Free science fiction, and other, e-books

I did a search and found only a couple references to this so thought I'd post a thread specifically about it. Project Gutenberg digitally archives all kinds of books with expired copyrights. They can be downloaded at no charge. Have a look at this list, there are some famous author's early, or less popular, works here. Enjoy.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Science_Fiction_(Bookshelf)

I'll move this thread to the General Books Discussion area - I know some members have been reading books from this archive, but it's good to see the book shelf pointed out.

There's also the Project Gutenberg Australia page, which carries some other books. Though their might be copyright issues for non-Australian traffic.

The peculiar thing about that book shelf is that there is science fiction in Project Gutenberg that is no on the shelf.

Isaac Asimov !!!

Youth, by Isaac Asimov
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31547/31547-h/31547-h.htm

psik

Lonely without another shelf
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Fantasy_(Bookshelf)


The best way to search Gutenberg is to use Search generally and Wikipedia or IMDB or GoodReads etc to find the title or author and then use that to search. Their "metadata" is very incomplete

Ray McCarthy said:

The best way to search Gutenberg is to use Search generally and Wikipedia or IMDB or GoodReads etc to find the title or author and then use that to search. Their "metadata" is very incomplete

Click to expand...

A couple of years ago the were adding 2 to 10 sci-fi works a month and then it dropped to a trickle and they stopped putting in the metadata specifying that is was science fiction. It is thoroughly screwed up now.

psik

I've read a lot of 19th and early 20th century Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror that would have been very difficult to find if it were not for Project Gutenberg. It's a wonderful resource.

Teresa Edgerton said:

I've read a lot of 19th and early 20th century Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror that would have been very difficult to find if it were not for Project Gutenberg. It's a wonderful resource.

Click to expand...

Thanks 'Goblin Princess'. I forgot to put the word 'goblin' in my fantasy dictionary.

What do you think were the better fantasy stories in PG?

psik

"The Diamond Lens" by Fitz-James O'Brien comes to mind. Also, any of the short stories by Vernon Lee. For books, the anthology Incredible Adventures, by Algernon Blackwood. For children's books (and speaking of goblins) The Princess and Curdie, by George MacDonald -- although for some reason it's listed as The Princess and the Curdie.

And where else to read 'The Terrible Tentacles of L-472' by Sewell Peaslee Wright. Learn the secret of 'The Fifth Dimensional Catapult' by Murray Leinster. Werewolves of War. Monsters of Mars by Edmond Hamilton. Must - read - these - ... *

I might also suggest archive.org, which has a bunch of Galaxy magazines, along with other items of interest.

HTTPS://archive.org

https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine

Teresa Edgerton said:

"The Diamond Lens" by Fitz-James O'Brien
books by Vernon Lee.
Incredible Adventures, by Algernon Blackwood
The Princess and Curdie, by George MacDonald

Click to expand...

The input file is: FJO.DimLens.txt with 53105 characters.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23169/23169-h/23169-h.htm

It uses 19 SF words 59 times for an SF density of 1.111 and 5 Fantasy words 12 times for a Fantasy density of 0.226

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The input file is: VL_Hauntngs.txt with 315316 characters.
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9956/pg9956.html

It uses 15 SF words 50 times for an SF density of 0.159 and 18 Fantasy words 63 times for a Fantasy density of 0.200

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The input file is: AB_IncrAdvn.txt with 607809 characters.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43816/43816-h/43816-h.htm

It uses 30 SF words 144 times for an SF density of 0.237 and 16 Fantasy words 79 times for a Fantasy density of 0.130

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The input file is: GM_PrinCurd.txt with 301476 characters.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36612/36612-h/36612-h.htm

It uses 7 SF words 19 times for an SF density of 0.063

princess 122 + king 164 = 286

It uses 14 Fantasy words 332 times for a Fantasy density of 1.101

Thanks GP

psik

And yet if one actually reads them, the Vernon Lee stories are most emphatically not science fiction, and the same goes for the stories by Blackwood. "The Diamond Lens" is, on the surface, science fiction, but it's all so fantastic I'd say that it tilts more toward fantasy. Still, I wouldn't argue with anyone who read the story and categorized it as early science fiction.

Who decides what qualifies as a "SF word" or a "Fantasy" word? Going by these examples, it looks like a very faulty system.

