I love Baen Books.

[theweaselking]

Baen, being wonderful people who sell books, have a new and great online thing:

The Baen Library.

When you buy a hardcover book, they're giving away CDs full of books, with the disclaimer:

Warning!

Inside you will find a CD-ROM that contains over 40 full-length novels, with no encryptions or other schemes to make you feel dumb and incompetent. You can just click on a title and read it or print it out. It gets worse: There are also pictures, and other tasty items. But be very wary. The publisher did not provide this out of the goodness of his heart, if he even has a heart. He figures you will start reading many of the genuinely first-rate novels provided herein, and discover that you really don't want to continue reading on a computer screen. So what will you do? There are several million words here, so it is pretty likely that you will stop reading, and since the ccompanying artwork is very memorable and can be found on the cover of the associated novel, he thinks it is likely that you will notice it the next time you see it in a bookstore - and that you will Buy the book! Could there be a more dastardly and nefarious scheme for increasing profits? Just remember: You have been warned.

I have one of these CDs, acquired with the purchase of a hardcover novel I was going to buy in paperback anyway, and picked up because this CD intrigued me - so they've profited from me already (the bastards!). On this CD is the complete works of David Weber, a pile of David Drake and Eric Flint, some Dave Freer, Mercedes Lackey, Keith Laumer, Larry Niven, Andre Norton, Jerry Pournelle, John Ringo, James H Schmitz, and Wen Spencer.

Some of these are bound to be crap (*cough*Drake*cough*) and others are fluff at best, ranging from good fluff (Weber!) to scary fluff (Lackey!) - but they're FREE! With the explicit exhortation to copy the CD and give it away! And there are more (different) ones online! And links to even MORE different ones, for free? And now that they've shown me what they're doing, you *know* I'm going to be looking out for the rest of the CDs, since the one I have is "volume 6".

And what format are they in? Doc, RTF, and HTML. No protections. No encryptions.

This is good and wonderful. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read the Dead Tree version of the one I bought.

By the way: Anyone local who wants a copy of the CD, tell me and I'll make you one. Buy me coffee or something to pay me back for the cost of the plastic.

Comments

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Hey, I like Lackey! (I mean, I agree it's fluff, but scary?) Which Lackey book, anyhow? And is the Norton stuff Discworld?

Guess I might have to visit that site... ^^;;

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Dungeons And Dragons meets My Little Pony, mates, and has widely-published children with names like "Hawkmoon" and "Ravenwind" and "Moonfire", and you don't think that's scary?

From the CD:
Andre Norton
Star Soldiers
Time Traders

Mercedes Lackey
Beyond World's End
Four and Twenty Blackbirds
The Shadow of the Lion
This Scepter'd Isle

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Hey, I've played (A)D&D for a loong time, and I always.. *cough*... loved My Little Pony growing up. I can even still remember the theme song from the show. ^^;;

Shutupshutupshutup! >< Everyone's allowed a bit of fluff in their lives!

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Yes, but even *I* can remember the My Little Pony themesong and that only went on if nothing else was on at the time (given that when I was growing up in .nl, sunday morning cartoons were on exactly one channel and the rest was empty, that happened fairly often, natch).

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with D&D.

Or, at least, nothing wrong with it that a good mechanic-cleaning and a system model not totally mired in the 1970s couldn't fix.

(I remember the ads for one specific My Little Pony, because I had a tape of a cartoon series, taped from TV, when I was young. That toy got advertised at least once per episode, so if I was too lazy to fast-forward through the commercials I heard it again, and again, and again, and again....)

[torrain.livejournal.com]

*blinkblink* Norton did anything related to the Discworld?

I mean, I can see her appreciating it, and it would be kind of cool, but...

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

Erk! I meant to type "Witchworld," but apparently my fingers got the better of me without my realizing.

[waterspyder.livejournal.com]

I would be interested in obtaining a copy. I mean, I probably have a lot of it already, but it would still be neat to read some other stuff I haven't had a chance to get to yet.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Well, locals I could just give it to in person. Last I checked, you aren't that - so how about you send me an email address, and I'll either send you a zipped copy of the CD over yousendit.com, or mail you a physical copy?

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

If you've got a decent internet connection, Bittorrent is the way to go:

http://oberon.zlynx.org/

http://www.bonham.net.nz/SF/Baen/CD_Contents_list/Baen_CD_Contents.htm

Anyone in europe is welcome to an archived copy of my 6 ISOs.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I've got a decent connection, but a dislike for torrenting software on the grounds of massive bandwidth waste.

I'll take a look at it when I get home, though, anyway.

(And yes, I *did* have to click the Book Index. SO THERE!)

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Bandwidth waste? On a global picture, there is no bandwidth waste (since all downloaded software has to go both upstream and downstream in equal rates), and even at a personal level you don't *have* to use more than twice the gigabytes (once up, once down) unless you really, really want to (and even that much is more a matter of honour than actual necessity, a .33 share ratio or less (equals 33% more traffic than a straight-up download) is usually quite easily possible if you shut the torrent down after getting it complete.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Actually, come to think of it, downloading those 6 CDs involves quite a bit of bandwidth waste since significant proportions of them are identical to eachother -- just enough difference that you can't really skip any of them. But that happens however you acquire them.

[kjn]

Dude. Is this new to you? It's been going on since 2000.

Latest comment from Jim Baen was: "Go ahead. Be our marketing department" when he was asked about making copies of the latest CD (which didn't have an explicit copy and share, but don't sell notice).

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's new to me. No, I'd never heard of it before. Yes, I do live in a little hole in the literary ground, surrounded by people who don't share books I like and without the resources to finance my own private library.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

I'd be up for a copy, and for coffee.