Partly this is because it’s not immediately clear how best to use the thing and partly because I know very few people using the thing which seems to be the key if you wish to collaborate.

This free ebook/guide can at least help with the first part of my problem and let me work out what I want to use it for and how to use it.

The plan is to sell the guide as a DRM-free PDF but the contents will remain freely available at http://completewaveguide.com. It already looks pretty comprehensive and being a collaborative document itself it should remain up to date as more features are added and documented.

The Complete Guide to Google Wave is a collaborative user manual for Google Wave written and edited by Gina Trapani with Adam Pash. Launched one month after the Google Wave preview release, this guide is the most current, comprehensive, independent user resource for the most ambitious (and confusing) web application ever created.

In the spirit of Google Wave, this guide is a bold experiment in collaboration and public iteration, as well as independent book publishing.

The book has a cliffhanger every other chapter or so, all several billion of them. Most of the supporting characters exist as barely a job description, appearing for a few characterless minutes to drive the plot on to the next inevitable cliffhanger.

The “science” and tech stuff was dreadful which shouldn’t really annoy me in a book which is loosely based on reality but since Dan Brown states much like before in the introduction that all the science is real you’d expect some of it to be, well real.

There was an awful lot of guff about science not really discovering anything, just rediscovering ancient wisdom that had been forgotten, and some pretty weak coincidences between modern science and ancient texts that supposedly back it up. The IP address tracing bit was pretty funny too complete with pointless hacker who appears and disappears swiftly from the tale.

Noetic science? I’m not even going to bother with the claims made on that one. Sure it’s ‘real’ in the same way that homoeopathy is ‘real’, it exists as something some crazy people believe in. None of it is proven in the way that is claimed.

Maybe I’m just too much of a science/skeptic geek. Maybe I’d be less annoyed if the stuff wasn’t sold as being “true”. Or maybe it was all a bit dull and this is the most interesting thing I can say about it. Regardless the man knows how to make money so he must be doing something right.

Some cracking science fiction in there too with some big name authors so well worth a read if you fancy some short stories.

StarShipSofa now invites its listeners to celebrate its first 100 programs in the most traditional and classic of ways: by reading some of the excellent works it has been privileged to present in audio form. This exceptional collection offers a reminder of all that StarShipSofa and its contributing authors and narrators have accomplished in the field of SF; it also stands as a promise for the next 100 episodes of Aural Delights and all of the wonder they will share.

StarShipSofa Stories Volume 1

1. “Into The Blank Where Life Is Hurled” by Ken Scholes
2. “London Bone” by Michael Moorcock
3. “The Second Coming Of Jasmine Fitzgerald” by Peter Watts
4. “Lester Young and The Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues” by Gord Sellar
5. “Vampire Kiss” by Gene Wolfe
6. “Vinegar Peace (or The Wrong-Way Used-Adult Orphanage)” by Michael Bishop
7. “Godzilla’s 12 Step Program” by Joe R Lansdale
8. “Jesus Christ, Reanimator” by Ken MacLeod
9. “The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter” by Alastair Reynolds
10. “Mars: A Travelers Guide” by Ruth Nestvold
11. “The Empire of Ice Cream” by Jeffrey Ford
12. “The Ant King: A California Fairytale” by Benjamin Rosebaum
13. “In The Olden Days” by Spider Robinson
14. “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear
15. “Little Girl Down The Way” by Lawrence Santoro

Go and grab a free ebook

It’s a PDF and I’ve not had time to test it on my ebook reader yet but it’s definitly worth a read if you haven’t already, and the first in a series if you decide you want some more.

We know everyone’s excited for Scott Westerfeld’s new book Leviathan, coming out in October. What to do while you wait?
Get caught up on his amazing Uglies series, starting with a free book download of Uglies. Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that?

Tally lives in a world where your sixteenth birthday brings aesthetic perfection: an operation which erases all your flaws, transforming you from an ‘Ugly’ into a ‘Pretty’. She is on the eve of this important event, and cannot wait for her life to change. As well as guaranteeing supermodel looks, life as a Pretty seems to revolve around having a good time. But then she meets Shay, who is also fifteen – but with a very different outlook on life. Shay isn’t sure she wants to be Pretty and plans to escape to a community in the forest – the Rusty Ruins – where Uglies go to escape ‘ turning’. Tally won’t be persuaded to join her, as this would involve sacrificing everything she’s ever wanted for a lot of uncertainty. When she is taken in for questioning on her birthday, however, Tally gets sent to the Ruins anyway – against her will. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she could ever imagine: find her friend Shay and turn her in, or never turn Pretty at all. What she discovers in the Ruins reveals that there is nothing ‘pretty’ about the transformations…And the choice Tally makes will change her world forever.

