The Neddiad is the tale, the saga, the odyssey of young Neddie Wentworthstein, heir to a shoelace empire, and generally a nice kid. When his family decides to move from Chicago to Los Angeles, little does Neddie know that he is in store for a grand Hollywood adventure, whereupon he will meet the likes of swashbuckling actors, omniscient shamans, hungry ghosts, mysterious turtles, and an elephant or two
Daniel Pinkwater is putting the entire text of his book The Neddiad online before its publication in April 2007.
Book link.
DC are offering the first issue of Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli’s post-apocalyptic New York City graphic novel DMZ for free download
I just finished reading DMZ: On The Ground last week, having long wanted to get hold of some of Brian Wood’s work. It’s excellent stuff, and this first issue of On The Ground is a great introduction to the series to give you a taste of it yourself. It’s not for the squeamish.
Here’s the blurb:
“From indie comics icon Brian Wood (Demo, Channel Zero, GLOBAL FREQUENCY) and up-and-coming Italian artist Riccardo Burchielli (John Doe) comes the first volume of DMZ, collecting the first 5 issues of the series about the ultimate embedded war journalist trapped in a most unlikely war zone: the streets of New York City.
In the near future, America’s worst nightmare has come true. With military adventurism overseas bogging down the Army and National Guard, the U.S. government mistakenly neglects the very real threat of anti-establishment militias scattered across the 50 states. Like a sleeping giant, Middle America rises up and violently pushes its way to the shining seas, coming to a standstill at the line in the sand - Manhattan or, as the world now knows it, the DMZ.
Matty Roth, a naive young man and aspiring photojournalist, lands a dream gig following a veteran war journalist into the heart of the DMZ. Things soon go terribly wrong, and Matty finds himself lost and alone in a world he’s only seen on television. There, he is faced with a choice: try to find a way off the island, or make his career with an assignment most journalists would kill for. But can he survive in a war zone long enough to report the truth?”
You can download the first issue of DMZ at Vertigo Comics.
The KLF’s hilarious and strangely profound guide to getting a Number One single
The KLF were one of those great bands who continually messed with everyone’s heads. From their explosive debut “1987: What The Fuck Is Going On?” through to their huge chart topping stadium pop singles and their heartstopping art projects (see The KLF Burn A Million Quid), The KLF were archetypal cultural plunderers, in love with pop but utterly unsentimental about it.
At the heart of The KLF were Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, both fiercely intelligent and restlessly experimental, fascinated by the money and media attention having something as trivial as a pop single could provide and determined to mess around with it.
The Manual is a genuine attempt by the duo to explain the incompetent alchemy that goes into creating a Number One single, and as well as being a masterpiece of dry humour and rightly cynical appraisal of the music industry, it is a genuinely wise book - you really could have a Number One single if you followed their recipe.
Bill Drummond has gone on to write several more books, the autobiographical 45 being an excellent place to pick up the KLF legacy and go beyond it.
I’m not actually sure of the legal status of The Manual being available for free on the Net, but given it’s out of print and unavailable at Amazon, and given The KLF’s own notoriously liberal attitudes to respecting copyright, I’m sure they won’t mind if I link to the full text that’s available online.
Read The Manual online.
Huxley’s 80 year old dystopian classic is still as vital as ever - and completely free to read online
By no means new, but one of my favourite books, so it’s appearing here anyway. Here’s the synopsis:
“Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone in feeling discontent. Harbouring an unnatural desire for solitude, and a perverse distaste for the pleasures of compulsory promiscuity, Bernard has an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress-Huxley’s ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.”
Read Huxley’s Brave New World online
A technothriller about a looming disaster at a nuclear power plant, written by an engineer with over twenty years of experience in the American nuclear industry
Rad Decision: A Novel Of Nuclear Power tells the story of the people and machinery that make up a nuclear power plant, and the dark tale of a man who believes it is his destiny to destroy it. Written by an engineer with over twenty years experience in the American nuclear industry, Rad Decision includes an overview of how electricity is made and a step-by-step, inside look at how a nuclear plant operates - - from its equipment to its people to the politics and money behind it. Chernobyl, TMI and the wonderful world of radiation are also discussed. Armed with this background, the reader plunges into a nuclear accident in the making.
“I’d like to see Rad Decision widely read.” Stewart Brand, noted futurist and founder of The Whole Earth Catalog.
