A while back, I wrote about reading Ebooks on the OLPC. I am really interested in getting myself a Kindle, but until there is a Japanese release I don’t see the point of buying one: the wireless portion won’t work in Japan, and that is a very attractive feature that I would rather not neuter.

I’m very happy reading ebooks on my OLPC though, so it isn’t a big problem for me.

I read Old Man’s War, which was available for free as part of the Tor site launch, and really thought it was great. So because of that, I went to see if I could find any other books by John Scalzi (who runs an excellent blog on sci-fi and other stuff, check it out.)

It turns out, I could find other books. The real, “you have to pay money for them” kind, but I figure that I have good reason to support Amazon.com (well, the Japanese variant for me) so I picked them up off of Amazon.co.jp. I’ve linked the Amazon.com versions to the left, but only because I haven’t bothered to get a .co.jp affiliates account.

I picked up The Ghost Brigades, the direct follow-up to Old Man’s War, as well as The Last Colony, a sequel in the same universe set a few years later, and The Android’s Dream, which is set in a different universe. I devoured both Ghost Brigades and The Last Colony in about a day and a half each. I would have read them faster, but I haven’t had much time to read lately, so I was just able to fit in snatches on the train and a bit before bed, and at lunch.

I rate both books as totally excellent sci-fi. The whole Old Man’s War trilogy is excellent, please read them if you like sci-fi at all.

I haven’t yet read The Android’s Dream, but I plan to read it in the next few weeks. Also, I want to pick up Zoe’s Tale, another book in the Old Man’s War universe, as soon as it is out in paperback. I just don’t have the room to store hardcovers, and don’t enjoy the price premium they command for something that I might not be keeping around.

I’m convinced that there must be other people out there like me who had never heard of John Scalzi before, but went out and picked up a bunch of his books after reading Old Man’s War when it was made available for free from Tor’s site. I’m actually thinking of picking up a copy of OMW so I can put it next to the other two (three?) since they are good enough to make the book shelf cut.

Also, because Amazon.co.jp recommended the Lost Fleet series of books to me, I picked up the four of those that are available. Working at Amazon could prove to be … difficult for me.