It’s been a while since I last did an ebook recommendation. Reading has been a little slow lately, but there have been a few good reads that I want to recommend. First up is the new book by Stephen King, Under the Dome

I’ve skipped several of Stephen King’s past books, but the premise of Under The Dome intrigued me :

When the smalltown of Chester’s Mill, Maine, is surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must exert themselves to survive. The situation deteriorates rapidly due to the dome’s ecological effects and the machinations of Big Jim Rennie, an obscenely sanctimonious local politician and drug lord who likes the idea of having an isolated populace to dominate. Opposing him are footloose Iraq veteran Dale Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a gaggle of teen skateboarders and others who want to solve the riddle of the dome. King handles the huge cast of characters masterfully but ruthlessly, forcing them to live (or not) with the consequences of hasty decisions.

Verdict : If you liked The Stand, then you’ll like this one. Under The Dome has a largish cast of characters, good versus evil, and all the good stuff. This is a chunky read, so set aside some time.

You can buy Under The Dome ebooks from Fictionwise, eReader or Mobipocket. Or buy a dead tree version from Amazon.

eReader is currently offering a year end special sale, with 40-60% discounts on all ebooks.

1. Alive 4 Ever

I love the zombie genre. For a while, all the games I played were zombie-related games! Alive 4 Ever is a top view shoot ‘em up game, which sort of combines Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil and Gauntlet. In each mission you have a primary and secondary objective. As you complete missions, you earn credits to purchase additional weapons and also level up.

There’s also cooperative multiplayer over Bluetooth and WiFi, which is always fun when you have a buddy to shoot zombies with.

Get Alive 4 Ever on iTunes ($2.99)

2. Modern Combat : Sandstorm

Modern Combat : Sandstorm has one of the best controls I’ve ever played with in an iPhone game. This game was a pleasure to play : easy to control, and lots to shoot at and blow up. The game takes place in the Middle East, and you play a soldier who’s part of a hunt for a master terrorist.

The graphics and atmosphere are great. You have multiple choices of weapons that you can pick up within the game, and there are several different locations and scenarios from a hospital, to a truck chase, to exploring subterranean tunnels.

With the great controls, this would be an awesome multiplayer game — if only Gameloft can get the multiplayer working properly.

Get Modern Combat : Sandstorm on iTunes ($4.99)

3. Blades of Fury

Street Fighter is back! Well, actually no, but Blades of Fury is a good 3D arcade-style fighting game. It’s actually more like Soul Calibre than Street Fighter, but you get the drift. In Blades of Fury, you have a number of characters (and costumes) to choose from. There’s a story mode which gets repetitive, but you need to play it to unlock certain characters. The graphics are incredible, and the game uses a lot of short videos for cut scenes and KO moves.

You can play against friends over Bluetooth, which is cool.

Buy Blades of Fury from iTunes ($4.99)

4. Dungeon Hunter

If you like RPGs (role playing games) like Baldur’s Gate, then give Dungeon Hunter a try. Developer Gameloft calls Dungeon a “3D epic quest set in a dark fantasy world”. The graphics, sound and controls are well done. Even the storyline is quite decent, although it’s not always so straightforward. The game plays in a story mode, as you go to different locations to accomplish different missions.

There’s minimal replayability with Dungeon Hunter, but playing it will give you a “wow” feeling — when did the iPhone get to be such a good games machine?

Get Dungeon Hunter on iTunes ($4.99)

5. Eliminate Pro

I’ve had a lot of fun playing Eliminate Pro over the past few months. This was a widely anticipated game, and indeed developer ngmoco delivered what they promised. Eliminate Pro is a multiplayer first person shooter. You can play against friends or random strangers across the Internet, who are automatically matched to your skill level.

The frag sessions are pulse-pounding, frantic, fast paced, but frustratingly short. As long as you have a decent enough Internet connection, the game plays extremely well … which is amazing considering you may be playing against 3 other people who may be all over the globe. Since this game is designed from the start as multiplayer, you get all the usual leaderboards and bragging rights that come along with them.

The graphics are great. There’s lots of customization options, from weapons to armour to skins. Eliminate Pro is one of the first games that fully used the in-app feature to the max. You can have a perfectly ok gaming experience without spending any money, or you can get ahead faster by buying “power cells” which you can use to gain credits to upgrade your gear.

Get Eliminate Pro on iTunes (free)

So those are the 5 iPhone games that I have been playing over and over in 2009. What games have kept you up lately?

Have a good weekend!

Since I’m still new to the Kindle world (thanks to the Kindle for iPhone app), I’m constantly searching for new books to read at the Kindle store. I’m spending a lot of time reading the free first chapters to get a feel of the books, and to decide which books I want to buy. The best thing about the Kindle store is really the price, and Amazon usually has ebooks on special offer.

There are a few ebooks which are given away for free — these are usually the first books of a series to get you hooked. I have a recent list of free ebooks from Amazon here. There are also a few books each month which are sold for a dollarPleasure Unbound: A Demonica Novel by Larissa Ione and . For example for this month (April 2009), you can get Winterbirth by Brian Ruckley.

There are also some ebooks sold at $2, like
Afraid by Jack Kilborn. Jack Kilborn is a pseudonym of novelist J.A. Konrath. Afraid is a thriller that sounds quite interesting — a government helicopter crashes near a peaceful remote town and things start to go wrong.

A surprising fact is that most ebooks sold tend to be from the romance category. Hard to believe? Fictionwise CTO Steve Pendergrast says that half of the ebooks they sell are romance ebooks. Amazon must know that, because they are giving away over a dozen romance ebooks. These include titles like Stranded with a Spy by Merline Lovelace and Snowbound by Janice Kay Johnson.

