A couple of notable free e-books

[jeriendhal]

Both found on Amazon for the Kindle.

The first is one of james_nicoll's (ahem) personal favorites, H.Beam Piper's Space Viking, about a man who avenges the death of his wife by becoming an even worse threat to society himself. I'm not sure about the copyright on this one. AFAIK it isn't up on Gutenberg, but the confusion about what copyrights are still active on HBP's works means this may or may not be a legally published copy.

Next is a very early work by Robert Silverberg, titled Starman's Quest. This early edition definitely is out of copyright. Unfortunately that's mostly due to an oversight of Silverberg's part, and as you can see in the reviews he's not really happy about it.

Comments

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

... I'm in two minds about that author comment.
I support copyright that lasts for the life of the creator, precisely so they don't lose control of their creations.
On the other hand, he let it fall out of copyright, so calling the new edition pirated is stupid.

Not that I as a European can download them. For all I know they might fall under copyright protection still here, if the "life+70" applies, so at least that isn't just the publisher being nasty.

[iosef.livejournal.com]

"This title is not available in Australia"

[secoh.livejournal.com]

Or canada!

[secoh.livejournal.com]

My understanding of copyright law is that the owner of the work never has copyright expire while they are alive regardless of whether they paid for it or not.