[Steven Savile]

A short lived post on this board got me to thinking - with books costing so disproportionately much in Russia and the like perhaps we can help... We all have shelves full of fantasy books and could easily live without one or two of them, and postage, surface to Russia would be maybe 4-5 bucks max I am guessing on a paperback... if twenty members helped out one guys that would be a nice way of sharing our love of fantasy... How many members do we have that come from countries where it is so much harder to get books? Would people be interested in helping out?
Steve

[nicba]

I also saw that post and it got me thinking too...

The Internet itself is really a great place to find cheap or free reading material. True, the top popular authors such as Martin, Jordan and Goodkind ect. are typically not available; True, what can be found is often not novels, but novellas and short stories. But, nevertheless, I think that there's much quality reading material floating around out there.

I'll try listing some links. Perhaps you can contribute more to the collection:

PUBLISHERS:


Baen's Free Library (http://www.baen.com/library/): Approx. 40 books published by Baen and downloadable for free in various formats. Mostly SF. Authors such as David Weber, Keith Laumer, James H. Schmitz, Mercedes Lackey and Holly Lisle to name some of that I have read. More books are being added sporadically.
iUniverse Online Books (http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/): You can read iUniverse's books online by clicking on a book and selecting 'Browse Before You Buy.' Some of 'our own' writers from sffworld have books available there. For example GemQuest - The Twins (http://books.iuniverse.com/viewbooks.asp?isbn=05950932801&page=fm3) by Gary Alan Wassner or The Road To Kotaishi (http://books.iuniverse.com/viewbooks.asp?isbn=05951836891&page=fm3) by Kevin Radthorne. Of course, if you can afford it you should probably support them by buying their books instead of just reading them online http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif.


CLASSICAL BOOKS:


Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.net): The ultimate collection of classical texts online, I think. Contains stuff such as Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, Aesop's Fables, Shakespeare, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, etc. The books are in plain .TXT format.
Bibliomania (http://www.bibliomania.com): More classical books.
University of Virginia's E-Book Library (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html): Even more classical books. In MS Reader or Palm format.


SHORT STORIES:


Free Speculative Fiction Online (http://www.freesfonline.de/): A large collections of links to free Hugo and Nebula award winning novellas, novelettes and short stories on the net.
infinity plus (http://www.iplus.zetnet.co.uk/index.htm): A large amount of short stories, republished here after they have been printed in various magazines.


AMATEUR AUTHORS:


Elfwood Wyvern Library (http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/libr/entrance.html): Many, many short stories, novellas, poems and so on by amateur writers. A lot of it is not very good but there are gems to be found. Very beautiful gems. The Wyvern Library contains only Fantasy, SF and Horror. Fanfiction is banned.
FanFiction.Net (http://www.fanfiction.net/): Another site for amateur writers. Mostly fanfiction I think.
sffworld short stories (http://www.sffworld.com/authors/fiction.html): sffworld's very own short story section. Many good reads in there too http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/biggrin.gif.



[This message has been edited by nicba (edited May 10, 2002).]

[Jorgen]

First of all, I want to thank you, Kane, for understanding
and for this sympathetic response. Nevertheless, I would like to correct the impression of “poor Russians” that you may have got from my message… Actually fantasy books in Russian are not THAT expensive (2-5$ max), and we’ve already got the translation of Erikson’s GotM, for example (copyright and all, don’t worry, everything’s legal) so you see the system is rather efficient. But the problem is the translations are mostly awful. Being myself a French-Russian/Russian-French professional interpreter/translator I am well aware of that.
And then, I just enjoy reading books in the original!!!!
So my problem is that of a MINORITY of those who are blase enough to indulge in the luxury of a fantasy novel in its mother tongue…
If you (or someone else on this board) are still disposed to help us (I’ve got lots of friends), e-mail me, and I’ll tell you my address!

Sincerely yours,
Jorgen

[ChrisW]

hehe Eriksons in Russia but still not out in America.

[Qin]

Jorgen, you live in Russia? If you don't mind my asking: where do you live?

[ChrisW]

In Russia http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/biggrin.gif.

::falls over laughing:: http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif

[Jorgen]

Qin, I live in Nizhny Novgorod (former Gorky) Are you Russian?
And, Caldazar, if you bother to take a look at the map, "in Russia" is not what I would call PRECISE.

[Qin]

Don't be so hard on Caly, he's our in-house comedian, and we get free drinks when he's performing. You can't be angry with such perks.

And yes Jorgan, I am Russian. I live in Boston right now, but I'm moving to Moscow in several months.

In regards to the topic, books aren't that expensive in Russia. Last year I paid about 200 rubles for a paperback novel in Moscow, which is a fairly decent price. In contrast, Russian novels are much cheaper in America, if you know where to go. I recently purchased a Russian translation of Tigana which cost $4 USD.

[Jorgen]

Qin, what do you think of Russian fantasy (Semenova's Volkodav series, Max Frei's Eho series) if you have read any of these? And if not, I suggest you give them a shot, they are worth it, especially Frei.

[Lani]

What I think is that Russian books are not really overpriced. It's more often that people just don't have enough money for books.

I used to live in Russia before I moved to Canada and I was already a big fan of fantasy back then. I tried reading some authors on English that I tried to read in translation before and the difference is great! Some of the translations are really poor... The only author I found much better to read on Russian was Eddings since they lost all the archaic language while translating and it actually became bearable.

Also, Jorgen, Semenova's 'Volkodav' is excelent. Actually I think that all of her books are really good quality. She has very good short stories as well.