First up then is “The Martian War : A Thrilling Eyewitness Account of the Recent Alien Invasion as Reported by Mr H.G. Wells” by Gabriel Mesta which for those who don’t know is a pseudonym of Saga of the Seven Suns author Kevin J. Anderson. The rather lengthy subtitle probably gives a little clue to the story and tone to expect, this being a fictional account of the author H.G. Wells’ inspiration for his most famous book along with many of his other. Indeed half the fun is spotting the characters from his novels as they crop up in this story as supposed “real” characters from his past.

The book follows two threads. One being the story of Wells’ fictional Dr. Moreau with the very real, mars canal loving, Percival Lowell and their contact with visitors from Mars which are told largely in journal entries from Dr. Moreau. The other thread follows H.G. Wells himself along with “Darwin’s Bulldog” the famous evolutionist T. H. Huxley and their adventures which culminate in a trip to Mars to tackle the Martians directly with the aid of the previously mentioned Moreau’s Journal. It’s all quite silly when compared to modern science fiction and reminds me in places of the John Carter Mars stories in what is probably a knowing nod, though that’s no bad things since I do enjoy a Burroughs book now and again.

It rattles along at a fair old pace and characterization is pretty non-existent but for me it is pure, pulpy, scifi joy of the best kind. I’m a bit of a fan of fictional history and of course a huge Wells fan so I’m probably not the best person to ask for a balanced review of this book. That said I think anyone with a taste for classic science fiction who wants an easy read to just enjoy rather than challenge will probably get something out of this book.

Handily they supply in plenty of different formats with scope for converting this to read on pretty much anything…although artwork may be an issue on some devices.

On the ridiculously large read pile but I may bump this one to the top as I’m a big fan of short fiction.

Thoughtcrime Experiments is a free 2009 anthology of fantasy and science fiction stories and art, published under a Creative Commons license. It’s available online as HTML, as a downloadable PDF, or as a print-on-demand physical book (coming soon). You can download the anthology in other formats at manybooks.net or at or Spontaneous Derivation.

It’s available today as an ebook from 12 noon for 24 hours so grab it quickly. I have no idea what format they are planning to provide, hopefully it will be DRM free and something other than PDF but I’ll have to wait and see.

A free promotional download will become available in the UK for 24 hours from 12 noon BST 22 April to 12 noon BST 23 April.  To access the download, you will need to provide your email.   By entering your email address, you agree that the Bloomsbury Group can send you occasional promotional emails about our books.   We will not share your details with other companies.

UK iPhone and iTouch users will be able to access the download with Stanza through iTunes.

Burnt Shadows traces the devastating legacy of the 20th century from Nagasaki to Guantanamo Bay through the experiences of two families – one from the West, one from the East.

In a prison cell in the US, a man stands trembling, naked, fearfully waiting to be shipped to Guantánamo Bay. How did it come to this, he wonders?

Max Barry was the Author of Jennifer Government which I thoroughly enjoyed reading and can happily recommend to anyone who fancies dystopian novels with generous helpings of satire.

He has stated that if it actually looks like it will go somewhere he may start charging a small amount but for the moment it is free.

Looks to be the start of another decent free ebook library so head over and grab some free reading.

Welcome to the Suvudu Free Book Library. We know it can be hard to navigate the countless fantasy and science fiction series out there and figure out which ones are right for you. Well, we’re here to make those tough decisions a bit easier on you. With the Suvudu Free Book Library, you can read the first book in some of our most acclaimed series absolutely free! We’re kicking off the library with five full-length novels for you to sample, but we’ll be adding new titles on a regular basis, so be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you’re the first to find out what our newest free offerings are!

The readings are being recorded and posted here so that the entire reading of the book can be watched for free.

I don’t know much about the book but I’ve never been dissapointed by Gaiman’s work so I’ll be sitting down to enjoy some of this even if it is aimed at real children.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.

He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy—an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.

But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod’s family. . . .

