Free eBooks: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman and Odalisque by Fiona McIntosh
For a limited time, HarperCollins is making two books available as a free download. Formats provided include Adobe Digital, Microsoft Reader and Mobipocket.
The first book is Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman and is available for online reading or as a free download (though that link doesn’t quite work yet, as per Neil). The book is described thusly:
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.
The second book is Odalisque: Book One of The Percheron Saga by Fiona McIntosh.
Captured by slave traders in the inhospitable desert, Lazar fought his way to freedom, earning the coveted position of Spur of Percheron. Charged with protecting his adopted city from enemies on both sides of its walls, he has led a charmed life as confidant to and protector of Zar Joreb for many years. But now Joreb is dead…
Though Joreb’s well-intentioned fifteen-year-old heir, Boaz, will take the title of Zar, the balance of power lies in the hands of his beautiful and cruelly ambitious mother, a former harem slave who rose to power by the Zar’s favor. Aside from Lazar, whom Boaz trusts and respects, the young Zar’s only friend is Pez, the court jester, a misshapen dwarf whose tricks and diversions are accepted only because he is known to be mad.
When a stunning young girl is brought to the palace to fill a space in Boaz’s harem, both Boaz and Lazar are surprised by their unexpectedly strong reactions to her. But Ana, the odalisque, finds the closeted world of the harem stifling and unbearable. And unbeknownst to all, the gods themselves are beginning to rise in a cyclical battle that is just beginning, and will enmesh everyone in the palace in a struggle for the very soul of Percheron
Don’t dawdle…these offers expire on October 31, 2008.
Related posts:
- REVIEW: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
- REVIEW: Coraline by Neil Gaiman
- REVIEW: Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves
- Neil Gaiman Interviews
- For Neil Gaiman Fans
Filed under: Free Fiction
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“thought hat link”?
In any case…this is kind of a weird “giveaway”. The file dissolves after 30 days? After the “American Gods” debacle, where they “gave” us an online scan of less than stellar quality…
But why the electronic dissolution? Want to bet you can get copies on the “darkweb” if you are so inclined? Why not just sell a good multi-format eBook without restrictions? Gosh, trust your customer. What a concept.
Fixed.
Yeah, the HarperCollins eBooks are protected. I suspect high-level corporate issues are preventing them from fully releasing it into the wild. But, from a reader perspective (at least those readers who can tolerate it), something is better than nothing.
The Neverwhere ebook site is working, it’s just that due to the DRM you have to be running Adobe 6, 7, or Digital Edition, which excludes linux entirely, and means that those without it already installed get some freaking “edt” file instead of a PDF.
Your link, on the other hand, is wrong. HC is tracking links by redirecting the user from the URL posted on Neil’s blog to a tokenized version (posted here) that is tied to the individual user. This tokenized version will allegedly stop working after 24 hours. Also it makes it look like everyone who clicks your link is the same person downloading it repeatedly.
If you would, please, update your link to match the one I posted on Neil’s blog.
Thnaks, Dan. Link updated.