Wing Commander Books on Kindle or Ebooks

Unfortunately, the “Wing Commander Series #1” started appearing some years ago… it’s a case of some well-meaning, overly organization obsessed fellow adding metadata that spreads. At the time, he’d actually tagged several books incorrectly (and as a result, William Forstchen’s Star Voyager Academy books are frequently listed as Wing Commander novels today!) It’s a bit like how someone obsessively added movie taglines as ‘alternate titles’ to the IMDb about fifteen years ago… and so Wing Commander gets listed as “Wing Commander: Space Will Never Be the Same” all over the place (ugh!)

I think time will tell when it comes to the other books. The real question is: why did they reprint Freedom Flight? It could be because they want to bring back the novel series… or it could be a result of re-licensing Mercedes Lackey’s back catalog. Hopefully, it’s the former and they’ll reach out to the other writers to secure the rights! (Might be a touch more complicated for some of the books, Andrew Keith having passed away.)
 
For anyone using an Android device wanting the book, you won't find it on the play store just yet, but you can just buy it from Amazon and use the free Kindle app.

Actually it's easiest just to install the app and then search for and buy it within the Kindle app.
 
Further following up on the WC e-book front:

This weekend at Dragoncon after the Baen Traveling Road Show panel (talk about Baen's recent and upcoming releases, including artwork for the covers with and without the text of the final product), I talked with Toni Weisskopf (Editor in Chief at Baen) about the other WC books they published being given the e-book treatment.

She said that there are plans to release the other Baen WC books in e-book formats, but that they're going to be used to fill in any spaces in the publishing schedule, so she doesn't know when they'll be made available. She's aware of the work for Fleet Action already done due to its inclusion in GOG's WC3 package, as well.
 
THAT IS FANTASTIC NEWS!!!!!!

The Captain, at least, was an error from the printed book.

(... or maybe not, I guess he is Captain of the Intrepid...)
 
So, apparently I can download the Fleet Action novel as an eBook and a PDF from the GOG version of WC3.

Will the other WC eBooks be added to the other GOG WC releases?
 
No, the GOG ebooks are only included in cases where they were part of a retail EA pack (a physical copy of Fleet Action was included in the premiere edition of WC3). The Baen ebooks are a different set of rights/royalties/etc.
 
Also, note that the GOG version of Fleet Action is NOT especially well proof-read. The Baen version should (hopefully) be much more accurately transcribed.
 
Some exciting followups!

The final versions of Fleet Action and Heart of the Tiger were published yesterday and are now available wherever ebooks are sold.

On Amazon--

Fleet Action: https://www.amazon.com/Fleet-Action-Wing-Commander-Book-ebook/dp/B01N41F5MX/

Heart of the Tiger: https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Tiger-Wing-Commander-Book-ebook/dp/B01N1FTDZG/

As Death mentioned above, the Price of Freedom will hit on January 3rd (and is available in part in one of Baen's bundles now.)

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!

Action Stations is next in the barrel and will be published everywhere on March 7. It's available for purchase in Baen's March bundle right now, and the first half of the book will be up for download on December 15th.

Which just leaves two books to go, False Colors and End Run!

I tweeted with a Baen representative yesterday about End Run, and the good news is that the holdup isn't a rights issue... it's the fact that they didn't have a copy of End Run in their physical archive and so didn't know it existed! They've tracked down a copy now and will issue it in a future slot.

No word on False Colors, but I'd expect it later this year. I suspect that by Christmas 2017 (... or even Labor Day 2017) we should have the entire Baen Wing Commander library as ebooks!
 
I tweeted with a Baen representative yesterday about End Run, and the good news is that the holdup isn't a rights issue... it's the fact that they didn't have a copy of End Run in their physical archive and so didn't know it existed! They've tracked down a copy now and will issue it in a future slot.

Poor End Run...

End Run did go through a phase of being hard to find...didn't think it would ever be hard for Baen though. ha!
 
It's funny, after the chat I remembered the Baen website had a FAQ in the mid-1990s which included something about how they were sorry they couldn't print more End Runs but to please stop asking because they'd given away every copy they had. Who knew that would come back to bite us?

(End Run IS an interesting look at how supply and demand has changed with the advent of the internet... folks were paying $50 for it in 1997 because they couldn't get a copy... then you have the rise of online used book sales and every copy in the world can suddenly be located.)
 
Hah: if you absolutely, positively must start reading False Colors electronically right now, the first four chapters are still on Baen's site from 1999: http://www.baen.com/chapters/false_p.htm

(Fun fact: Baen started publishing everything they released as DRM-free ebooks EXACTLY ONE MONTH after False Colors came out. D'oh!)
 
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