With this in mind they have released a free cookery book aimed at 11-year-olds, which can either be downloaded and printed or hard copies ordered by schools for their pupils.

I personally think this is a great idea, the passing along of cooking skills seems to be dying out as less and less people cook from scratch and rely on fast food. Getting children cooking and interested in cooking is not only a great life skill, it gets people more interested in what they are actually eating and that can only be a good thing.

Some nice recipes in this book too, more info and downloads here.

Learning cooking skills is vital to fighting obesity in young people. Once they’ve mastered the basic dishes, they can keep cooking for life.

The Real Meals cookbook, endorsed by top chef Phil Vickery, contains 32 classic recipes and sauces chosen after the public was asked to nominate the basic dishes every child should learn how to cook.

The recipes, developed by the British Nutrition Foundation, follows the Let’s Get Cooking Consultation, in January this year, when 250 members nominated dishes which all children should learn.

Currently schools can order one free copy. To order more, call the publications orderline: 0845 6022260.

This time it’s the turn of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, which is the book I voted for last time as my choice of books to give someone who had never read any Neil Gaiman. It’s a superb book, great characters, cracking dialogue and a nice premise…just really great fantasy which shows that it doesn’t have to always be orcs or boy wizards.

It is as before available to read online for free but can also be downloaded as an ebook although I think this comes in some sort of Adobe DRM’d version so I don’t know how portable it’ll be.

It’s only there for a limited time so get reading, it really is a great book and a nice introduction to Neil Gaiman’s work if you haven’t already read any.

Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but shrewish fiancee. Then one night he stumbles upon a girl lying on the sidewalk, bleeding. He stops to help her, and his life is changed forever.

Soon he finds himself living in a London most people would never have dreamed of — a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels.

You can find the online version here.

Downloadable versions have been made available at mobileread.

From the preface:

Until recently the study of mind, consciousness, and feelings has been a subject for philosophy and religion, outside the province of hard science. This has changed in just the past few years, as advances in anthropology, animal behavior, evolutionary theory, linguistics, molecular neurobiology, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience have brought us to the threshold of resolving questions that have occupied philosophers for millennia:

” How does the human brain generate a “self”?

” What is the nature of the narrative “I” that we experience in our heads?

” What is the relationship between reason and emotion?

” How do genetic and environmental factors interact to determine the structure of our brains?

[via Musings from the Void]

However a while back I logged in to find a message stating the site was closed and would reopen as a worldwide site so anyone could read the books from any country. Sounds good but I’ve now checked it out and they have changed the way books can be read.

The free PDFs are history and you can now read all the titles online for free using their own reader. This whilst not as good as the PDF downloads is at least a good compromise for those countries that couldn’t previously access any of the books. However you can get the PDF files but you now have to pay rather high prices and not all books are available in all countries.

I’m not sure how successful this will be. I’ll continue to use it for reading free books online and it’s a good resource, it’s just a shame they couldn’t keep the advertising supported free PDF downloads.

For those of you who didn’t sign up for the Tor ebook giveaway to promote the quite spangly new site, they have now made all the ebooks available to download until Sunday July 27th.

Go and grab them quickly before they disappear.

There are also a load of nice desktop wallpapers of cover art for those of you who like pretty pictures…some of them really are very nice.

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

PDF || HTMLnew! || HTML zipnew! || Mobinew!

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Farthing by Jo Walton

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedies Lackey & James Mallory

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Lord of the Isles by David Drake

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Through Wolf’s Eyes by Jane Lindskold

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

The Disunited States of America by Harry Turtledove

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Reiffen’s Choice by S.C. Butler

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Spirit Gate by Kate Elliot

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Starfish by Peter Watts

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Touch of Evil by C.T. Adams & Cathy Clamp

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Orphans of Chaos by John Wright

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

In the Midnight Hour by Patti O’Shea

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Battlestar Galactica by Jeffrey A. Carver

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Flash by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Soul by Tobsha Learner

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Darkness of the Light by Peter David

PDF || HTML || HTML zip || Mobi

Three Shadows by Cyril Pedrosanew!

PDF || ePub

You can find most of the Conan stories online as ebooks, along with the rest of Robert E. Howard’s writing as I think the majority of it is out of copyright. I’d recommend checking a few of them out as they still stand up fairly well today, it’s the pulp prose that gets me every time…

Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.

