Hard SF : Suggested Reading : SF Books & Stories Available for Free, Legal Downloads
Archivist’s note: Many of the links on this page are defunct. I might correct them at a later time. This page has been reformatted slightly mroe than most pages in the archive for easier reading.
This page is divided into a number of sections: book publisher sites, free online publications, non-publisher sites with various current authors, author sites, public domain sites (old material no longer covered by copyrights), free SF in audio, and SF that can be read online.
You should be aware that some restrictions may apply. Sites in the first three sections will tend to have restrictions on using the downloaded items for anything other than personal reading.
Works that are in the public domain in one country may still be covered by copyrights in another country. For instance, there are some items available from the Australian sites that are not public domain in the US.
Baen Free Library www.baen.com/library/
Baen makes some of their books available for free download. The particular books may vary over time. As of June 30, 2012, the authors include: Christopher Anvil, Catherine Asaro, Lois McMaster Bujold, Jeffery A. Carver, John Dalmas, David Drake, Michael Flynn, James P. Hogan, Keith Laumer, Murray Leinster, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, James H. Schmitz, Harry Turtledove, David Weber.
Tor Books
Tor may occassionally offer a book download, but it’s general short stories and excerpts from books. Some of these are offered in audio format as well.
List by stories: www.tor.com/stories/
List by author: www.tor.com/authors/
Dark Planet web magazine fiction archive
Strange Horizons web magazine archive — science fiction stories
Fantastic Metropolis — fiction section
RevolutionSF web magazine: recent fiction, fiction archive
Infinite Matrix: Recent Stories, Archives
Eidolon (Australian) fiction archive
Cosmos Magazine fiction section
Clarkesworld magazine (Audio SF)
This site provides lists of stories (organized by author and otherwise) with links to other sites where the stories are available. The sites linked to include a number of the ones on this page. In effect, you have a central index to stories at various sites, with separate pages for stories by each author. The site covers “speculative fiction”, so not all of the material is science fiction; but it’s a great resource for either science fiction or other speculative fiction.
www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/
Has a few short stories each by a long list of SF authors
Below is a list of links to stories by authors of interest to hard SF readers
Hour Of The Wolf: Online SF List
Has links to some stories not listed elsewhere (but also has numerous defunct links).
www.lexal.net/scifi/scifiction/archive.html
Archive of stories originally at scifi.com. As the page says, scifi.co discontinued this feature 6/15/07. Includes authors William Barton, Gregory Benford, Alfred Bester, Fredric Brown, Paul Di Filippo, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Paul McAuley, Nancy Kress, Geoffrey Landis, Linda Nagata, Robert Reed, Bob Shaw, Bruce Sterling, Charles Stross, John Varley, Joan Vinge, Ian Watson, Gene Wolfe, John Wyndham, George Zebrowski.
Ratings & free download links for SF, fantasy and related genres. This is a blog - items are listed according to the date on which someone submitted info saying a story was available online. The above link shows those items from the blog which were labeled "science fiction". There are other links on the page which allow one to view only items with other labels.
Bookseller provides some free downloads. Most of the items which are available for free are also available from public domain sources such as Project Gutenberg. However, one can find items not offered elsewhere.
Amateur SF & F – more fantasy than SF, but you may find what you like.
