Humble eBook Bundle

Links to Amazon reviews for all the books:<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Cinema-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765329085/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Cinema-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765329...</a><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pump-Other-Stories-Paolo-Bacigalupi/dp/1597802026/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Pump-Other-Stories-Paolo-Bacigalupi/dp...</a><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-City-Lauren-Beukes/dp/0857662163/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-City-Lauren-Beukes/dp/0857662163/</a><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Invasion-Secret-World-Chronicle-Chronicles/dp/1451637721/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Invasion-Secret-World-Chronicle-Chroni...</a><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Things-Happen-Kelly-Link/dp/1931520003/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Things-Happen-Kelly-Link/dp/1...</a><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Beginners-Kelly-Link/dp/0156031876/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Beginners-Kelly-Link/dp/01560318...</a><p>Bonus Books (If you pay more than average) :<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Signal-Noise-Edition-Neil-Gaiman/dp/1593077521/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Signal-Noise-Edition-Neil-Gaiman/dp/15...</a><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Old-Mans-War-John-Scalzi/dp/0765348276/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Old-Mans-War-John-Scalzi/dp/0765348276...</a>

There's also a Story Bundle (<a href="http://storybundle.com/" rel="nofollow">http://storybundle.com/</a>) that is happening right now.<p>I think they also did the first eBook bundle some months ago, before Humble Bundle.

The Scalzi and Bacigalupi books are so worth it.<p>Bacigalupi is a great author. I really liked the Wind Up Girl, and about 80% of the short stories in Pump 6 were good.<p>Old Man's War is a recent classic. I've read all the books in the series, and the first is the best.<p>I've read all the Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean collaborations, and honestly I don't care for McKean's artwork. It took me a while of looking at the preview to realize I'd already read Signal-to-Noise. Forgettable.<p>I haven't read:<p><pre><code> Cory Doctorow: Pirate Cinema Lauren Beukes: Zoo City Mercedes Lackey: Invasion Kelly Link: Stranger Things Happen Kelly Link: Magic for Beginners </code></pre> Although I own the Kelly Link books. Never got around to them. My wife liked Magic for Beginners.

I find it interesting that they still provide payment breakdowns by platform... and that Linux and Mac OS are still so much higher than Windows.<p>When those two were paying for games it was obvious why that should be, since games on Linux are so comparatively scare, but it doesn't make so much sense with eBooks.

It would be cool if they could offer "kindle keys" just like they do with steam keys.

A few things really upset me with that:<p>First, books are a special kind of products, they do not obey the same rules as commercial products, they are culture. To explain a little, I am french and we have a law for the unique price of books: the price you will pay for a book will be the same on amazon, at fnac, in your local bookshop or in a supermarket.<p>Second, the word e-reader is nowhere to be found, ePub is also not prominently featured, contrary to iPad and Kindle. For a no-DRM ebook offer, I would have thought that the standard format for ebooks would be more important than the name of the most DRM-filled devices.<p>Third, Pirate Cinema, Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners are CC licensed (some NC-ND, some only NC), I would be happy to know the license of the books that are here sold (included the other ones) and in the case of Magic for Beginners if it includes the non CC licensed short stories. For the first humble indie bundle, there was a promise that some games would be opensourced, a similar promise would be great here.

On an unrelated note, that site uses SPDY (looks like it's on app engine or apps for your domain).

If anyone cares, my two cents so far. Disclaimer: I love scifi and fantasy stuff in general and think that I have a rather high bullshit tolerance.<p>Started with Old Man's War and finished it in one go. Liked it a lot, although it was really simple. It was a great start for this bundle and set some high expectations.<p>I started Magic for beginners, a collection of short stories. The first one was.. weird. But fun and a good read. The second was unreadable. I tried multiple times, restarted.. No luck. Checked the third and it's a freak story in a q/a format.. Tried, failed. Last chance, story four. Maybe that one isn't bad, I was annoyed by now. The beginning is.. totally off though. I stopped, deleted the book.<p>How about Invasion? Deleted it after 10 minutes. I'll keep it in an index of reference books for crap that is impossibly bad. Its like a C-movie, but without the special effects and with a worse plot. Granted, Hitler/Nazi plots have a hard time with this German reader. If an author thinks that it makes sense to drop German-except-not-really quotes on every other page I'm deeply disgusted. Don't. Oh my god is it bad.<p>So.. I'm now disillusioned. I love the Humble Bundle stuff, but so far this particular one was exceptional in only one way, a bad way.<p>Obviously this is a matter of taste and maybe everything else is good anyway, but I cannot recommend this Bundle to friends.

This bundle has some fantastic books. They did a really good job putting it together.<p>On to more interesting thoughts, I wonder if future ebook bundles will be filled with serial titles. In other words, you pay the nominal Humble fee to sample the first novel of several series; publishers will bite hoping you'll get hooked at full price. I don't recall seeing an appeal to episodic content in other Humble Bundles, but ebooks are a different market with different publishers looking at different trends. Interesting times.

Oh, they made an illustration for "hungry author" too: <a href="http://cdn.humblebundle.com/1/hbb1/sad_author.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://cdn.humblebundle.com/1/hbb1/sad_author.jpg</a>

Fantastic extension of the Humble Bundle concept. Good titles too, Old Man's War, Pump Six and Zoo City are all great books I've read recently.

Might be worth mentioning that the two Kelly Link collections are licensed Creative Commons and available here free: <a href="http://smallbeerpress.com/creative-commons/" rel="nofollow">http://smallbeerpress.com/creative-commons/</a> Well worth checking out if you enjoy contemporary 'weird' fiction.

Humble Bundle has such a great website design.

The instructions for Android seem needlessly complicated. Here's easier ones.<p>- install FBReader - click on the EPUB link<p>Depending on whether you've done this before, you may get a dialog asking whether you want to make FBReader the default for epub.<p>What's more surprising is that neither Aldiko nor Kobo work this simply.

Here's the post from Humble bundle blog, with a very short synopses for each book on one page.<p><a href="http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/33237485887/introducing-the-humble-ebook-bundle" rel="nofollow">http://blog.humblebundle.com/post/33237485887/introducing-th...</a>

Wow.. ok, now i bought it but i didn't think it would be so much trouble reading the books on my iPad.. itunes? syncing? Bahh, i don't even know when i last used itunes :(<p><i>boots into windows to update some crappy buggy software to read an ebook on his tablet</i>

FWIW, Cory Doctorow's <i>Pirate Cinema</i> is CC licensed and is [legally] available for free from his personal website: <a href="http://craphound.com/pc/download/" rel="nofollow">http://craphound.com/pc/download/</a>

Is really hard for my wallet to resist bundles like this. When the price and process get together, is easy to give your money.<p>Just bought a bundle for myself and one for my girlfriend.

I had two of the books there on my Reading List. Instant buy!

"Pump 6" is a fantastic book. I find the genre of Science Fiction short stories is very hit-and-miss. Pump 6 is a hit.

Try donating $0.01 and see what happens ;)

Some good books here. Well worth the buy.

Why is Neil Gaimen in the humble bundle? I thought this was to help under-exposed artists, not writers who are already a massive success.<p>I say make room for talented writers who could use the money.