Teresa Edgerton said:

And yet if one actually reads them, the Vernon Lee stories are most emphatically not science fiction, and the same goes for the stories by Blackwood. "The Diamond Lens" is, on the surface, science fiction, but it's all so fantastic I'd say that it tilts more toward fantasy. Still, I wouldn't argue with anyone who read the story and categorized it as early science fiction.

Who decides what qualifies as a "SF word" or a "Fantasy" word? Going by these examples, it looks like a very faulty system.

Click to expand...

I started a thread about the program here:
http://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/549480/#post-1840412

Input file is: VL_Hauntngs.txt

theory 1 experiment 1 science 1 symptoms 1
gravity 1 archaeology 1 Plato 1 Terra 1
atmosphere 2 research 2 Mercury 2 scientific 3
psychological 6 brain 10 Venus 17

The input file is: VL_Hauntngs.txt with 315320 characters.

It uses 15 SF words 50 times for an SF density of 0.159

knights 1 demon 1 swords 1 dwarf 1
princess 1 werewolves 1 prince 2 knight 2
witches 2 curse 2 spell 3 spirit 5
magic 5 sword 5 charm 6 witch 7
castle 7 goddess 11

It uses 18 Fantasy words 63 times for a Fantasy density of 0.200

The word Venus is ambiguous, as the name of a planet it is scientific, as a goddess it would be fantasy. But we can't expect a computer to be that smart without a lot of semantic analysis coding.

psik

One word of warning regarding Gutenberg (or other out of copyright sites) is that the more recent ones may not be out of copyright where you happen to live. Different countries have different copyright periods. Gutenberg is, to the best of my knowledge only guaranteed out of copyright in America. More recent books on Gutenberg may not be out of copyright in, for example, the UK, making downloading them illegal.

Another source of legal free books can often be authors' own sites; Charles Stross provides a number of his shorter works as free downloads; John Scalzi provides a free download of his first book Agent to the Stars; Jon Courtenay Grimwood provides his first book Neo Addix for free (though this appears to be a pre-editing version as it contains massively more printing errors than the printed book). I'm sure there are many others.

As has been mentioned elsewhere on Chrons, Baen book still provide a lot of their books as free downloads from their free library.

As far as I know, the US has the most restrictive copyright policy in the world - if it ain't copyright in the US, it ain't copyright anywhere. I know, e.g., Australia's Gutenberg has many works out of copyright there that are in copyright here. Basically, the only things in the public domain in the US are those published prior to 1922 or those published between 1922 and 1976 where the author neglected to renew copyright (a thing no author has to do any more, thus keeping things out of the public domain even when it hasn't been in print for a zillion years and the author or corporation can't be bothered to renew, so should be seen as valueless except to them that want a copy).

Copyright was supposed to be a spur to creativity and invention by making sure the creator could profit for a reasonable length of time. Now it defeats creativity with the 67th "reboot" of the "intellectual property" of Mickey Mouse or Star Trek or The Flash or whatever and, for the past 40 years or more, whenever anything might possibly slip into the public domain, the law is changed to extend copyright still further. I am all for copyright for, say, 20 years or even the life of the author if we're being silly but this life plus seventy, i.e. eternity, is nonsense and makes a mockery of the whole principle of the thing.

*ahem* But I digress.

I thought the UK was more restrictive, but in checking we are both life + 70, except the US only seems to be life + 70 for works since 1978; not sure what the rules are prior to that date. Australia is also life + 70 but it is only life + 50 for works pre 1955.

Yeah, that's right - I think the thing is the "Copyright Act of 1976" but it didn't take effect until 1978. As far as the rules before, like I say, 1922 and back, it's public domain. In between that and the '76 act, it had a chance to fall out of copyright - I forget what the renewal period was but you'll see "copyright renewed" on the backs of a lot of books, at least in the US - I think it was 30 years or around thereabouts. Otherwise, if it was renewed, it's basically the same as post-76/8 books. There are other corner cases and weirdnesses such as unpublished corporate writings and whatnot, but that's the basic general picture.

More details can be found here.

Free Speculative Fiction Online

http://www.freesfonline.de/Authors.html

psik

Regarding Baen books, there is quite a lot of material that is (so far) legal to download but requires a fair amount of hoop-jumping, on the site Fifth Imperium.

The snag is that in the last year or so, some sort of copyright argy-bargy has meant that one has to download ISO images to access this stuff. ISO images can sometimes be accessed by using third-party programs allowing one to mount ISOs as virtual disks, but I've never managed to get them to work.

Still, if you're prepared to burn a CD...