[ATDrake]

Once again, the KDP Select exclusive-or-else-but-you-get-5-days-free-out-of-90-as-long-as-thou-shalt-have-no-other-stores-before-Amazon slushpile spits out something worthwhile.

Not gonna lie, I clapped my hands like a seal when I saw this.

If, understandably, you are not a Canadian and therefore do not know le Parti Rhinocéros (the Rhinoceros Party), well, there is a sad lack in your life which happily, can be remedied this very day.

For many decades, the Rhinos were our 4th-party "protest vote" receiver. It was the joke alternative to our 3 majors, and eventually actually garnered enough votes to be able to officially register as an official political party with Elections Canada.

Their platforms included:

• Building one nuclear power plant per household, including monthly distributions of lead underwear to Canadians. Indoor lighting would then be provided by radioactive citizens.
• Instituting English, French and illiteracy as Canada's three official languages.
• Changing Canada's currency to bubble gum, so it could be inflated or deflated at will.
• Making the Canadian climate more temperate by tapping into the natural resource of hot air in Ottawa.

and many other loltastic things you can see at the Wikipedia article for the classic incarnation of the party.

One of the later incarnations had a leader who legally changed his name to "Sa Tan" so he could file a lawsuit against the Crown as Satan vs Her Majesty the Queen.

So with that in mind, the following history of the Rhino Party is probably all a pile of made up blatant lies, but it's going to be a loltastically awesome pile of made up blatant lies.

And for those of you who place no value on loltastically awesome piles of made up blatant lies because you have no soul, there's also a bunch of really good backlist books across several genres, including a rather nifty automobile history and an e-book original Piers Anthony YA fantasy.

Rhino History, Other Lies and All That Jazz by one Gonzo Fubar Van Rasputin, is probably exactly what it says in the title.

This will be free for who knows how long with or without DRM which none of us can easily tell any longer, thanks to Amazon's really unhelpful changes to the Product Description info, @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT

Description
Finally, the history of the most fabled political beast in the world is told.

The Rhinos - who promised to repeal the law of gravity, declared war on Belgium, fielded 54 drunks for Vancouver's mayoralty, and ran a man legally known as Satan in a bible belt riding - have amused voters and horrified politicians since 1963.

The Rhinos were so feared and loathed by the Canadian political establishment that then Prime Minister Lyin' Brian Mulroney raped the Constitution to destroy them in 1993.

Over the 15 year period that followed the Rhinos made more comebacks than The Who, finally rising to power in the miraculous events of 2008. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, was not amused. Not amused at all. Her Majesty... ah, but wait, let's not give away the ending.

In this tour de farce author GONZO FUBAR VAN RASPUTIN tells all, and then some, for the first time

The rest of today's preliminary slushpile trawl (I might go back and look at some of the more marginal things and do the ISFDB checking later). Not sorted because I really want to get some sleep, although I did move the three most important/interesting-looking things to the top.

Lawrence R. Gustin has a number of non-fiction automotive history books out from university presses and such. This one was 2006-hardcovered by Wayne State University Press and has been revised and updated: David Buick's Marvelous Motor Car From the blurb, it's received a lot of praise from academics and historians.

Piers Anthony offers a YA fantasy e-book original: Pandora Park A note in the blurb says the publisher is offering the sequels for 99 cents on sale for the next three days as a special promotion.

I.J. Parker offers a 2003-Minotaur published historical mystery set in 11th century Japan, which looks awesome: The Hell Screen (A Sugawara Akitada Novel)

HarperCollins-published Sharon Ihle offers another historical western romance: River Song

Canadian Lou Allin offers a 2005 Five Star-published mystery with a professor sleuthing at a university in Michigan: A Little Learning is a Murderous Thing (Maddie Temple)

Minotaur-published Agatha Award-nominee Elena Santangelo offers a short story which from the publication info was apparently originally in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine: Ring of Truth

Rosalie Moore, who says that her self-published historical romance netted her some specific accolade from that RWA Golden Heart Award thing offers an historical western short story which may or may not also be a romance: Showdown at Charbonet's

Previously-featured Edward G. Talbot, who is the penname of two authors who have ISFDB entries, offers a spooky Arthurian short: Full Moon Over Camelot

