Free (Kindle KDP) Voima by C. Dale Brittain [Epic Poem-Based High Fantasy Quest]

[ATDrake]

Well, midterms are over, my selection of freebie iBooks can now be liberated, and Amazon has once again broken the tools just like I expected they would, with no plans to for anyone to fix them anytime soon.

So, for values of best-two-out-of-three, I'm feeling reasonbly good, though that could just the prolonged sleep deprivation setting in and distorting my perspective.

Anyway, a minor exclusive-or-else slushpile treat for you all, or at least that portion of you all who happen to like mythologically-based high fantasy backlist. If you happen to not, then it's entirely your fault for opening this thread, since I'm pretty sure I titled it fairly explicitly.

Voima by C. Dale Brittain, is a 1994 Baen-published epic high quest fantasy of the classic young-people-coming-of-age-on-their-road-trip-of-saving-the-world type, old enough that it hasn't been pulled from Baen's Webscriptions for the author to offer herself, and it doesn't appear to have been yanked from elsewhere (unless the author pulled all her books at the same time, leaving no traces behind, which is possible, since I didn't bother to check very far).

The supplied blurb does make it sound kind of generic fantasy-quest, but the Booklist review mentions influences from the Germanic epic mythological poem Nibelungenlied (you know, that one with Sigfried and Brunhilde and Fafnir that Wagner made a couple of operas out of, and if you don't, you should be ashamed of your thoroughly inadequate musical education and go read P. Craig Russell's excellent and beautifully-illustrated graphic novel version which I highly recommend).

Anyway, free for who knows how long with-or-without-DRM (no one but Amazon or the author can tell anymore, and neither of them is telling) @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT Additional charges or further geo-restrictions may apply in certain areas.

Description
Voima: Magic, strength, the force of life and renewal.
Earth and sky are ruled by the Wanderers, the lords of voima. But an upheaval is coming, a time when even the powers of the immortals are fated to end. The Wanderers enlist the help of three young mortals:

- Roric No-man's son, a royal warrior who wants to find his real father.
- Karin, a foreign princess held hostage at court.
- Valmar, the king's son and heir.

Together and separately, the three are swept into the conflict between the Wanderers and those who would overthrow them, not even sure they are on the right side. The conflict becomes a struggle between kingdoms, between the generations, between the sexes, and between the demands of love and honor.

Even enemies must sometimes trust each other, as true glory is found only in this precarious mortal world, where there is only so long one can run from fate.

Here's some of the rest I spotted in the slushpile either due to previous recognition or looked interesting and creds checked out or just because. If this does not include anything anyone particularly wanted to see pulled from elsewhere to become a KDP selection, well, life is full of little disappointments.

Not sorted, because not only do I not get compensated for this in any way, but if you haven't already noticed that I think Amazon is actually subtracting value with their backwards file format and their unwillingness to disclose the status of their DRM which they keep breaking the tools to unlock and certain of their business practices so that their non-publisher-promo non-pricematch up-to-5-days freebies from the KDP Select exclusive-or-else-for-the-rest of-the-three-months program ends up putting things into a deficit position overall, then you really haven't been paying attention for the past 2 months' worth of the slushpile trawl.

Todd Wilbur has a line of Plume-published books which tell you how to replicate popular fast food franchise dishes. I've seen a few volumes of these in the local Book Warehouse stores downtown. This is a sort of self-pub best-of collection culled from the print volumes: Super Duper Totally Authorized Top Secret Recipes eBook

UK BBC Radio/Scottish Dundee litfic-prize-nominated writer Catherine Czerkawska returns with a few literary fiction shorts: Linkage for the lot

A.A. Attanasio repeats his previous-title-featured Arthurian fantasy, if you missed it earlier: The Wolf and the Crown (The Perilous Order of Camelot)

Valerie Douglas who writes as V.J. Devereaux for Ellora's Cave offers another in her contemporary romance series: Director's Cut (Millersburg Quartet)

