Download great, top rank, science fiction novels in ebook format on the cheap, many even FREE!!

Hubber/Author Pete Maida wrote an excellent hub titled "My Top Ten Classic Science Fiction Novels". There he published a list of his top ten favorite classic science fiction books of all time.

His picks included the great Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Arthur Clark, Ursula K. Le Guin, Orson Scott Card, Larry Niven, Jack Pournell, Poul Anderson, Anne McCaffrey.

I like the works of all of those great authors but so many more. My favorites list has to include E.E. (Doc) Smith, Pohl Anderson, Theodor Sturgeon, James Blish, Alfred Bester, Frederik Pohl, Clifford Simak, Greg Bear, A.E. Van Vogt, Frank Herbert, Harland Ellison, Robert Silverberg, Kornbluth, Aldiss, Zelazny, Delany, Gregory Benford, and, and, and........The list is almost endless!!

Picking just 10 ”BEST” is, at least for me, impossible! There were far too many great authors to pick from! I find it hard to make a value judgement that assigns a score and ranks their work. They are/were all very exceptional in their own times, their own ways.

I wasn’t surprised to see that I had read every one of his favorites and, in addition, every one of the books favored by his readers in the comments. After all, I’ve been reading science fiction for, well, longer than a lot of you have been on this planet!! And I still read, AND ENJOY, a goodly number of science fiction books each year though I now tend to lean a bit more toward the thrillers and mysteries of James Patterson and Michael Connelly and their like. More about these others in another hub maybe later, for now, SCI-FI!!

Eureka!!

While doing research on my own "favorite authors", I found excellent links out on the web. One of best of these was the Top 100 Sci-Fi books of all time. This site has lists of the top 100, the next 100, lists major sci-fi book series, and a wealth of others including films and TV shows. I’ll be browsing this site for some time to come. Great resource!!

Another great reference site is http://www.sfsite.com/.  Excellent source of information about novels(new and old), awards, book excerpts, and the site has great reviews and forums..  Take a look, well worth the time to click the link!!!

My next discovery was the Project Gutenberg named after Johannes Gutenberg who introduced modern book printing in the (1400s) fourteen hundreds. His invention of mechanical movable type printing started the Printing Revolution.

Wiki defines Project Gutenberg as “Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, open formats that can be used on almost any computer. As of November 2010, Project Gutenberg claimed over 34,000 items in its collection. Project Gutenberg is affiliated with many projects that are independent organizations which share the same ideals, and have been given permission to use the Project Gutenberg trademark.

Wherever possible, the releases are available in plain text, but other formats are included, such as HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, and Plucker. Most releases are in the English language, but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that are providing additional content, including regional and language-specific works. Project Gutenberg is also closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an internet-based community for proofreading scanned texts.”

Project Gutenberg explains that it is the place where you can download over 33,000 free ebooks to read on your PC, Nook, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, Android or other portable device. They carry high quality ebooks: Their ebooks were previously published by bona fide publishers and digitized by Project Gutenberg with the help of thousands of volunteers. All their ebooks can be freely downloaded: Choose between ePub, Kindle, HTML and simple text formats. No fee or registration is required, but if you find Project Gutenberg useful, they kindly ask you to donate a small amount so they can buy and digitize more books. Other ways to help include digitizing more books, recording audio books, or reporting errors. Over 100,000 free ebooks are available through their Partners, Affiliates and Resources.

Caveat: “They do note that their ebooks are free in the United States because their copyright has expired. They may not be free of copyright in other countries. Readers outside of the United States must check the copyright laws of their countries before downloading or redistributing their ebooks.”

I did a search at Project Gutenberg for the work of one well respected and very prolific author, Andre Norton. She also wrote under the name of Andrew North before it was fashionable to write science fiction as a woman. Alice Mary Norton was born on 17 February, 1912 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She died in 2005 at the age of 93 as detailed here in the New York Times. Wiki has a great biography of her here at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Norton. She wrote more than 130 novels, nearly 100 short stories and edited numerous anthologies in the science-fiction, fantasy, mystery and western genres.

I’ve read the majority of these novels although I’m pleasantly surprised to find that I missed a few of her newer books and I *WILL* be reading those soon,,,

Clicking on the links below will take you directly to the book listed, clicking on the Gutenberg link will allow you to search for a new favorite author.

Don't have a favorite yet? Try a few of the authors mentioned on the Top 100 Sci-fi Books list here. Clicking on the book's link on that page give you a great synopsis of each story!!! The site also has the next 100 Sci-fi books along with lists of series and other useful groupings. This gives you, at the very least, 200 books worth of great authors to search!

Samples of books available at the Gutenberg Project for free download :

Plague Ship by Andre Norton
Time Traders by Andre Norton
Key Out of Time by Andre Norton
All Cats Are Gray by Andre Norton
Star Born by Andre Norton
Star Hunter by Andre Norton
Defiant Agents by Andre Norton
Voodoo Planet by Andre Norton
Storm Over Warlock by Andre Norton
Gifts of Asti by Andre Norton
People of the Crater by Andre Norton
Rebel Spurs by Andre Norton
Ride Proud, Rebel! by Andre Norton
Ralestone Luck by Andre Norton

Gutenberg even has audio books available for free download:
Plague Ship by Andre Norton
Voodoo Planet by Andre Norton

I’ve read all of these in the past and am looking forward to reacquainting myself with the stories again. I see that Amazon has collections of novels, many a full series, for as little as $1.99 for a 14 novel collection in eBook format. The can be read on just about any computer or on Kindle. I’m going to introduce my grand kids to these great books.  They read just as well today as when they were written. The kids will love them. They all have eBook readers and computers of course!! The novels are generally also available in book form too.

I hope you get to read some of these wonderful great classic novels and that you derive as much pleasure reading them as I have.

If you have any questions, or need help getting to the books or any sites listed here, feel free to leave me a comment and I'll do my best to clarify or help you out. Feel free to critique my stuff, I'm not much of a writer and I do need the feedback. And thanks in advance!!

Well, I’ve rambled enough for one night. I wish you a good evening, or a good day whichever the case may be and hope to see you again real soon.