Steven Poole, journalist, writer, and composer for television and short films, has decided to give away his first book, Trigger Happy, for free. It discusses the aesthetics of videogames - what they share with cinema, the history of painting, or literature; and what makes them different, in terms of form, psychology and semiotics. It was first published in 2000; the version given away is a revised edition with the afterword written in 2001. The book is offered as a PDF file under a CC license, for a limited time only, with no digital rights management whatsoever. Grab it here.

Thanks for the heads-up, got mine! (Subject line too long with a "Re:" in front)

Looks like a very interesting book. Thank you.

Just downloaded it. Plan on reading it tonight.

Under a CC license for a limited time? I didn't know that was even possible.

Anyway, thanks for the link!

It's offered for free for a limited time, not under CC for a limited time. Anyway, since he's using the Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported license, withdrawing the book cannot stop anyone else from sharing or offering it for free, noncommercially, so I hope he realizes this and hasn't just shot himself in the foot =)

I've read quite some time ago and remember having mixed feelings about it. His genre overview leaves a lot to be desired, and I remember one passage where he apparently wanted to discuss the difficulties of interactive storytelling but just went on about how it would be impossible to create countless pre-rendered sequences :/. It's still fairly interesting though and definitely worth checking out, if only because there aren't (m)any alternatives.