Today's sf/fantasy backlist treat comes from the antipodes, courtesy of PS Publishing. They've been pretty consistent about having their previous KDP exclusive-or-else freebies be DRM-free, so I'm taking a chance that this one is also since I can no longer tell directly by looking, no thanks to Amazon's unhelpful Product Info changes, to hopefully increase the potential audience of people who can enjoy antipodean sf/fantasy backlist treats.
The Library of Forgotten Books by Rjurik Davidson (
ISFDB entry) is a collection of his sf/fantasy shorts, originally print-published as #8 in the PS Showcase series by PS Publishing in 2010.
Davidson is apparently an Australian writer, judging from the ISFDB note that one of the stories in this collection appeared in a Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Science Fiction volume (I occasionally wonder if New Zealand writers get lumped into those, or if they manage to get separate YBNZF&SF nods of some sort, or if there's some sort of screaming drama that occurs if they do get lumped in).
Anyway, free probably without DRM and for the next couple of days, courtesy of PS Publishing @ Amazon
main UK DE ES FR IT
Description
In this collection, PS Publishing presents the short works of a powerful, exciting new voice in SF and fantasy: Rjurik Davidson, whose protagonists wander dark cities of dreams, ravished by love and tormented by destiny...
Visit the fantastic metropolis of Caeli-Amur, where rival Houses of thaumaturgists - half scientist, half magician - battle one another in vendetta, espionage, and murder, ruthlessly employing philosopherassassins: killers weighed down one minute by deep thought, uplifted the next by pure ecstasy. Enter the totalitarian city of Varenis, whose librarians every week consign thousands of forbidden books to obscure shelves, in halls haunted by dead writers, half-ghost, half-demon...
Voyage to an alternate post-World War Two Australia, whose vast inland sea has made her one of the world's Great Powers; there, in a Melbourne colossal beyond conception, criminals, communists, and government agents weave shadowy conspiracies only a weary veteran private eye can hope to penetrate. And holiday in a French resort whose cinema offers patrons fugitive glimpses of their countless possible futures, torturing them with hope, exhilarating them with despair...
These are the visions of Rjurik Davidson: cogently atmospheric, psychologically profound, boundlessly imaginative.
Slushpile still settling, recognizable non-repeat preliminaries below. Not sorted.
There's a bunch of assorted horror/thriller stuff from Scott Nicholson today; some new-looking, some repeats:
Linkage for the lot Watch out for the many Prime lending "free" things which Amazon insists on mixing in, and there's official German and Italian translations in there if you want to practice your language learning skills.
Robret W. Walker says that the following horror novel was previously published in paperback under the title "Salem's Child":
Abaddon He's also got a short story and in case anything more pops up after the slushpile settles:
Linkage that will help you catch them all
Minor ISFDBed Glen R. Krisch returns with a collection of horror shorts, including the two published ones:
Commitment and Other Tales of Madness
Minor ISFDBed Anthony Izzo who's had some Pinnacle-published crime novels offers a self-pub horror novel which is the 1st in a projected trilogy:
Infected
ISFDBed Amber D. Sistla returns with another fantasy short:
Unshadowed (Break Bites)
Poisoned Pen Press-published Mary Anna Evans offers an historical mystery short set during the Prohibition:
A Singularly Unsuitable Word
Diane Davis White who's had short stories anthologized alongside more established writers returns with another multicultural Native American historical western romance:
Moon of Ripening (The Lakota Moon Series)
Another graphic novel issue for your collection of such, which is #2 in the series thus far:
JAZAN WILD'S FUNHOUSE OF HORRORS "IT'S MURPHY'S LAW"
Another contemporary romance from Harlequin-published Karen Rose Smith, apparently part of a series:
Kit And Kisses
Zebra-published Shannon Donnelly says that her 2004-paperbacked romance was "Romantic Times Bookclub Nominated "Best Regency"":
Lady Scandal
Berkley-published Michele Scott writing as A.K. Alexander returns with another thriller:
Covert Reich
Jessica Barksdale Inclan's 2006-New American Library-published literary/women's fiction novel is a repeat, but I think someone was disappointed at having missed it earlier, so:
The Instant When Everything is Perfect
Ernest Francis Schanilec's novel was paperbacked by one McCleery & Sons in 2006, who do seem to have a small stable of differing authors and do mainly genre fiction, so:
Night Out in Fargo (Hastings Mystery-Suspense)
A quick skim of the sample says that the opening text advice in this is reasonably on-target and hopefully the illustrations will be helpful as well, so if you happen to need or know someone who could use this:
The Fundamentals of Style - How to be a Well-Dressed Man (Style for Men)
For the sake of people doing gap fills, I spotted repeats in series from Valerie Douglas/V.J. Devereaux, Jeremy Shipp, Angela Hunt, and M.J. Rose if you missed anything earlier, and there's also some stuff from Books We Love and Dybbuk Press which might be Relevant To Your Interests, depending on what you like to read.
ETA: William King who writes Warhammer tie-in novels (
ISFDB entry) offers a Conan-esque fantasy short which originally appeared in a small-press magazine in 2005, according to the ISFDB:
Guardian of the Dawn (Short Story)