The audio drama is produced by BrokenSea Audio, who do a great job of creating free audio dramas with really high production values and this one seems no exception.

Only one episode available so far but after listening I’m looking forward to the next and hoping they do a few more Conan stories.

Go and listen by Crom!

Episode #1:
Into the seaport town Messantia, of the southern Hyborian kingdom of ARGUS, the road of Kings led the twenty four year old Cimmerian barbarian- CONAN. Having gotten crossways with the local justice system over a friend of his and the death of a guardsman, Conan took the law into his own hands with his mighty broadsword. The guardsmen were not pleased by his northern Cimmerian ideas of justice, so CONAN “borrowed” a horse from the courts and fled looking for a ship.

The mercenary ship- The ARGUS, just so happened to be putting out to sea as CONAN thundered down the pier having just stormed through the market- guardsmen hot on his trail.

Will the ship’s captain, TITO, allow the Cimmerian passage, or will the guardsmen fill his back full or arrows first? And what of the legendary She-Devil Pirate Queen of the Black Coast?

I’m not sure what strange thread I was following which led me to the free ebook “emergency nursing unscrewed” over at impactednurse.com but I’m quite glad I ended up there as it’s an interesting read.

The site is published by Ian Miller “a registered nurse with nearly 23 years experience working in the Emergency Department of a major teaching hospital in Canberra Australia.” and appears to be a very well written and possibly useful (if you are a nurse) resource.
However it is the book that led me there and whilst I am not a nurse and have no intentions of becoming one, on browsing I found myself reading huge chunks of it. It really is an interesting, often very funny, and quite grossly graphic insight into the world of the emergency department nurse.

If you’ve ever wondered…

• How to insert a catheter

Local takes around 3 minutes to work properly, although that is a long time to be discussing the latest sports results with a bloke whilst holding his penis in your hand.

• How to remove a penis caught in a zip

Call the police, call the rescue helicopter, call the priest.

• how to handle the smell of poo

You all know the scenario; you roll your semi-conscious patient over only to discover a steaming lumpy broth of diarrhoea that, thanks to the physics of capillary action, has oozed and squittered its way into every fold and fossa betwixt and between

…and many more delightful subjects, then this is the book for you.

Also available are two other ebooks:
how to be a nurse

Want to know how to survive burnout?
How about…how to survive one shift in the emergency department?
Is your workday getting a little bland and cynical?
Do you feel you need to add a little depth to your nursing practice?
Need to improve your listening skills?

No problem. Join me as we get a little vertical, engage in some reflective introspection, reach out and…… hit the big red button.

And the quite brilliant list of advice…

• Try not to sneeze when wearing a protective face shield.
• Never bend down to pick up your pen when the patient is vomiting into a kidney dish.
• Always give the patient a call-bell, even when they have an itchy buzer finger.
• When returning from a toilet break always always check to make sure you do not have a tail of toilet paper hanging out the back of your pants.
  Wash your hands. Often. And properly.
• Be gentle with your colleagues.
• Always handle a dead body with respect.
• Air goes in and out. Blood goes round and round. All the rest is obfuscation.
• Never underestimate the amount of faeces that can be concealed in a pair of old y-fronts.
• Listen until it hurts.
• Watch for burn-out. Watch for rust-out.
• Best not to fall asleep at the desk and dribble all over your patient notes.
• Remember: Best practice. Remember: Worst case scenario.
• Guard your testicles from static electricity when making a bed on a dry day. (If you don’t have testicles, guard the testicles of those around you.)
• The voice of experience sometimes gets drowned out by the din of expedience.
• There is no such thing as this will only take a moment.
• If you tell your patient “Ill be right back”, make it so.
• Chocolate is brown. Faeces are brown. It’s confusing, I know. But try to pay attention.

the back passage

Compiled into one easy-to-read compendium. True stories from the emergency department gathered into one soggy lump for no other reason than to lift your spirit.

here for your edification is a short list of items I have personally helped retrieve from the collective back passages of a large cross section of society:

• A sundry of vibrators in various colours shapes and novelty themes.
• A large frozen chicken roll.
• A table leg wrapped in newspaper and cling-wrap.
• A pencil.
• A steel tube.
• A perfume bottle.
• And of course the all popular varieties of elongated vegetable.

