Second the recommendations for Lawrence Watt-Evans'
Ethshar fantasies, and especially Ted Chiang's
Stories of Your Life and Others. I own the latter twice over in paper in two languages. It's very good and well worth it.
This close to Boxing Day/New Year's, I'm kind of holding out for hopefully another 60% coupon to scoop up the pre-existing stuff on my wishlist, but I finally decided to splurge on two new releases this week:
The Mad Trist: A Romance of Bibliomania
Valdemar's Daughter: A Romance of Mesmerism
Both are by Brian Stableford and sequels to Edgar Allan Poe's stories, with Auguste Dupin investigating Usher and Valdemar, respectively, which sounds pretty interesting.
Frankly, I like Stableford's Biotech Revolution sf stories a lot more than most of his "gothic decadence" stuff, but between the 15% new-release discount and the 50% off coupon, they're cheap enough (I'd only "save" 12 cents each holding out for 60% off the regular price) and besides, Stableford's apparently hit some difficulties lately, having to sell off his lifelong personal science-fiction collection, so every little bit helps, and I don't begrudge the "extra" quarter if helps go towards the infinitesimal royalties he gets.
Also, I'd like to point out his collection
Beyond the Colours of Darkness and Other Exotica: 11 entire "gothic decadence" and fantasy stories for only 99 cents, for anyone who's interested in maybe trying out his writing. You can't go wrong with something that gives you a decent range of storytelling samples for only half a buck after coupon.
If you prefer sf, he's also got
The Great Chain of Being and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution for $2.99. It's only 7 stories, but they're longer ones (some novella length) and a couple have been featured in those Gardner Dozois-edited
Year's Best Science Fiction collections.
Also for sf/fantasy fans, there's plenty of great stuff available via
Wildside Press,
e-Reads,
Wonderbooks Audio LLC, et al., all DRM-free. If you've ever wanted those Harlan Ellison Dangerous Visions anthologies for half-price, now you know where to get them.