The Shape of Silence, an alien contact sf novel by Stephen Leigh, is publisher Phoenix Pick Press' free ebook of the month.
It's too bad they don't have a tie-in author purchase deal as they used to feature most months, because I've read and bought Leigh's other PPP-available books, the
Dark Water's Embrace/
Speaking Stones duology and would say that a promo bundle of them offered to coincide with the freebie would be a really good deal to pick up.
Those were an interesting and entertaining sf take on themes of societal reconstruction based upon alien contact, biological mutation, and the resulting gender fluidity of a sort compared to Ursula K. LeGuin's
The Left Hand of Darkness, which I highly recommend if you're interested in such.
Anyway, this is offered free without DRM in the format of your choice.
Just scroll down to the author's name
on the publisher's frontpage, click the appropriately tagged book link, and enter the coupon code
9991463 when it asks.
Description
First contact was never supposed to be like this.
A sudden rift appears in near-earth space, causing electronic components to permanently fail and cause total chaos. As Earth's fragile technological society disintegrates, no one can answer the obvious question: What is the rift, and who or what has created it?
A new generation comes to age attempting to answer these questions, and Taria Spears, an anthropologist, is selected as part of the crew on the exploratory ship Lightbringer. Lightbringer's mission is to investigate the worm-hole-like Rift and, if possible, to pass through it to find out what lies on the other side, and to seek some answers.
But what if all they find is an alien culture where sound, not sight is the primary sense?