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.