Consider Phlebas, 1st in award-winner Iain M. Banks' acclaimed
Culture series of science fiction novels, is currently a mere 99 cents over multiple stores for the US only, as far as I can tell.
It's an Agency book from Hachette's Orbit imprint, thus
B&N &
Sony &
Amazon all have it for the same low, low price.
Kobo/Borders seem to have it still at full price, but I'd give it a day or two to drop if you really want it from them, since that's how the Agency model is technically supposed to work.
His other works seem to cost $8 and up for US people (mostly 6.29 and couponable for Canadians, though, so I guess it averages out for us?)
Anyway, if you had Banks' work on your wishlist or this is just something you think you might be interested in, I encourage you to scoop it up to in turn encourage publishers to hopefully make a habit of dropping their books to 99 cents promotional pricing if they're not going to freebie them outright.
(ETA: Apparently this is the
Spotlight feature discount book/author for April at B&N, which looks like it'll probably mean that this deal will be good for possibly the entire month.)
Description
The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender.
Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.