Project Gutenberg
In my mind at least, Project Gutenberg (at http://promo.net/pg/) is the parent of the modern ebook/e-text movement. Founded in 1971 by Michael Hart, the aim of the project is to make classic literature available to everyone in an electronic format. This takes what Gutenberg was able to do with his printing press to a whole new level. Project Gutenberg makes fine literature and reference materials (including the complete working copy of the Human Genome) available to all who want them, releasing, on average, one title a day.

Project Gutenberg texts are in ASCII text format with 70 characters per line, and there are hard carriage returns at the end of every line. This makes them lousy for the handheld screen without some formatting work. However, the amount of information that Project Gutenberg has electrified makes everything they are doing well worth mention and notice.

Project Gutenberg is a great source, and although it may not be the best source for speculative fiction (as a general rule, nothing that has been published since the 1920s is a part of the collection due to copyright laws), it's a source for e-texts that's paralleled by none.

Conclusion
If you're interested in reading ebooks on you Palm OS device, and enjoy speculative fiction, you may be in luck. The sources for ebooks outlined here are fairly good for most subjects, but they all have fairly sizeable collections of ebooks that are top quality, and in some cases completely unavailable in print. It's often theorized that because of the forward expression of ideas that speculative fiction brings to its readers, speculative fiction readers are, in turn, more likely to be accepting of new technologies, such as ebooks and handheld computing solutions. Whatever the reason, those of us who enjoy speculative fiction ebooks are able to enjoy a wonderful reading experience with a minimum amount of hassle.

This article is the first in a series of articles examining ebooks, handheld writing, copyrights, digital rights management, and the e-reading experience. Check back next time for another installment in this series.

Sam Kleinman is a writer; he makes his home in St. Louis Missouri and is interested in speculative fiction, cyber culture, and mobile technology. Sam is part of the content team for a promenade mobile tech Web site and also works on maintaining http://www.collectivearts.net, a Web site bringing together a group of skilled artists. You can reach Sam with any questions or comments by email at sam@collectivearts.net.