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[Scelly9]

So, the new humble bundle is out, and boy it looks good.
Book list:
Signal to noise - Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean (Beat the average)
Old Man's War - John Scalzi (Beat the average)
Pirate Cinema - Cory doctorow
Pump Six and Other Stories - Paolo Bacigalupi
Zoo City - Lauren Beukes
Invasion: The Secret World Chronicle - Mercedes Lackey, Steve Libby, Dennis Lee, and Cody Martin
Stranger Things Happen -  Kelly Link
Magic for Beginners -  Kelly Link

PLus the five bonus ebooks(Beat the averagefor all of these):
xkcd: volume 0 - Randall Munroe
Two SMBC books
and finally, two Penny Arcade books.

Well, looks like fun! The average is a bit expensive for a bundle at $14 currently, but considering the books, I'd say well worth it.

[Levi]

Man.  I should really get an e-reader sometime.

[ChairmanPoo]

Man.  I should really get an e-reader sometime.

If I were you I'd get a tablet instead. But that's just me

[Levi]

Man.  I should really get an e-reader sometime.

If I were you I'd get a tablet instead. But that's just me

I have a tablet.  I can't see myself reading on it for any length of time without my eyes hurting.  Its great for comics, but I couldn't use it for books.  I also tend to read before sleeping, and I don't like looking at bright screens before going to bed.

[Scelly9]

The kindle is pretty good, it's also not ridiculously expensive, which is a plus.

[palsch]

I love this idea, but can't help but be a little disappointed with this. I'm going to pay, over the average, but it's mostly to encourage more of these in the future rather than any actual desire for the books included here.

The only one here I'm definitely willing to shell out for is the Gaiman/McKean book. I love John Scalzi, but Old Man's War is his first novel and I have it three ways already (paper, free pdf from Tor.com's launch, jailbroken .epub). The webcomic collections are, well, webcomic collections. Digital versions of print collections of digital comics. None of the ones involved have bonus material I'm especially interested in. If it were Schlock, OOTS or Dresden Codak I'd be happy to pay. Not to mention that .pdf isn't the best (or even a good) way to read comics.

As for the below-the-average goods, not bad but not amazing. The new Cory Doctorow, but then all his books are CC licensed anyway, and that one went up on his site around the same time the bundle launched (along with his Charles Stross collaboration, Rapture of the Nerds, which I am much more interested in). Both the Bacigalupi and Link books are single-author short story collections. I usually only go for such collections when I'm really into an author, have run out of novels by them and know they are good enough I'm willing to read the filler that always pads such collections. Paolo Bacigalupi is supposed to be that good but I've yet to dive into his novels (I have The Windup Girl but keep finding things that interest me more). I've not heard a thing about Kelly Link before this.

I'm vaguely interested in the Mercedes Lackey volume, which is actually a collaborative world superhero concept that sounds like a fresh take on the old Wild Cards series. Could be good. As for Zoo City... the reviews I've seen don't really make me giddy with anticipation.

[Shadowlord]

Are any of these any good? I've never heard of any of them or their authors, except Cory Doctorow, █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ of whom I have a negative opinion.

[palsch]

Are any of these any good? I've never heard of any of them or their authors, except Cory Doctorow, █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ of whom I have a negative opinion.

Shorter summary of my above;
Scalzi is great.
Gaiman always wonderful.
Paolo Bacigalupi is supposedly fantastic.
Mercedes Lackey looks interesting.
Rest is meh.