Black Gate has always been available in print, but now they're going digital. In order to promote this new format they're giving away issue #12 for free.

What's Black Gate #12 got to offer? How about this:

• an intrepid thief discovers far more than he bargained for in an ancient, spider-haunted city
• Giliead and Ilias probe the disappearance of mining town in a godless canyon, in one of their earliest adventures together
• Morlock the Maker returns to the corrupt city of Sarkunden to confront an old nemesis - and a puzzle with no possible solution
• Dabir and Asim join forces for the first time, as they encounter dark sorceries in an long-sealed tomb
• Tumithak meets his greatest challenge as he pits his wits against a Shelk scheme to drive humanity back under the earth!

You've got nothing to lose with this one and everything to gain. Why are you still reading this post? Go get it.

Tomorrow is it. The day Tor officially concludes their Free E-book Giveaway promotion and launches their new web site.

That means my own series where I dig into the books and their authors will also be concluding, though I have a few places where I need to go back and fill-in since I invariably skipped over an e-book or two along the way.

If you missed any of the downloads, see my series. I have links to the downloads (which will remain working as long as Tor doesn't remove the e-books from their download site). Or, visit Tor's site (after today, I'm guessing) as they're expected to make all of the downloads available one last time.

NOTE: As of 7/20/08, Tor has listed all the downloads (e-books and wallpapers) here. The list is supposed to remain up until July 27.

For more information about the launch, I'll mine some information from scifi.com:

[The new] Tor.com will feature original fiction, a group blog, lightweight social networking features and an extensive art gallery.

Patrick Nielson Hayden, senior editor and manager of science fiction, has this to say:

"On several occasions I have said--not entirely joking--to my own corporate masters that there will be times when you look at front page of the site, and you will see that it consists almost entirely of a half-dozen different bloggers having an extended and elaborate conversation about medieval siege engines, and that's fine," he said. "Because that's exactly the kind of geeky subject that tends to be of interest to people who are interested in science fiction and fantasy."

Also, the site will launch with an original story by John Scalzi called "After the Coup", set in his popular Old Man's War universe, and feature "Down on the Farm," a new story by Charles Stross, set in the same milieu as his novels The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue.

So, more free stuff and some potentially good conversation about fantasy and science fiction. I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Tor's free e-book giveaway for this week is Darkness of the Light by Peter David. This the last free e-book giveaway. Tor officially launches their new site tomorrow.

David is a prolific writer, a "writer of stuff" in his own words. His career has spanned decades across a myriad of outlets including television, film, books, short stories, and comics. His movie adaptations alone include The Rocketeer, The Return of the Swamp Thing, Batman Forever, and Spider-Man, amongst others.

Peter David has over fifty novels to his name. For a partial list, visit his bibliography, last updated in 2002 (so I imagine it's a little outdated).

He also maintains a blog where apparently he posts from the future; his most recent post is dated September 27, 2008.

You can read even more about Peter David at sffworld.com.

Let's take a look at Darkness of the Light:

The book is set in the Damned World, a place formerly known as Earth. On the Damned World, creatures of legend—cyclops, vampires, minotaur, trolls, and others—hold dominion. Humankind has been reduced to slavery. Our hero is Jepp, who falls in with a motley group of "Bottom Feeders". Their path crosses with that of the King of the Cyclopses, and adventure ensues.

Darkness of the Light combines elements of high fantasy, humor, and mythology, with multiple plotlines that promise many things to come as Darkness of the Light is only book one of "The Hidden Earth" series.

Download this e-book in the following formats:

PDF | HTML | ZIP | MOBI

For a running list of all of Tor's free e-books, go here.

2008/07/16 - NOTE: I'm trying to fill in the gaps in my Tor Free E-book blog series, so while "Mistborn" was one of Tor's early giveaways, I'm just now adding it to the series.

Tor's first week giveaway is Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson.

This is one of those books where the cover makes me want to pick it up. A summary from Publisher's Weekly reads:

Sanderson's eerie second fantasy (after 2005's Elantris), set in a mist-haunted, ash-ridden world, pits Kelsier, "the Survivor of Hathsin," against the immortal Lord Ruler's 1,000-year domination of both the Great Houses and their serflike "skaa." Through Allomancy acquired in the Ruler's most hellish prison, Kelsier can "burn" 10 metals internally, fueling superhuman powers he uses to assemble rebels in a loose plan to destroy the nobility, the empire and the Lord Ruler himself.

Sounds intriguing; I immediately want to know how this 'burning' concept works.

