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Old 06-01-2012, 02:42 PM   #1
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Exclamation Free (Kindle KDP) The Book of Ultimate Truths by Robert Rankin [Comedic Fantasy]

Well, the 1st of the month has brought a veritable deluge to the KDP Select exclusive-or-else slushpile, as usual.

For comparison purposes, there are usually around 9-12 pages worth of stuff to wade through over at eReaderIQ before I hit the previous day's listings. Today? 19 pages.

See kids? This is why you don't add to the slushpile on the 1st of the month, new release Tuesdays (and Mondays are also a bad idea) if you want your book to get noticed.

I was highly tempted to just skip the lot entirely after doing a bunch of posts for the official non-repeat freebies, until I spotted the title feature, which was certainly significant enough to come back and post. I almost missed it in the slushpile by the way, and if I hadn't gone back for a second look, you probably wouldn't be seeing it now.

The Book of Ultimate Truths by Robert Rankin (ISFDB, Wikipedia) is 1st in his Cornelius Murphy Trilogy, which like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy", is increasingly inaccurately named with 4 books in it.

This comedic thwarting-the-impending-apocalypse fantasy was originally out from Doubleday UK in 1993 and is now offered free courtesy of the author for the next 5 days, who has marked down the next two books in the trilogy to $5 each (down from the $6.99 he seems to charge for his backlist), for a limited time.

Free with DRM until the 5th @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT

Description
Get this book free and for a limited time only complete the Cornelius Murphy Trilogy for a special price - offer runs from 1st to 5th June

Cornelius Murphy is a big-haired seventeen year old tall school leaver, devoted avoider of regular employment and Stuff of Epics. And together with his diminutive companion and bestest friend Tuppe (the stuff of epics to a slightly lesser degree) they set out in a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado to travel the length of the British Isles in search of the missing chapters from a great and wonderful tome: The Book of Ultimate Truths. Penned by self-styled Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived, Hugo Rune.

Although few people remember Rune today, in his time he was lionised by society for his many achievements.

He spoke seventeen languages, played darts with the Dalai Lama and shared his sleeping bag (on separate occasions) with Albert Einstein, Lawrence of Arabia, George Formby and Marilyn Munroe. He was worshipped as a god by an East Acton cargo cult and once scaled Everest in a smoking jacket and a pair of plus-fours to win a bet with Oscar Wilde. He travelled to Venus in the company of George Adamski, reinvented the ocarina and was yearly burned in effigy by the Chiswick Townswomens’ Guild.

He was an expert swordsman, a world traveller, a poet, a painter, a guru unto gurus and a passionate hater of Bud Abbot. He won a first at Oxford, squandered three fortunes, made love to a thousand women, imbibed strange drugs and almost pipped Einstein for the Nobel Prize. He was barred from every Chinese noodle parlour in West London and died penniless in a Hastings boarding house in his ninetieth year.

He penned nearly eight million words, wrote the songs that made the whole world sing and knew all the answers to all the big questions. And he was, as his acolyte Aleister Crowley once said, One Hell of a Holy Guru!

His greatest work The Book of Ultimate Truths explains in terms understandable to the layman just what life is all about. Why there are always two small screws left over when you reassemble that broken toaster. Where all the yellow handled screwdrivers go to. The truth about the A-Z street directory and the Forbidden Zones that lie hidden all around us. The spontaneous generation of crowds. Where the flat hedgehogs upon country roads really come from. The real deal about Time, the Creation of the Universe and pretty much everything really.

Throughout his long life he was constantly under attack from the Forces of Darkness that sought to stop him revealing these Ultimate Truths.
And now Cornelius and Tuppe must battle these same Dark Forces if they are to seek out and publish the missing chapters of Rune. The going won’t be easy, as they encounter demonic Scotsmen, mad monks and cake-obsessed evil fairies, but it will be a lot of fun and The Book of Ultimate Truths must be republished. The survival of Mankind depends upon it.

The Book of Ultimate Truths is the first instalment of a three part Epic Adventure to out-Epic-Adventure all three-part Epic Adventures that have gone before. The further adventures of Cornelius, Tuppe and Hugo Rune can be found in
RAIDERS OF THE LOST CAR PARK
and
THE MOST AMAZING MAN WHO EVER LIVED


Just from volume alone, perhaps, we've ended up with an unusual amount of non-repeat backlist offerings, and it seems to be a good day for mystery/crime readers.

