The Suvudu Free Book Library is a great place where, in their words, “you can read the first book in some of our most acclaimed series absolutely free!” They’re kicking things off with five full-length novels, but they’ll be adding new titles on a regular basis. Seriously, there are some fantastic books on the list: Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb; Her Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik; Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson; Settling Accounts: Return Invasion by Harry Turtledove; and Tim Pratt’s, Blood Engines.
Paul Cornell is a fantastic writer—not just of Captain Britain, but also Dr. Who. Here’s his adaptation of Iain Banks’ The State of the Art, which can be found online on the BBC IPlayer.
Lynn Viehl has many wonderful novellas and writing guides available online and completely free.
Shadow Unit is an online hyperfiction project created by a diverse group of writers, including Emma Bull, Leah Bobet, Amanda Downum, Sarah Monette, and Holly Black. It’s a semi-interactive web-serial with elements of ARG (some narratives play out in real time, and readers can interact with four of the characters through blogs), and if it were a real TV show, it would belong to the same subgenre as the X-Files or Millennium, with elements of other FBI shows that have an ensemble cast). The pitch is “A team of FBI profilers hunt human monsters who have been granted paranormal abilities by a poorly-understood force known as the Anomaly.”
Cory Doctorow’s novel, Little Brother, is available online. If you love the book, be sure to check out the rest of his back list. Here’s the description:
Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems. But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days. When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.