Not much in the slushpile, which may be due in part that authors seem to be taking their works out of KDP exclusivity and re-adding them to various venues, sometimes even for free.
A minor sfnal-related work as the feature today, but we've also a promising-looking vintage French Revolution historical and some decent quality repeats as well.
The Lives of the Savages by multiply award-nominated Robert Edric (
ISFDB,
Wikipedia), who really seems to write more in the way of literary fiction rather than straight-up sf/fantasy/horror looks like some sort of speculative literary fiction historical/biographical maybe-psychological thriller novella about persons surrounding the notorious bank robbers Bonnie & Clyde.
This was originally in print as a chapterbook in 2010 and now offered free courtesy of PS Publishing.
Free without DRM for who knows how long @ Amazon
main UK DE ES FR IT
Description
Throughout most of their short, violent, disorganised and unrewarding spree as Depression-era bank robbers, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were accompanied by W. D. Jones — drifter, driver, opportunist, psychopath, fantasist and teenager. Towards the end of their time together, having endured Clyde’s mockery and abuse, and despite his obvious affection for Bonnie, Jones abandoned the duo and was swiftly tracked down and arrested.
Awaiting trial, and keen to save his own young neck, Jones was visited by Captain Frank Hamer, ex-Texas Ranger and the lawman tasked with bringing Parker and Barrow’s trail of bloody and increasingly reckless and seamless violence to an end. Hamer and Jones met on several occasions and, manipulative and contradictory as ever, Jones became instrumental in Hamer’s eventual plan to destroy the two killers.
Promising an eager, clamouring press that he was keeping a full and detailed record of everything that passed between himself and Jones, Frank Hamer’s memoirs make only a single reference to his captive’s lengthy confession and reveal nothing whatsoever of Jones’s own endlessly-shifting, self-serving and desperate revelations.
Rita Richie offers an historical adventure/intrigue thriller set during the French Revolution, originally out from W.W. Norton in 1970:
Night Coach to Paris
Anthony Neil Smith returns with a 2006 Point Blank small-pressed quirky crime thriller which is either newly free, or an old enough repeat that I don't have it in the KDP-only auxiliary account:
Psychosomatic
ISFDBed Amber D. Sistla returns with a short story originally published in Cosmos Magazine, which received an honourable mention in the 26th Dozois-edited Year's Best Science Fiction, according to the blurb. Not KDP Select, but playing pricing catch-up with Smashwords, so may not be free in all regions:
A Place to Call Home (Break Bites) She also offers some repeats.
Fellow MR member author Stephen Livingston, who's previously had stories published in university literary press magazines, offers a collection of literary fiction shorts, which he says won several specific prizes:
Kindling
Backlist/published story repeats by previously title-featured A.A. Attanasio, Jeremy Shipp, Consuelo Saah Baehr, Liu Cixin. Established author repeats by Arthur Slade, Valerie Douglas, Lise McClendon, Delle Jacobs. Small press new & repeats from Books We Love/BWLPP, Dark Continents Publishing, Deadly Niche Press, MuseItUp Publishing (has some BWLPP authors if you've been following them).
Happy reading, if you manage to spot something you think you might like.