Sanderson maintains a web site, but his About section is woefully uninformative. He does have several other books out: Elantris and Alcatraz Initiated are listed, but are not part of the Mistborn series. Mistborn is book one of a three book series. Book two is The Well of Ascension and book three The Hero of Ages, currently available for pre-order.

Download this e-book in the following formats:

PDF | HTML | ZIP | PRC

For a running list of all of Tor's free e-books, go here.

One thing you've got to be wondering is when Tor plans to end their Free E-book Giveaway promotion. I found out recently on good authority that the day the e-books stop flowing is July 20, so coming up pretty soon here.

Tor started the program to promote their new newsletter and presumably the re-launch of their web site. They provided links to the free e-books via email, so you would have had to sign up in order to get the benefits. Tor, for their part, gets what I can only imagine is a rather large list of email addresses. Anything associated with free is going to do well, if my Popular Posts section is any indication.

Hopefully you've been onboard from the start like I have, and have now accumulated a nice little pile of e-books. I haven't started any of them yet, but once I get through my print pile of books I'll be jumping in. I'll probably start with "Old Man's War" by John Scalzi. I've heard enough about the guy. Now I need to see if he can write.

For this week, Tor is giving us "Soul", by Tobsha Learner. This blog entry might possibly mark the last of my Tor Free E-books Giveaway posts. I hope you've enjoyed them. For me, it's been fun and educational. I've delved into the lives of a few authors I really didn't know much about and come away slightly more knowledgeable for it. What more can one ask?

7/14/2008 Update: Oops--looks like this is most definitely not going to be my last Tor Free E-books post. Tor has this to say on their web site:

Our current free book is Soul by Tobsha Learner; next week’s free book is Darkness of the Light by Peter David, and in the last week of our giveaway program, we’ll be making all the books in this program available one final time.

So, there's more a-comin'.

Download this e-book in the following formats:

PDF | HTML | ZIP | MOBI

For a running list of all of Tor's free e-books, go here.

I'm combining this week and last's Tor Free E-book Giveaway cause I was fairly underwhelmed with last week's offering and never got to posting about it.

In any case, let's get to it.

Battlestar Galactica, by Jeffrey Carver

Tor gave us Battlestar Galactica by Jeffrey Carver last week. Ordinarily, I might have been excited about this, but the book is an adaptation of the show's pilot which I'd seen at least twice already. Once we get past the initial "human gets greeted by the cylons and blown up" sequence, we're shown Starbuck running through Galactica's corridors shouting "Make a hole!" to ordinary citizens come to tour the battlestar before it's decommissioned.

Huh, how's that for deja vu? Just like the pilot episode.

I can only assume the book continues to follow the storyline as dictated by the pilot (it is an adaptation, after all). Sorry, that just doesn't do it for me. Book closed, didn't even bother saving this one.

As an aside, I've developed quite a love/hate relationship with the show. Sometimes, it's the best sci-fi I've ever seen. Other times (usually when they're dealing exclusively with Gaius Baltar), I'm bored to tears and my wife gets to listen to me swear off the show again and again. But I'm always back the next week hoping to see the show's true potential. Sometimes, I'm rewarded, and that's what keeps me coming back for more. Right now, I'm swearing off the show again cause they're making us wait until 2009 for the remainder of the episodes. I'm sure I'll change my tune by then.

Download this e-book in the following formats:

PDF | HTML | ZIP | MOBI

For a running list of all of Tor's free e-books, go here.

Flash, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Next up, and this week's giveaway, is Flash, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

Cool cover, and you have to love a book that throws you into the action from the very first sentence:

Cracckk!
“Down!” Down! At the sound of the ancient slug-thrower,
I dropped flat onto the squashed soyl plants at the edge of
the field.

Similar to Tobias Buckell's Sly Mongoose, where the opening begins with the lead character hurtling through the atmosphere on a collision course with a floating city, this sort of opening promises a lot of fast-paced plotting, kick-butt action, and some general edge of your seat escapades.

Let's see what Amazon readers thought.

Not bad. 4 1/2 stars out of 5. As one would expect with a rating that high, most reviews are favorable, though one reviewer who gave it 4 stars notes that the book "ultimately falls short as the world doesn't quite support the plot".

Guess I'll have to read the book to see for myself.

Modesitt has an extensive list of books to his name, so if you like this one you've got plenty of others to keep going with.

Download this e-book in the following formats:

PDF | HTML | ZIP | MOBI

For a running list of all of Tor's free e-books, go here.