As if to prove me wrong about the deficiencies of their web site, the ConJosé front page now has a link to the 2002 Hugo winners. And I also found a weblog written by one of the conrunners: Cheryl Morgan. The blog is a subsection of Emerald City, Cheryl’s (primarily reviews-oriented) webzine. Excellent site –definitely one to bookmark.
Also on an SFnal note, Spider Robinson’s story Melancholy Elephants is now available for free on the Baen web site.
The Baen web site just keeps getting better. I know of no other publisher that makes its catalogue so easily available. This site is really a masterpiece of simplicity and functionality. And it’s ideologically sound, too! They run the Baen Free Library, which is a place where you can download free, complete books. There are no strings attached. The idea is that easily available free samples of an author’s work are likely to make you want to read more by that person. So you’ll go out and buy their books. And according to the statistics they’ve gathered, it works.
And if this wasn’t enough, they run also run a service called “Webscriptions”, which is allows you to cheaply read electronic versions of new novels before from Baen’s catalogue before they hit the shop shelves. And the fact that it’s been running since September 1999–and they haven’t withdrawn it–means that it’s working out for them. The key, of course, is keeping it all nice and simple.