David Brin
www.davidbrin.com/shortstories.html Some novellas, novelettes & short stories
Jeffrey A. Carver
www.starrigger.net Online stories
Cory Doctorow
www.craphound.com Novels, stories
Greg Egan
www.gregegan.net Online stories
Kathleen Ann Goonan
www.goonan.com Online stories
Alexander Jablokov
www.sff.net/people/Jablokov/ [dead link] Online stories
Jame Patrick Kelly
www.jimkelly.net Stories, essays, poetry
freereads.blogspot.com Audio files of Kelly reading some of his own stories and books
Geoffrey A. Landis
www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis Online stories
Paul McAuley
www.omegacom.demon.co.uk [dead link] Novel extracts and short stories
Wil McCarthy
www.wilmccarthy.com/audio.htm The Wellstone (audio, poor sound quality)
www.wilmaccarthy.com/hm.htm Hacking Matter novel (PDF format, $1 requested, but not required for download)
Rudy Rucker
www.rudyrucker.com/postsingular/ His novel Postsingular in several formats
John Scalzi
www.scalzi.com/whatever/004930.html Stories and one novel
Charles Stross
www.accelerando.org/book/ Accelerando novel (author suggests you consider buying the book so he can pay his bills)
www.antipope.org/charlie/fiction/ Stories
Vernor Vinge
vrinimi.org/rainbowsend.html Rainbow’s End novel
Peter Watts
Blindsight (novel)
Maelstrom (novel)
Starfish (novel)
Project Gutenberg SF Section
Authors include: Edward Bellamy, John W. Campbell, Lester Del Rey, Cory Doctorow, Arthur Conan Doyle, Murray Leinster, Abraham Merritt, Andre Norton, Alan E. Nourse, Jules Verne, and H. G. Wells.
Project Gutenberg of Australia
The “SF” section is vague, including science fiction, swords & sorcery, supernatural, scary fiction, etc. It includes a wider selection of Edward Bellamy, includes Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, etc. (Sorry, but I didn’t recognize any of the Australian authors’ names.)
Arthur’s Classic Novels
I’m told this is a legit site and there aren’t recent releases. But some may not be public domain in the US. In any case, this stuff probably isn’t being produced commercially.
arthursclassicnovels.com/arthurs/sf2.html SF authors include: Alfred Bester, Lester Del Rey, Olaf Stapledon, Fredric Brown, Murray Leinster, John Wyndham
arthursclassicnovels.com/arthurs/sf.html
SF authors include: John Wyndham, Roger Zelazny, M. P. Shiel, Edward Bellamy, Stanley G. Weinbaum, A. Merritt
The Thunder Child
This site has an extensive listing, even including such things as the Tom Swift series. The listings have links to Gutenberg US, Gutenberg Australia, etc. Authors include Edward Bellamy, Samuel Butler, John W. Campbell, Lester Del Rey, Arthur Conan Doyle, Murray Leinster, Abraham Merrit, Andre Norton, Alan E. Nourse, Jules Verne, Stanley Weinbaum, and H. G. Wells
X Minus 1
1950s SF radio show audio files (show did stories by some well known writers)
Rudyard Kipling
“Wireless” tells of a time-spanning psychic influence.
“The Eye of Allah” is an alternate history set in the Middle Ages.
“Unprofessional” involves astrological medicine.
www.indianscifi.com
New Indian Science Fiction & Fantasy (Non-professional writers, I assume)
sffworld community
(Non-professional writers, I assume)
See also this site's section on: Free Audio SF
Project Gutenberg has some public doman works in audio format. In the advanced seaerch page, you can specify MP3 as the desired file type. But if you want to go to a site that specializes in audio format public domain, see: www.librivox.com and www.alexwilson.com/telltale/spokenalexandria.php.
archive.org is not exclusively audio or SF, but it has a large selection of audio files related to SF from various radio shows, podcasts, links to Librivox books, etc.
www.audiobooksforfree.com Audiobooks of public domain works. Has free downloads of lows sound quality versions, sells better quality versions. Read review.
Baen Books Sample Chapters in Audio www.baen.com/audio.htm.
www.sffaudio.com has info on sources of adio SF, including some free.
www.ebooksonus.com [dead link] links to various sites some of which have some free downloads.
X Minus 1: 1950s SF radio show audio files (some well known writers)
Pendant Productions: Serialized shows: www.pendantaudio.com
Virtual Imprint: Podcasts of Earthbound Series: www.virtualimprint.com/earthbound/
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine: www.andromedaspaceways.com
These sites have their books/stories presented one book page per web page or one book chapter per web page – making them inconvenient for downloading. They can be read online for free:
Night of Power by Spider Robinson
[dead link] by Geoff Ryman (web-based “novel”)
Creatures That Used to be Men by Maxim Gorky
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Looking Backwards by Edward Bellamy