Jonnie Jacobs offers the 1996 Kensington-published: Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery)

Adams Media/Tyrus-published Lynn Kostoff, from whom we got an official freebie last year, offers her 1991 Crown-published noir thriller: A Choice of Nightmares

Edgar & Stoker Award-nominee and fellow MR member author Billie Sue Mosiman returns with a supernatural suspense novel, originally out from Five Star in 2004: Bad Trip South She is also offering repeats of many of her shorter works, and has restored some of her yanked-from-KDP selections to Smashwords, where she offers a supernatural thriller free, which I encourage you all to download to show that Amazon is not the only place that authors can get attention by exclusively freebieing things: ANGELIQUE-A Supernatural Horror Story of Angels

MLR Press-published Marshall Thornton, from whom we had an official freebie earlier this year, returns with a set of 60s period suburban housewife sleuth mystery stories, some of which he says have been previously published: The Development: Three Jan Birch Mysteries

Ellora-published Lily Harlem offers an f/m erotic sports romance: Scored

Samhain-published Ann Rainey offers an f/m contemporary erotic romance: Instructing Sarah

Patrick Hilyer has written a wine/travel guide for UK imprint Alastair Sawday and offers a murder mystery based in a French vineyard: Broke the Grape's Joy

Signet-published YA author Barbara Bartholomew returns with a children's travel tale: : The Housecar Family She also offers a number of repeats.

Newbie writer Laurie Kellogg who says she has been a finalist in that Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest which is the newbie with promising manuscript prize offers a contemporary romance, if you're interested: Hypnotic Seduction (The Seduction Series)

Jo Robertson, another RWA Golden Heart finalist, offers the manuscript which she says got her the nomination nod: The Watcher (The Bigler County Romantic Thriller Series) She also has an historical romance free (not nominated).

I'm including this self-pub guide because I think a lot of authors could really use it, if the information proves trustworthy: Ballistic Basics: A writer's primer on firearms and the forensics that track them

Sample skim say the prose on this is a little unpolished, but otherwise serviceable with nothing noticeably wrong, and the author has included some historical notes, and the time period and setting are Relevant To My Interests, so I'm including,: The Serpent and the Slave (The Chronicles of Britannia) The author says he has won a short story prize from the Sunday Express UK newspaper and that his YA fantasy novel was longlisted for a local children's novel award: Linkage for the also-free YA fantasy and the archaeological thriller

Well, this mashup of global warming apocalyptic thriller and Arthurian legend just plain looks cracktastic. Sample doesn't read badly either (not something which can be taken for granted in the KDP slushpile), so: A Darkness Past Midnight (The Merlin Protocol)

Backlist/published story repeats from Dave Wolverton writing as David Farland, Doreen Owens Malek, fellow MR member Paul Levine. Established author repeats from Edith Hope Fine (scientific biography), Marilyn Peake, Lori Brighton. Small press/special interest expertise repeats from Books We Love/BWLPP including previously title-featured Lee Killough, Celtic music website owner Gregory L. Mahan, transsexual porn star Meghan Chavalier.

Happy reading, if you manage to spot something you think you might like.
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Old 06-02-2012, 12:58 PM   #2
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A fair number of backlist-looking things today, including an unusual proportion of stuff from authors writing under pennames. And we have an Edgar nominee mystery/suspense from a new-to-us author and there's some nice-looking things for the romance and spooky thriller readers in the audience as well.

Penguin-published NY Times bestseller Robert Alexander offers his 1992 Dell-published WWII secrets haunting the present-day mystery/thriller originally released under the penname R.D. Zimmerman, which was an Edgar Award nominee for Best Novel: Deadfall in Berlin

ISFDBed Ace-published Elaine Bergstrom returns with a supernatural/horror suspense thriller originally published under the penname Marie Kiraly by Berkley in 1996: Leanna: Possession of a Woman I have some of her historical horror/suspense books in old paperbacks, actually (not this one).

Sourcebooks-published Amanda Grange returns with an historical Regency romantic suspense which she says is the 10th Anniversary edition of a title originally published as Highwayman to Heaven. I can't find a paper listing on Amazon, but her other books are out from UK publishers so they might not have it listed since they're kind of iffy about overseas stuff sometimes: The Silverton Scandal

Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance-included EC Sheedy returns with a contemporary f/m romantic suspense novelette: STAYING COOL (Raven Force)

Bell Bridge Books-published Deborah Grace Staley returns with another short: Aphrodite's Garden (A Fast Break Romance) She also repeats two others in the series if you missed them earlier.

Terri Crews has had two titles out from small Christian imprint Tate Publishing and offers an inspirational western historical romance: Sam's Treasure

Margaret Tanner returns with another WWII historical romantic drama originally out from The Wild Rose Press in 2009 as The Trouble With Playboys and now re-offered via Books We Love: A Mortal Sin

Ellora's Cave-published Valerie Douglas/V.J. Devereaux returns with a 2-in-1 omnibus of her fantasy adventure tales (may or may not be romantic): Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries Boxed Set (The Coming Storm)

Danielle Elise Girard may or may not be the same "Danielle Girard" who was published by Onyx and now has her backlist books reoffered via ePublishing Works! In any case, this mystery/suspense thriller with a touch of the supernatural does seem like the sort of thing she writes: Minerva's Ghost

Mills & Boon-published Mary Nichols offers two historical romances which may or may not be backlist (she has 49 things under Paperback alone; I'm not going to check): Linkage for the lot

Much-published Robert W. Walker returns with some actor vs serial killer thrillers which are either newly free or old enough I don't have them in the auxiliary KDP-only account and some other maybe-repeats: Linkage for the lot