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik is the first in the Temeraire series — it’s a swashbuckling tale set in the Napoleonic era, with ships, guns and dragons. My brief review is here.

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson is a classic, chronicling the lives of the first (human) arrivals to Mars.

I haven’t read Blood Engines by T A Pratt, but it sounds interesting. A powerful immoral sorceress, her possessed sidekick and a former hollywood star are out to save San Francisco.

If you like alternate histories, try Settling Accounts : Return Engagement by Harry Turtledove. I’ve enjoyed the Colonization series from Turtledove before, this one looks promising as well.

Go ahead and download these four ebooks while they are free; you’ll save 40 bucks and get a good experience in reading on the Kindle. If you take the time to browse through the Kindle store on Amazon, I’m sure you’ll find more free ebooks.

This week, many parties are providing free resources and free ebooks, from authors to ebook stores to publishers. Just visit the partner page for Read an eBook Week for the links.

One of the main advantages of the Kindle (and the Kindle store) is the lower price of books. Let’s compare one book : Halting State by Charles Stross.

Fictionwise : $6.45 to $7.99 (depending on rebates and membership)
Mobipocket : $7.99
Amazon Kindle store : $6.39

If you read a lot of ebooks like I do, then the savings are obvious. Right now, the Kindle 2 ebook reader is only available in the US. One of the reasons is that it uses the EVDO system on Sprint to deliver books to the device. Another, bigger reason is that book publishing rights get very complicated once you cross national barriers.

With the Kindle on the iPhone, Amazon has access to more than 10 million readers, who are largely out of the US. Are you out of luck if you’re not in the US? Well, there is a workaround.

Here’s what you need to do :

1. Download the Kindle iPhone app from the Apple App Store. It’s free.
2. Create a new account with Amazon.com. Use a US address as your delivery address.
3. Sign in to the Kindle iPhone app with your new account. Your iPhone should appear in the “Manage Your Kindle” app.
4. Unless you have a US credit card, you need to pay for your Kindle books from a Gift Certificate balance. You can either send Gift Certificates to yourself (from your original, non-US Amazon account), ask a friend to send you one, or purchase one from eBay (buyer beware).
5. Pick a Kindle book. In the payment page, enter your Gift Certificate code. Your payment will be processed and your ebook will be downloaded the next time you sync the Kindle for iPhone app. Your purchased book will appear in the “Archive” section on the Kindle for iPhone app.

This method works, I just bought and successfully downloaded a Kindle book. The book? Halting State by Charles Stross

Why, yes it is. Barely a month after Amazon released their new generation of the Kindle ebook reader (Kindle 2, they now have a Kindle for the iPhone. Kindle for the iPhone (and iPod touch) is currently available from the US App Store, for free. I’ve downloaded it and given it a spin — here are my impressions.

We have been waiting quite a while for Amazon to offer ebooks for the iPhone. After all, they own Mobipocket, which is available for just about all mobile devices (except for the iPhone). Amazon has touted the Kindle as a success, although they have never mentioned actual sales figures. The Kindle 2 is a great improvement over the first generation — it’s slimmer and doesn’t look like a PC from the 80′s. But we all know the success stories of the iPhone. Amazon can reach a much larger audience of readers by doing an iPhone app.

The first thing I noticed is that you can’t actually purchase ebooks (“Kindle books”) directly from the iPhone app. You need to use a desktop browser, or Mobile Safari to buy the books. The books will then be transferred to your iPhone via “WhisperSync”. I understand that if you already own Kindle books, these will be automatically transferred.

You do need to login to your Amazon account from the Kindle for iPhone. Once you do that, the iPhone will show up as a device in your Amazon account.

The great thing about the Kindle store is the ability to preview a book before buying — usually the first chapters are free. In the Amazon store, you can choose to buy the book or send a free preview to your device. I chose The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

There’s a sync button in the main page of the Kindle for iPhone app. After refreshing, the book appeared in my bookshelf.

Curious to see what it looks like? Here it is :

Unlike other ebook readers for the iPhone, this one displays images within the book itself.

It was quite easy to start downloading and reading a book. Feature-wise, the Kindle for iPhone app is quite limited:

- you have a choice of 5 fonts
- you can set bookmarks
- you can view table of contents
- you can jump through pages with a scroll bar

I’m quite disappointed in the navigation options. You can only turn pages by swiping. If you read a few hundred pages at a time, this can get quite tiring. Other ebook readers for the iPhone usually allow you to tap to get to the next page.

I’m not sure whether there are other advanced features which I have missed, or that are coming soon. I’d love to see dictionary support on this app.

Overall, the app feels quite stable and polished. No doubt Amazon will continue to improve this app. For now, we have another ebook player in the iPhone market, this one bringing a brand name, affordable books, plus magazine and newspaper subscriptions, too.

Of course, romance novels aren’t just for the ladies … for the men who enjoy these type of stories, the ebook format is great. After all, who can tell what book you’re reading on the iPhone?

I tested this out on my 2G EDGE iPhone today. I can confirm it works. My DRM-free iTunes Plus purchase (256 kbps, in AAC format) was around 7MB in size and took just a few minutes to download. If you must know, the song was Nowhere to Run by The Commitments.

If you wait till April, all songs will be DRM-free at the iTunes Store, but you’ll be facing variable pricing, it could be as low as 69 cents or as high as $1.29.

iTunes is back in the game for mobile music. The iTunes Store on the iPhone is now a credible competitor to the Amazon MP3 store, which is also DRM-free and available on Android phones.