Introducing Download the Universe: A new science ebook review

I’d like to draw your attention to a new project some colleagues and I have built: a science ebook review.

For over a year now, ebooks about science have been published at a remarkable clip, but there’s been a serious gap in this growing ecosystem: a way for people who want to read new ebooks about science to find out about new projects. Because science ebooks are so new, they have a way of falling between the cracks. Conventional book reviews aren’t very interested; blogs only sporadically pay attention.

At this year’s Science Online conference, some colleagues and I decided that this was a problem easily solved. So we set out to solve it, with a new site: Download the Universe.

We are fifteen writers and scientists who want to explore this new form. On a regular basis, we’ll be delivering new reviews of ebooks about technology, medicine, natural history, neuroscience, astronomy, and anything else that fits under the comfortably large rubric of science. We also define ebooks generously–everything from a plain-vanilla pdf on an author’s web site to a Kindle Single to an elaborate iPad app. (We will not be reviewing ebooks that are simply digitized versions of print books.) We welcome tips about titles to review–from readers, authors, or publishers.

We already have an inventory of reviews that we’ll be publishing over the next few days, and we’re at work on more. There’s a lot to cover, we’re happy to report.