Free downloadable sf novel: GREY, "high-fashion dystopia"

Loss sez, "Night Shade Books has just made Jon Armstrong's novel GREY available as a free download (as they did with Richard Kadrey's BUTCHER BIRD last month). This stunning 'high-fashion dystopia' has been nominated for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and is one of the best books I read last year. If you haven't yet checked out GREY, you should."

Nora and I finished our fried whale and plum sandwiches, our cream coffees, and the cocoa and coca pastries, and sat in a comfortable silence as landscapes of buildings and millions of well-wishers whirred past the windows at six hundred kilometers per hour. Halfway on our train-date, after the conductor blew the massive, buzzing horn, and the waitresses in their black-and-yellow-striped honeybee uniforms, complete with dangerously sharp-looking stingers, cleared the dishes, Nora closed her right eye and gazed at me with her left; I, in turn, did the same, and it was like we were the perfect couple.

This was our fourth and last date before our marriage, and while the whole thing had been arranged between our parents to complete the merger of our families’ companies, I could not have imagined or wished for someone as wonderful as she. Standing just an inch below my six foot three, with shiny black hair, a light walnut complexion, and obsidian eyes, her features were wide and open like an innocent doll, but she was also intelligent and witty. Most impressive of all was that she, like myself, loved the fashion magazine Pure H. We quoted from it, dressed and struck poses like the models, and felt that we were just like the beautiful and tragic people of our dreams.

Link (Thanks, Loss!)

See also: Kadrey's Butcher Bird -- free download

[#1 posted by themindfantastic , March 25, 2008 4:59 AM]

Also available as a Podiobook, at http://podiobooks.com/title/grey

[#2 posted by Talia , March 25, 2008 6:39 AM]

I've been listening to this via podiobooks.com and the language is just so lush and gripping. Man has a hell of way with words. I'm looking forward to more. :)

[#3 posted by haaz , March 25, 2008 7:05 AM]

Yay for spelling "grey" the right way!

I'll have to read it now for sure.

[#4 posted by mostlymuppet , March 25, 2008 9:11 AM]

I have a copy of this book on my desk at work. Maybe I should pass along the dead tree to someone less technically savvy and read it online instead.

[#5 posted by Bouncy Bouncy , March 25, 2008 9:15 AM]

I hope it's a lot better than the excerpt.

[#6 posted by squibix , March 25, 2008 10:47 AM]

It's not. Half an idea in the whole thing.

[#7 posted by sprockety , March 25, 2008 2:15 PM]

I really enjoyed this book, but I thought it was fantastically funny.

Read the first two pages with an ear towards the absurd.

It is a world that Ford Prefect would feel totally at home in.

[#8 posted by cdibona , March 25, 2008 4:06 PM]

This is a terrible book. Someone should pay you to read or listen to it. Self-important claptrap that resembles one paragraph from a Ben Elton novel (chart throb, likely) that was then expanded to fill as many available pages as the publisher would allow.

[#9 posted by Matt Katz , April 25, 2008 12:05 PM]

Having just finished it, I have to agree with @cdibona. There protagonist is unlovable and stupid, leading you to not care about the climax.

On the other hand, the movie that could be made from it would be a fearsome, awesome beast. This book is extremely visual and if you could get a budget like "The 5th Element" had you would have quite a thing.