You can read Rad Decision’s complete text online
More on Nuclear Power
Number of products: 7852
Page 1 of 786
 |
Friends In High Places: The Bechtel Story : The Most Secret Corporation and How It Engineered the World
by: Laton Mccartney
price: $19.00 (new), $4.94 (used) |
 |
Power Plant Engineering
by: Larry Drbal, Kayla Westra, Pat Boston
price: $264.00 (new), $236.98 (used) |
 |
Silent Steel: The Mysterious Death of the Nuclear Attack Sub USS Scorpion
by: Stephen Johnson
price: $16.35 (new), $14.70 (used) |
 |
Handbook of Radiation Effects
by: Andrew Holmes-Siedle, Len Adams
price: $146.78 (new), $152.18 (used) |
 |
Fundamentals of Nuclear Science and Engineering
by: Richard E. Faw, J. Kenneth Shultis
price: $83.26 (new), $79.00 (used) |
 |
Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl (In-formation)
by: Adriana Petryna
price: $22.95 (new), $13.95 (used) |
 |
Kicking the Carbon Habit: Global Warming and the Case for Renewable and Nuclear Energy
by: William Sweet
price: $17.61 (new), $13.89 (used) |
 |
Nuclear Systems: Thermal Hydraulic Fundamentals
by: Neil E. Todreas, Mujid S. Kazimi
price: $120.17 (new), $86.24 (used) |
 |
Polymers, Phosphors, and Voltaics for Radioisotope Microbatteries
by: Kenneth E. Bower, Yuri A. Barbanel, Yuri G. Shreter, George W. Bohnert
price: $329.95 (new), $407.70 (used) |
 |
Semiconductor Radiation Detectors: Device Physics (Accelerator Physics)
by: Gerhard Lutz
price: $117.00 (new), $119.83 (used) |
Before David Wellington’s zombie novel Monster Island was published in April 2006, Wellington serialised the entire book on his website - and it’s still available to read online too. Here’s some of the praise Monster Island received:
“Excellent… It’s got all the stuff a zombie aficionado wants… plus a lot of welcome surprises that add a level of richness to the genre.” - Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoing.net
“Glorious and grisly… Click over and feast with the undead, you won’t be left unsatiated.” - Rue Morgue
“…what sets this gleefully apocalyptic first novel apart from the pack is the witty intelligence with which Wellington reinvigorates zombie clichés and the cast of richly developed characters he puts through their paces.” - Scifi.com
Clearly Wellington’s experiment with serialising his novel online before publication worked out well, as he is doing it again with his new novel Frostbite.
More on Zombies
Number of products: 149
Page 1 of 15
 |
The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead
by: Max Brooks
price: $10.74 (new), $7.34 (used) |
 |
Marvel Zombies HC
by: Robert Kirkman, Sean Phillips
price: $12.99 (new) |
 |
Marvel Zombies TPB
by: Robert Kirkman, Sean Phillips
price: $10.77 (new) |
 |
Zombies and Consciousness
by: Robert Kirk
price: $65.00 (new), $50.78 (used) |
 |
The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter)
by: Laurell K. Hamilton
price: $14.92 (new), $11.95 (used) |
 |
The Zombie Zone (A Stepping Stone Book(TM))
by: Ron Roy
price: $3.99 (new), $0.99 (used) |
 |
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
by: Christopher Moore
price: $1.92 (used) |
 |
Every Sigh, The End: A Novel. About Zombies.
by: Jason S. Hornsby
price: $21.95 (new), $21.54 (used) |
 |
Encyclopedia of the Undead: A Field Guide to Creatures That Cannot Rest in Peace
by: Bob Curran, Ian Daniels
price: $12.34 (new), $12.28 (used) |
 |
My Mama Says There Aren’t Any Zombies, Ghosts, Vampires, Demons, Monsters, Fiend
by: Judith Viorst, Kay Chorao
price: $6.99 (new), $0.50 (used) |
The Vikings are invading 9th Century England in this historical fiction saga
Hard to resist a book blurb that manages to not take itself too seriously: “Saxon against Viking. Christian against heathen. Young
women with courage. The clash of sword and spear in war-torn 9th century England. Danger. Passion. Survival. Warfare. Sheep.”
This is not one but three books that author Octavia Randolph is giving away for free - they’re available to read online and the first book is also available as a PDF document.