Steven Savile, who's now been published by Phoenix Pick Press as part of their old pro plus newbie team-up novella series, returns with a collection of sword & sorcery shorts: Machineries of Silence

Here's the not-quite-random Relevant To My Interests probably self-pub book (actually it says it's out from some small imprint which is a division of a small press but we all know how authors tend to lie about that and they've only seemed to publish this author's particular books). Anyway, prose in the sample seems decent and there are historical/pronunciation notes included with this Ancient-to-Roman Britain-set historical saga and I always like to see that, so I include Jack Dixon's: The Picts

Backlist/published story/series tie-in repeats from Dave Zeltserman, Ruth Nestvold, Lise McClendon, Ken Shakin, W.D. Gagliani. Established author repeats from Marilyn Peake, fellow MR member author Scott Nicholson, Simon Worrall. Small press repeats from Camel Press, Coffeetown Press, Books We Love/BWLPP.

Happy reading, if you manage to spot something you think you might like.
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Old 06-03-2012, 03:06 PM   #3
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Feature still free, minor updates go here.

Minotaur/Penguin/Severn House-published I.J. Parker returns with a mini-collection of short mystery stories starring her published historical Japanese sleuth: Akitada's Holiday (Akitada Short Stories)

Tina Gerow returns with a 2006 Triskelion small-pressed epic fantasy (may or may not have romantic elements) which is now being offered via Books We Love/BWLPP: Fire Maiden

If you picked up the earlier one, which I included because the sample showed decent prose with nice formatting and the blurb had some local newspaper praise, Nancy Lynn Jarvis offers the 1st in her self-pub real estate agent as amateur sleuth series for you to collect: The Death Contingency (Regan Mchenry Mystery Series)

Established author repeats from Robert W. Walker, Saskia Walker, Lisa Greer, Riley Owens, Martin Roth, Lisabet Sarai via Books We Love/BWLPP, Julie Morrigan who says she has had a couple of short stories appearing in crime anthologies included in her collection, fellow MR member author Linda S. Prather.

ETA: Five Star-published Michael Haskins returns with another short in his published mystery/crime series: Finding Picasso - A Mick Murphy Key West short story (Mick Murphy Key West Mystery)

ETA2: Former Read an Ebook Week participant Xcite Books offers another erotic freebie by Landon Dixon: Butt In - five erotic m/m stories (Hot Tales of Gay Lust)

ETA3: Charles Colyott has a very minor ISFDB entry, but apparently Stoker award-nominee Kealan Patrick Burke thinks well enough of his work to put his name on as illustrator of Colyott's horror-ish short story collection: Unknown Pleasures

ETA4: Tony Dunbar returns with a 1996 Putnam-published entry in his acclaimed Tubby Dubonnet mystery series starring a New Orleans foodie lawyer, which hopefully you can pick up since apparently the last one expired early: City of Beads

Last edited by ATDrake; 06-03-2012 at 03:39 PM.
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Old 06-05-2012, 11:44 AM   #4
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Well, this is the last day to get the feature freebie and the discount tie-in deal on the sequels offered by the author, if you're interested.

Anyway, updates go here. A quick dip into the slushpile, as I have no time left today and a very full schedule, so I've probably skipped a bunch of stuff. We do have a treat for dark fantasy/horror readers, though.

Stoker award-winner and fellow MR member author David Niall Wilson offers a collection of his collaborations with other noted horror/dark fantasy writers: Intermusings

Don Bruns offers a 2006 Oceanview-published comedic-looking mystery (still listed as being under the Oceanview imprint, but you can tell the difference by setting the store to US and checking the listings; genuine Oceanview freebies are never Prime "free" or available free in the UK store): Southbeach Shakedown (The Mick Sever Music & Mystery Series)

Pocket-published Alina Adams returns with some kind of multimedia version of one of her romance/women's fiction novels: Counterpoint: An Interactive Family Saga - Volume One

ISFDBed Phoebe Matthews returns with another urban fantasy in her series: Tyrant Trouble (Mudflat Magic)

Simon & Schuster-published YA author Scott William Carter returns with another fantasy epic: A Tale of Two Giants (Rymadoon)

Jeff Sherratt offers his 2006 Echelon small-pressed: THE BRIMSTONE MURDERS (A Jimmy O'Brien Mystery Novel)

I originally included a quirky colonial British Africa-set historical comedy mystery by self-pub Daniel Edmondson because I like quirky colonial British Africa-set historical comedy mysteries. He's repeating the original book and offering another in the series new, along with some unrelated work, if you're interested: Linkage for the lot

Backlist repeats from Jon Evans (not available to Canadians), Doreen Owens Malek. Established author repeats from Michael Parker, Glen Krisch, Jason Jack Miller, Jordan Krall, Lee Allen Howard. Small press new & repeats from Books We Love/BWLPP as usual.

If you're interested in YA fantasy, don't forget to check Fbone's Kindle freebie thread for the 4th, which has some backlist Hodder-published ones by Robin Jarvis which are not KDP, but playing pricing catch-up with some other venue (so may not be available in all regions).

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