John Scalzi, a sci-fi novelist, among his other incarnations, is no stranger to TeleBlog readers. I’d been meaning for a long time to catch up with his work, so you can imagine my delight when, belatedly, I stumbled across a free Creative Commons-licensed copy of Agent to the Stars at Manybooks.net. As summarized there:
“The space-faring Yherajk people have come to Earth to begin humanity’s first interstellar friendship. There’s just one problem: They’re hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish. Gaining humanity’s trust isn’t easy when you look like a B-movie terror, and Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal.
Selling aliens vs. selling starlets
“Thomas Stein knows all about closing deals—he’s one of Hollywood’s hottest young agents, but he’s about to learn it’s one thing to sell your client when she’s a hot young starlet and another thing entirely when your client is an alien species!”
If you like the freebie, you can show your appreciation by buying the p-book if/when it returns to print at Subterranean Press, which I suspect it will (it’s sold out). Amazon list only a used copy—selling for a mere $265.25. Guess the Manybooks download is a little cheaper. Oh, the wonders of the gift economy.
Different take on Hollywood agents—also free
For a different take on Hollywood agents, check out Hello, Lied the Agent (free via Wowio), by a TV writer named Ian Gurvitz (see his L.A. Time article to get a feel for the book). Use the free Mobipocket Desktop to convert the PDF so you can read this comfortably on your cellphone or PDA; yes, Wowio, the ads will still show. Do the conversion first rather than immediately opening up the file in your PDF reader; otherwise, the Mobi conversion won’t work. Nothing like the joys of the Tower of eBabel, eh?
And speaking of Mobi
I find that my trial version of the unsupported Mobipocket 4.8 from the DT375.com site is no longer in the Pro mode, and it won’t recognize the serial number when I try to pay for an upgrade. That means I’m stuck with landscape orientation on my DT. Perhaps the problem will go away if I download from Mobi’s own site.