You can find all three at Octavia.net
More on Vikings
Number of products: 2985
Page 1 of 299
 |
The Pale Horseman
by: Bernard Cornwell
price: $16.35 (new), $11.00 (used) |
 |
The Last Kingdom
by: Bernard Cornwell
price: $16.35 (new), $1.85 (used) |
 |
The Portable Jung (Viking Portable Library)
by: Carl G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, R. F. C. Hull
price: $11.70 (new), $4.48 (used) |
 |
Queen Emma and the Vikings: Power, Love, and Greed in 11th Century England
by: Harriet O’Brien
price: $16.47 (new), $11.00 (used) |
 |
Make Way for Ducklings (Viking Kestrel Picture Books)
by: Robert McCloskey
price: $11.69 (new), $2.40 (used) |
 |
The Book of Runes: A Handbook for the Use of an Ancient Oracle, the Viking Runes
by: Blum, Ralph Blum
price: $19.95 (new), $4.86 (used) |
 |
The Book of Runes: A Handbook for the Use of an Anceint Oracle: The Viking Runes with Stones: 10th Anniversary Edition
by: Ralph Blum
price: $18.87 (new), $5.99 (used) |
 |
The Portable Nietzsche (Viking Portable Library)
by: Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Kaufmann
price: $11.05 (new), $3.11 (used) |
 |
Zoom (Viking Kestrel Picture Books)
by: Istvan Banyai
price: $11.04 (new), $9.75 (used) |
 |
Viking Ships At Sunrise (Magic Tree House 15, paper)
by: Mary Pope Osborne, Sal Murdocca
price: $3.99 (new), $0.70 (used) |
An award-winning collection of eleven extraordinary stories that are quirky, spooky, and smart
This first collection by award-winning author Kelly Link, takes fairy tales and cautionary tales, dictators and extraterrestrials, amnesiacs and honeymooners, revenants and readers alike, on a voyage into new, strange, and wonderful territory. The girl detective must go to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A librarian falls in love with a girl whose father collects artificial noses. A dead man posts letters home to his estranged wife. Two women named Louise begin a series of consecutive love affairs with a string of cellists. A newly married couple become participants in an apocalyptic beauty pageant. Sexy blond aliens invade New York City. A young girl learns how to make herself disappear.
These eleven extraordinary stories are quirky, spooky, and smart. They all have happy endings. Every story contains a secret prize. Each story was written especially for you.
Stories from Stranger Things Happen have won the Nebula, Tiptree, and World Fantasy Award. Stranger Things Happen was a Salon Book of the Year, one of the Village Voice’s 25 Favorite Books of 2001, and was nominated for the Firecracker Alternative Book Award.
Download Stranger Things Happen for free
More on Kelly Link
Number of products: 18
Page 1 of 2
 |
Stranger Things Happen
by: Kelly Link
price: $10.40 (new), $4.99 (used) |
 |
The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2006: 19th Annual Collection (Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror)
by: Ellen Datlow, Gavin Grant, Kelly Link
price: $12.97 (new) |
 |
Magic for Beginners
by: Kelly Link, Shelley Jackson
price: $15.60 (new), $10.44 (used) |
 |
The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection (Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror)
by: Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link , Gavin Grant
price: $13.57 (new), $1.12 (used) |
 |
Firebirds Rising: An Original Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy
by: Francesca Lia Block, Emma Bull, Charles de Lint, Diana Wynne Jones, Ellen Klages, Tanith Lee, Kelly Link, Patricia A. McKillip, Tamora Pierce, Sharyn November
price: $12.99 (new), $8.00 (used) |
 |
The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror Eighteenth Annual Collection (Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror)
by: Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, Gavin Grant
price: $13.96 (new), $10.15 (used) |
 |
Trampoline: An Anthology
by: Kelly Link
price: $11.05 (new), $2.40 (used) |
 |
Year’s Best Fantasy 6 (Year’s Best Fantasy)
by: Bruce Sterling, Esther Friesner, Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe, Kelly Link, Garth Nix, Connie Willis, David G. Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer
price: $9.72 (new) |
 |
My Walk in a Vineyard with God
by: Kelly Northway Link
price: $10.95 (new), $7.42 (used) |
 |
Link to Friendship: Part I of The Claddagh Trilogy
by: Kelly Richelle
price: $19.95 (new), $21.31 (used) |