Cole Coonce who wrote for hot rodding and drag racing outlets returns with: Top Fuel Wormhole (The Cole Coonce Drag Strip Reader)

David Marusek (ISFDB entry) offers a mini-collection of sf stories originally printed in the science magazine Nature, who actually do have a minor-but-moderately-prestigious sf fiction feature, in case you didn't know already: My Morning Glory and other flashes of absurd science fiction and a short involving an archaeologist that first appeared in Playboy Magazine: She Was Good, She Was Funny

Stoker/Edgar-nominee Billie Sue Mosiman returns with a mini-collection of shorts: Creatures along with another story that has previously shown up in another freebied collection named in the blurb: Prosper Bane

We've previously gotten a bunch of stuff from authors who were with Decadent Publishing Company, LLC. They've now got a bundle of 8 steamy-to-erotic romances for you (f/m-looking): Linkage to the lot, plus some stubborn Prime "free" ones. Sadly, "Panty Raid at Zombie High" is one of the lending-only titles, but you can comfort yourself with "Princesses Gone Wild", which is indeed free.

Karen Whiddon offers her 2001-Dorchester/Love Spell fantasy romance with wizards in it, which I hope makes the appropriate joke about the staff having a knob on the end: Powerful Magic This is not KDP, but playing pricing catchup with Smashwords, where you can see the rest of the series for $2.99 a pop on her profile page and hope for Read an E-Book Week promo coupons if you're interested.

Anne Frasier writing as Theresa Weir (honestly, I have no idea which is the real name and which the pen name or if they're both pseudonyms like Barbara Mertz/Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels uses) offers an appropriately Amazon jungle-set adventure romance from Pocket/Fanfare in 1988, which won one of those Romantic Times Awards: Amazon Lily

Caroline Fyffe also offers an ex-Dorchester romance, this one an historical probably-western (reader review says 1800s Wyoming) from their Leisure line in 2009: Where the Wind Blows

Ann Tatlock had a bunch of books published by Christian publisher Bethany House in the early 2000s. She offers a few of them (and maybe also some self-pubs, I'm not checking beyond the first, which looks like an historical novelabout racial tensions during the Vietnam War): Linkage for the lot

Minor ISFDBed Daniel Pyle offers a horror short: Freeze

Previously-included small-pressed Gordon Ryan repeats comedic political thriller (which is also available in a previously-freebied omnibus mentioned in the blurb): The Leashes of Dogwood Hollow

Janet Lane Walters has a vintage Dutton-published hardcover about living with your digestive system. This is her steamy contemporary hospital romance via BWLPP: Heart Throb

Minor ISFDBed Jane Toombs repeats another volume of her historical California drama with maybe-romance: Golden Chances Book 3 - The Dancer

When Gregory L. Mahan's 1st volume of these showed up, I included it for the aspiring musicians in the audience. Now, he offers: Fifty Great Celtic Jigs Vol. 2 He says runs a specialty website for this stuff and sheet music suitable for various instruments and tips on playing Irish-style are included.

If you did get the previously-included how-to guide for the aspiring spy, you may want to pick up this title from the same author: True Accounts of Espionage (The Anonymous Spy Series)

And since it's apparently "everybody's got a cookbook day" in the slushpile, here's the self-explanatorily cracktastic-looking: Cook that Frog!!! - 3 Shocking Frog's Legs Recipes that Will Keep Them Begging for More!!! It says it's got only three recipes, but plenty of inspirational quotes. I admit to being morbidly curious about just how inspirational the one from Kermit the Frog is supposed to be.

Happy reading, if indeed you manage to spot something you think you might like and it's still free by the time you see it.

[Blue Tyson]

Thanks!

So :

445

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Anyway, free for who knows how long with-or-without-DRM (no one but Amazon or the author can tell anymore, and neither of them is telling) @ Amazon

LOL!

It is infested with DRM.

[Blue Tyson]

Funny. Give away book for free - so anyone in the world can get it. But DRM it, because you are worried people might:

get it for free?


LOL!

