John Scalzi and his publisher, Tor Books, are offering an electronic version of his novel, The Android’s Dream for free to US service personnel currently serving overseas. The .rtf version of the book runs about 900kb, and is the version he originally turned in, so it may have some pre-copy editing “flubs.”
Scalzi describes the book as “the one I sold to Tor Books on the following pitch: ‘Man solves diplomatic crises through the use of action scenes and snappy dialogue.’ And indeed, there are lots of action scenes, people running about trying to save the world, aliens, fast-paced dialogue and, of course, sheep. Because what good is science fiction if it doesn’t have sheep? No good, I tell you.”
The offer is only good to people e-mailing Scalzi from a “.mil” address (he’ll take the “serving overseas” requirement on the honor system) at android at scalzi dot com.
This is the third time he’s made the electronic version of his book available to the troops, following Old Man’s War and The Ghost Brigades, “and it’s a good feeling each time.”
For those of us stay-at-home folks, he notes that the hardcover is currently available, and that the mass market paperback version is scheduled for publication in October.