Free as in beer, not free as in speech, that is. In his blog, Neil Gaiman is asking his readers which among eight of his books they want to be offered for free online for at least a month. Neil states that the winning book is not necessarily the one they like most but would be the one which they would want a friend to read in order to be introduced to Neil’s writing. The online poll is only up for a week (presumably ending this Saturday, February 16th).

Of the eight books up for voting—American Gods, Anansi Boys, Coraline, Fragile Things, M is for Magic, Neverwhere, Smoke and Mirrors, and Stardust—I have never read any of them so I’m definitely going to get whatever the legions of Neil Gaiman fans decide on. But I’m no stranger to Neil’s quirky brand of literature; I’ve read several of his Sandman graphic novels as well as enjoyed Good Omens, which he wrote with Terry Pratchett. In addition, I saw the film Stardust, which, although is very loosely based on the original novel (much to the chagrin of his fans), is actually endorsed by Gaiman itself (he didn’t want an adaptation that tries to stay loyal and ending up falling flat on its face).

Currently leading the pack in the poll is American Gods with Neverwhere coming up in second place. All the rest are too far behind so we can expect that the free book would be either of the mentioned two. I’m not voting myself since I haven’t read any of them but if you have, which of the eight would you vote for?

Tech trivia: Did you know that Mike Gaiman, Neil’s son, is working at Google? How cool is that?