I’m sure they will be very useful for anyone wishing to follow a nursing career, and for the rest of us they offer a glimpse of life working in a hospital, plus a few laughs and gross outs.

They have all been release under a Creative Commons license so go and read them.

How do you start a movement with a marker pen? What’s the connection between the nun who invented disco, and file sharing? How did a male model messing with disco records in New York in the 1970s influence the way Boeing design airplanes? Does hip-hop really hold the secret to world peace? How did three eleven-year-olds revolutionize the video game industry by turning Nazis into Smurfs? And what’s going to happen to Nike when it’s possible for kids to download sneakers?

The Pirate’s Dilemma tells the story of how youth culture drives innovation and is changing the way the world works. It offers understanding and insight for a time when piracy is just another business model, the remix is our most powerful marketing tool and anyone with a computer is capable of reaching more people than a multi-national corporation.

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He also has a great deal to say that is interesting on a whole heap of topics I’m interested in so I was particularly intrigued by the release of his newest book “Little Brother” which spins some of those topics into a bloody great tale. I am only about half way through and it is easily the most entertaining thing I’ve read this year.

If you are even remotely interested in technology, online gaming, the surveillance society, online and offline freedom, digital rights, free speech, privacy, “the war on terror” and just a load of geeky goodness then you really have to read this book.

Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

The Secret History of Star Wars is a new full-length e-book exploring the writing and creation of the Star Wars saga. Culled from over 400 sources and filled with quotes from people such as George Lucas, Gary Kurtz and Mark Hamill, The Secret History of Star Wars traces all the way back to 1973 to examine how the first 14-page treatment that began the series came to be and was slowly built, draft by draft, year by year and movie by movie. Covering a period of over four decades, you will discover how George Lucas got his ideas for the original film, how Darth Vader was made into Luke Skywalker’s father in 1978 and forever altered the arc of the story, what happened to the infamous third trilogy in the series and how the prequel stories came to be. The book also reveals the style and method of Lucas himself and how his personal life affected and shaped the story, for better and worse. This is a book which challenges many legends surrounding the series and places the films in a new light. For the more casual fan this will be a mesmerising read and for those who think they know everything about the series, prepare to be surprised!

It’s the first in a series of four books, and is being given away for free which is a price I like. Obviously this is now becoming a common method of promoting a series/author and one that I hope continues.

I don’t know much about the book but I’ve always enjoyed the “Bill the Galactic Hero” books and I love the whole “idiots in space” genre so I’m hoping it’s going to be something similar. I’ll write a review if I remember once I get round to reading it.

An incompetent, accident-prone pilot is given one last chance to save his ship. An ageing robot is trusted with a midnight landing in a deserted field. And a desperate businessman is prepared to sacrifice both of them to get what he wants…

Combining relentless action with non-stop laughs, Hal Spacejock explodes onto the science fiction scene with the subtlety of a meteor strike and the hushed reverence of a used car salesman.

It’s a great science fiction short story collection, I’m part way through but enjoying it. I’ll come back and add a real review when I’m done but for now head here and snag yourself a copy.

To celebrate the publication of his first new collection of short stories in ten years, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories, John Kessel and Small Beer Press have made it available as a free download in various completely open formats with no Digital Rights Management (DRM) strings attached.

“A sustained exploration of the ways gender dynamics can both empower and enslave us. Kessel’s wit sparkles throughout, peaking with the most uproariously weird phone-sex conversation you’ll ever read (“The Red Phone”).” A-
—Entertainment Weekly

It’s a time limited offer until the 13th May 2008 so hurry over here and get downloading.

It’s clearly a clever bit of promotion for the series but who cares when you are getting Star Wars books for nothing.

This is the era of Luke Skywalker’s legacy: the Jedi Master has unified the order into a cohesive group of powerful Jedi Knights. But as the new era begins, planetary interests threaten to disrupt this time of relative peace, and Luke is plagued with visions of an approaching darkness. Evil is rising again–out of the best intentions–and it looks as if the legacy of the Skywalkers may come full circle. Honor and duty will collide with friendship and blood ties as the Skywalker and Solo clans find themselves on opposing sides of an explosive conflict with potentially devastating repercussions for both families, for the Jedi order, and for the entire galaxy.

There are some more free ebooks from this publisher so I’ll post them shortly.