[ATDrake]

I suspect that many of the authors who are auto-DRMing their books are simply letting their insecurity and possible paranoia and ignorance allow them to be sold snake oil, as this thread in the Workshop forum would seem to indicate.

Protip for aspiring authors: much of the time, no one's going to bother to pirate your book because they've likely never heard of you enough to consider your book worth taking the time to pirate.

Piracy means that at some point, someone actually cared, and if they cared enough, then DRM has done absolutely nothing to prevent them from spreading that care throughout the intarwebs. <-- The dancing lock icon mocks you with its "I'm goofing off and not working when you thought I would be working" dance of mockery.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

A.A. Attanasio repeats his previous-title-featured Arthurian fantasy, if you missed it earlier: The Wolf and the Crown (The Perilous Order of Camelot)

This is no longer free, but another book in the same series is:
The Serpent and the Grail (The Perilous Order of Camelot)

[Dr. Drib]

I didn't know frogs could beg.

Maybe the author needs to work on titles - and nothing more!




Thank God for Indie writers, or there would be very little unintentional humor in the world.



Don

[ATDrake]

Feature title still free and it turns out that Kobo has quietly started getting a bunch of the publisher promo freebies back and not bothering to tell anyone. But at least they're there and I'll be updating those posts after lunch for whatever's still free today.

Anyway, that was a mildly pleasant surprise and so I dump upon you today's slushpile haul, which is not sorted, because that's more than my time is worth.

This Jack Kilborn/J.A. Konrath + Ann Voss Peterson title may be a repeat : Flee - A Thriller (Chandler Series #1)

Small press Avalon-published Mona Ingram returns with a romantic novella which she warns for language: Fixing Freddie

Star Trek tie-in novel writer David Bischoff has two repeats and what looks like a new fantasy: Linkage for all three, watch out for the Prime "free" one

Bell Bridge Books-published Alicia Rasley offers another 90s-era Zebra-published: The Reluctant Lady (Regency Escapades

Vickie Britton & Loretta Jackson offer a 1989 Avalon-paperbacked adventurous romantic suspense with an archaeologist in it: Path of the Jaguar

Previously-featured small-pressed crime writer Anthony Neil Smith returns with noir thriller: Choke on Your Lies

Minor ISFDBed Lee Allen Howard returns with "a dark paranormal fantasy fraught with suburban Pittsburgh horror": The Sixth Seed

Yet another Scott Nicholson omnibus of stuff to add to your ever-growing collection of them: Mystery Dance: Three Novels

Vincent H. O'Neil says he won the Malice Domestic award in 2005 and he's got a bunch of stuff hardcovered from St. Martin's/Minotaur crime imprint. Here's his self-pub mystery with actors in it: Death Troupe

Minor ISFDBed Annie Bellet offers another of her epic adventure fantasy shorts, this one free to all via Smashwords: Winter's Bite (may be price-matched in certain regions)

Frazer Lee has a minor ISFDB entry and says that their Samhain-published novel was nominated for the Bram Stoker Superior Achievement in a First Novel award for 2012. S/he offers: Panic Button - A Psychological Thriller

Hey kids, educational non-fiction! Nancy Robinson Masters' 2005 small-pressed title has a School Library Journal review which says it's a decent read for grades 5-8: Extraordinary Patriots of the United States of America: Colonial Times to Pre-Civil War

Here's another in Michael Haskins' series if you've been collecting it, this one newly-published by Five Star in 2011: Free Range Institution - A Mick Murphy Key West Mystery

I was mildly surprised that Benjamin X Wretlind turns out to have a minor ISFDB entry for small-zined stories, because normally it's the totally self-pub titles which go like: Mighty Chief Chappose Picks Berries (Sketches from the Spanish Mustang) This, incidentally, appears to be some kind of ghostly supernatural/horror.

