A number of publishers have teamed up to offer free electronic copies of this year’s Best Novel nominees to Hugo Awards voters. The books involved are Brasyl by Ian McDonald, Rollback by Robert Sawyer and The Last Colony by John Scalzi. US residents will also get Halting State by Charles Stross. The ebooks do not contain any digital rights management software and come as RTF files.

To get your free books, all you need to do is buy at least a ($50) supporting membership in this year’s World Science Fiction Convention, Denvention 3 (buy online here). That will give you the right to vote in the Hugo Awards and qualify you for the free book offer. Then you need to write to John Scalzi, who is coordinating the ebook giveaway. Details here.

The fifth nominee for Best Novel, Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, is not included in the giveaway, but an excerpt is available on the HarperCollins web site.

Many of the short fiction nominees are also available free online. Check out links here.