Marsha Canham offers a 1992-Dell paperbacked historical western romance: Under the Desert Moon

Kensingon-published Charlie Carillo repeats his 1986 literary fiction novel which was named one of the ALA best books of the year: Shepherd Avenue

New Zealand author Tracie McBride (ISFDB entry) offers this collection co-authored with John Irving Irvine: April Fool and other Antipodean horror stories

Previously-featured Ten Speed Press non-fiction writer Carol Buchanan offers a western historical short story: Stranger Riding By

John Bushore, who has minor ISFDB credits and says he has won a specified particular award in certain years, offers a literally gender-bending fairy tale fantasy novel (may end in romance or erotica): Prisoners of Gender He's also got some sort of historical WWII era coming-of-age-looking novel: Necessary Evil

Previously-featured ISFDB-ed-short-stories Thomas M. Malafarina offers his debut horror novel set in 1965 Pennsylvania: 99 Souls

Anne Frasier/Theresa Weir returns with her 2003-Onyx-paperbacked FBI agent vs serial killer thriller: Sleep Tight

Previously-featured maybe-self-published Bob Frey returns with an omnibus edition of two more of his mystery/thrillers starring a gay LAPD detective if you've been collecting them: The Bashful Vampire Murder & Comic Book Murders (Frank Callahan Mysteries)

Mainak Dhar, author of Zombiestan, returns with a military/political thriller which he says has been re-published by a local Indian house (he does not name which one) and includes praise in the blurb from local Indian-interest newspapers: Line of Control- A Thriller on the Coming War in Asia

Previously-featured Jove-published Robert W. Walker returns with a sci-fi horror thriller: Titanic 2012 (Curse of RMS Titanic - an Inspector Alastair Ransom title)

Elaine Bergstrom wrote a bunch of unusual historical vampire books back in the day. I know because I have some of them actually sitting on my bookshelf, a few which IIRC acquired during a used/backstock sale. She offers the one in her Austra family series which explains all about Elizabeth Bathory, originally paperbacked by Ace in 1994: Daughter of the Night

Anthony Bruno offers a 1997-Forge-published "dark comic thriller": Devil's Food (A Loretta Kovacs thriller)

ISFDB-ed Aaron Polson returns with: Vengeful Spirits: A Supernatural Thriller

Previously-featured Signet-published children's writer Barbara Bartholomew offers offers some sort of YA fantasy take on the British royal family: Royal Blood (Chronicles of Endymion)

Doctor Who tie-in novel writer Paul Finch (middling-extensive ISFDB entry) offers the self-explanatory: Medi-Evil 1 (A collection of historical terror and fantasy)

HarperCollins/Scholastic New Zealand writer Linda McNabb returns with another kids/YA fantasy with dragons in it: The Last Star

Previously-featured Jane Toombs returns with another in her historical California maybe-romance saga if you've been following them: Golden Chances Book 6 - The Deceiver

Probably self-pub Canadian Cindy Bouchard offers another in her BC-set historical family drama if you've been following them: Wildest Dreams 1911 (Princes of the North)

Clarissa Yip is published by erotic romance specialty press Decadent Publishing. This is one of her f/m contemporary erotic romance novels: One Chance

Total E-Bound-published Jenna Byrnes returns with another probably-erotic f/m romance short: Windfall

Berkley-published Erin Quinn offers what looks like a romantic suspense: Whispers This is published by Books We Love/BWLPP, who've also put out the Jane Toombs and Jenna Byrnes titles above and they have a few freebies today which you can try digging out of the jumble of $0.00 and Prime Lending "free" titles which Amazon insists on mingling together: Linkage to start digging and dig some more

Lawrence D. Elliott says his work has appeared in those Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies. Here is his self-explanatory anecdotal self-help guide: Bitte was? An American author's misadventures in the German language

ISFDB-ed David Bain offers another short story: The Streetlight Filled with Flowers

And on the theme of decidedly niche specialty cookbooks that have been going around lately: How To Improve Your Sex Life In 69 Erotic Recipes This actually looks quite nice, with mini-essays on the history of the aphrodisiac foods included.

Enjoy, especially if you discover the everlasting joy and wonder of including rhinoceroses in politics or you find you can benefit from that last book.