This should be fairly self-explanatory and the blurb says it's got an old-school-style Asimovian sci-fi murder mystery in it, so you might want to pick up what seems a decent sampler for: Magic to Mayhem: Northwest Independent Writers Association 2011 Anthology of Speculative Fiction (Northwest Independent Writers Association Anthologies)

Australian sf/fantasy writer and fellow MR member author Patty Jansen freebies another sf short, published in one of those L. Ron Hubbard memorial contest Writers of the Future anthologies: This Peaceful State of War For those of you encountering her work for the first time, she's still got a bunch of it free and available to all via Smashwords.

Minor ISFDBed Iain Rob Wright offers another horror thingy: The Peeling: Book 1 (Jeremy's Choice)

Vintage celebrity bio to tie-in with recent attention-boosting death. In 1993, Scribner hardcovered Randall E. Stross: Steve Jobs & The NeXT Big Thing I think I may have read this from the library back during my initial Mac conversion phase.

It looks like we get some kind of collection of these plus a few bonus extras: CARNIVAL OF SOULS Graphic Novel Volume One If you were collecting the single issues, this one is still free: JAZAN WILD'S CARNIVAL OF SOULS "Everyone Loves A Clown"

Denise Domning offers the 5th in her medieval historical Graistan Chronicles, which was 1996-paperbacked by Topaz, which from the look of the tiny squinty logo on the cover which Amazon refuses to enlarge, was probably a Ballantine Books imprint (they were absorbed by Random House at some point): A Love For All Seasons

Irish writer Sally Clements has had some stuff published by The Wild Rose Press (romance specialty imprint available via Fictionwise). This is a collection of her romantic short stories: New Beginnings

Steven Torres has had a novel out from St. Martin's/Minotaur crime imprint and says that this short story was originally published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine: The Valley of Angustias

Previously-included Canadian writer of construction and economics articles Alex Carrick has another short collection if you've been collecting them: Ten Tales of People Dear (Ten Tales Series)

I'm not really sure why on earth you would put up computer help books for outdated operating systems and software, but in case you were still struggling with an old school/workplace install of Windows XP or Microsoft Office 2003,: here are some guides which may turn out to be useful.

ISFDBed David Bain repeats: Brujas Behind Bars: A Chicks in Prison Grindhouse Novelette

Roseanne Dowell had some sort of small-pressed 2006 mass market paperback romance. This is another contemporary romance title of hers, with a family ghost element, via Books We Love/BWLPP: Time To Love Again

Canadian Aurora Award-nominee Douglas Smith's speculative maybe-fantasy short is not KDP, but playing pricing catch-up with Smashwords, so it may not be free in all regions (though it's possible you can pick this up via Kobo/Sony/other price-matching outlet): The Boys are Back in the Town

Some minor newbie-author offerings from previously-included small genre/specialty presses: Echelon Press, Deadly Niche Press, Camel Press, Coffeetown Press (has a nice-looking historical bio of Mary Todd Lincoln and a litfic guide to J.D. Salinger and that whacky Moby Dick derivative is back, if you missed it earlier)

I include the following Christian fiction thriller as a sporfletastic example of TMI in the actual title, some of which really is best saved for the blurb. Mind you, you do see exactly what the story is upfront, which admittedly saves you time in not opening the listing if you know you're just not interested in: Tested by Fire: He Sought Revenge. He Found Life | A Riveting Story for First Responders (Police Officers, EMTs, and Firefighters) in a Post-911 World (A Medic-7, First Responders Novel) Many of the other books from the same publisher are similarly descriptive, and since I normally ignore the Religion & Spirituality category listings, I'll link these for the Christian non/fiction readers in the audience, since this is the imprint who've been repubbing formerly Bethany House-d Ann Tatlock's stuff from yesterday: Linkage for the lot from Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas

Don't forget to pick up sf award nominee Norman Spinrad's screenplay and give him a nice ranking boost, helpfully pointed out by fellow MR member KentE in this thread.

Happy reading, if indeed you manage to spot something you think you might like.

[Dr. Drib]

Got the screenplay!

Thank you.



Don

[KentE]

Thanks, ATDrake! Boy, just a day or 2 and I feel abandoned without your post!
I appreciate you book tips, and even more I appreciate your thoughtful commentary.
KentE