Maureen F. McHugh is the author of four acclaimed novels. Her genre-expanding short fiction has won the Hugo and Locus Awards and has frequently been included in Best of the Year anthologies. Since 1988 she has attracted a broad readership in publications such as Asimov’s, Scifiction, Starlight, The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.

Now, in her luminous, long-awaited debut collection, award-winning novelist Maureen F. McHugh wryly and delicately examines the impacts of social and technological shifts on families. Using beautiful, deceptively simple prose, she illuminates the relationship between parents and children and the expected and unexpected chasms that open between generations.

- A woman introduces her new lover to her late brother.
- A teenager is interviewed about her peer group’s attitudes toward sex and baby boomers.

- A missing stepson sets a marriage on edge.
- Anthropologists visiting an isolated outpost mission are threatened by nomadic raiders.

McHugh’s characters — her Alzheimers-afflicted parents or her smart and rebellious teenagers — are always recognizable: stubborn, human, and heartbreakingly real.

You don’t have to browse the web for long before you find links to or information copied from Wikipedia, so quickly has it become the repository for all knowledge and wisdom for bloggers everywhere. Unfortunately it’s not always accurate and since everyone seems to plagiarise the same source even flame wars in forums get boring with everyone regurgitating their favourite pieces of wikipedia wisdom.

So in a move which I think is very wise, Britannica is giving away free access to Britannica Online for any bloggers/writers who want it. I’m not sure what if any criteria there is, maybe if you only blog about porn or something you might get turned down but they happily gave me access so I’m sure most people could get access even with a little blog like this.

To go along with this they give some widgets which can be included on your site, and any links you make back to them are viewable by any of your readers even if they don’t have access to Britannica online.

This is clearly at least partly an attempt to grab some of the Wikipedia traffic but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. The Britannica has always been a well researched and well respected Encyclopaedia and I think this can only be a good thing for the accuracy of school essays the world over.

Get the same benefits as our paying subscribers

If you’re a Web publisher—a blogger, webmaster, or writer—you can get complimentary access to the complete Encyclopædia Britannica online. It’s a rich trove of reliable and high-quality information that you can use to check quick facts, research topics in depth, or just read to enjoy.
Why such a generous offer?

Britannica covers a wide range of topics with thousands of articles and multimedia features. They’re relevant and useful, and we’d like more people to be able to take advantage of them.
You get complimentary access to the Encyclopædia Britannica online and, if you like, an easy way to give your readers background on the topics you write about with links to complete Britannica articles.

It’s from Audible so probably has the cursed DRM but you can always just burn it to CD. You’ll need to register but it’s no bad thing, Audible are a decent company and they have the odd free audio so it’s worth having an account.

It’s a great book I haven’t read in ages so I may just grab this one myself.

The Independent has teamed up with audible.co.uk to offer readers a free audio download of Iain Banks’ cult classic novel ‘The Wasp Factory’.

Over the course of the week you will be able to download the chapters from this celebrated novel and by Friday 11 April you will have all of the parts you need to make up the complete 6-hour audiobook.

Over at GeekDad

I’ve not read any of his work but it gets consistently good reviews so I’m adding this one to my to-read pile to see if I like it.

Descriptions of VanderMeer’s work range from dark fantasy to steampunk, squidpunk and, of course, new weird. One of the things that sets VanderMeer apart is his embrace of technology and media. His online presence is considerable and includes a number of web sites, frequent blogging, a short film adaptation of his novel Shriek (including collaboration with pop rock band The Church), his Alien Baby photo project and even a project involving animation via Sony Playstation.

A particular gem is the original short version of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game is you want to see where the ideas for that book originated.

I don’t particularly like the interface and it seemed to kill my browser a couple of times but that may be due to the plugins I have installed and it would be nice if the stories were provided in a download format so they could easily be read on portable devices. UPDATE: See my comment below, the interface issue seems to be limited to my laptop so most likely my problem. 

My love of pulp fiction and the great idea of the website lets me overlook these small issues however and if you fancy something entertaining for you or your children to read then I thoroughly recommend it.

In the past, dime novels and other forms of pulp fiction provided cheap entertainment for young readers and inspired generations of great writers such as Bradbury, Burroughs, and Asimov. The iPulp Fiction Library brings back the tradition of the dime novel as a FREE online fiction magazine for readers 10 to adult.

If iPulp can turn just one young person on to the joys of reading or inspire one new author, it will have justified its existence.