off the mark I am.
As far as Gaiman's books go, I found Neverwhere to be much more satisfying read than American Gods. The latter felt more like a cross between the old "Sam & Max" PC game, and the second Dirk Gently story, Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, from Douglas Adams, and not as polished or tight (or funny) as either one.
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...I didn't actually like American Gods. It just felt like there wasn't anything particularly new or interesting in the story that I haven't seen in territory covered by other writers like Douglas Adams , Tom Holt, etc. Maybe a bit 'darker' but I wouldn't say it made for better reading.
That said, I am still pleased that Gaiman is doing this. As a writer myself, I am all for people getting used to the idea that you can actually find books and stories to read online. Maybe if they like it (most will bitch about reading on a monitor, eye strain, etc - but it never bothered me!), they'll go hunting for more stuff and get around to reading my things someday. It's good for everyone who has any aspirations of being a writer when the successful guys help to change perceptions about how reading should be done.
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I will never be able to forget the scene where the girl eats the guy. I wish I had never read this book.
Yeah. No one cares.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Lunch is not free. Authors and publishers have mortgages too.
The book is available online for reading online only - not for download - and the online version looks like a series of highly compressed JPEG images given the "noise" surrounding the text. You would have to be fairly frugal to read the entire book on that site...and that is most likely by design. Read a chapter or two and then buy the book if you like it...and like your eyes.
The problem with libraries is that only one person can borrow a copy at a time, which is silly with modern technology. My pet peeve is with scratched music CDs, it would be great if the library archived the originals and loaned out CDR copies, for example. Though there are probably a bazillion laws against that.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Has anybody actually tried the link? It's awful. They made a single web page with hundreds of JPEGs, one for each page of the text. The images aren't sharp or fully black, so they are hard to read. And it takes forever to load. They added a nice AJAX "loading..." message over the top while you scroll, but sheesh - I'd far rather just go to the library or buy the book.
You've somehow managed to write something vaguely relevant to the summary w/o reading it? Well color me impressed.
Just FYI, Dream Haven Books (http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com/) in Minneapolis collaborates with Neil Gaiman, and he occasionally autographs his stuff for the store. I once picked up an autographed first edition hardback of "Good Omens" there. Now if I can just get PTerry to sign it, too...
Libraries don't have to lend out one copy at a time. They can lend out multiple copies of the same book as long as they own multiple copies. Most libraries just don't have the resources, or room, to have multiple copies of a single book on the shelf. Digital copies solves the space issue, but not the licensing issue. Until all Intellectual Property laws are repealed, this isn't going to change.
The scratched music CDs are another matter. You would think the Library would be within fair use regulations to keep a backup copy. Seems like they could work a deal where they could have official duplicates, and only lend out dupes in the same numbers as the originals they own.
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>>Fuck every single one of you.
Phrankly, my pinoqachole-addled queen, I don't think your balls are big enough.
Nor, I imagine, is your phrank...
Another bad-hair day, sweetie?
As more than a few people have pointed out, you can't download it. According to his blog, Neil is aware of this and is attempting to get the publisher to actually place a pdf/lit etc version on there for downloading. Those who read his blog would also know that there was a poll last week to choose which book of his would be available. Unfortunately, Good Omens wasn't an option, probably because of the dual copyright.
:)
I have to say, I find it hard to see how he ever gets any books written - he's one of the more prolific bloggers I've come across
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
To those people who think this is a good idea, click the link and look at their ultra-crappy implementation. It's a series of images, not text, it isn't resizable, and when you attempt to scroll a huge, ugly, and distracting "loading" box popps up.
If anyone can actually read the book with all that crap going on, they'll be delighted to learn that it isn't possible to save your spot, so you either have to read it all in one go, or randomly poke around to attempt to find your place through their insanely crappy interface.
Harper has obviously decided to make online books as terrible as possible, why they decided to do this I don't know. But their "experiment" is self evidently *designed* to fail so don't be surprised when they announce, to their "regret", that apparently the public just isn't interested in reading books online.
What's worse the e-book versions (all DRM crippled for your inconvenience) cost $7. That's about as much as the paperback edition. WTF?
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
I read about 10% of the book on line and just went to Barnes&Nobel and bought it so I could read the rest without the eye strain.
I assume that was the point of the project, so I guess it worked on me.
i.e, why does it appear under slashdot::IT
In life some things will be left without any answer, just like in Lost (The TV series).
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