MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Free (Kindle KDP) The Book of Ultimate Truths by Robert Rankin [Comedic Fantasy]

ATDrake · 06-01-2012, 02:42 PM

Well, the 1st of the month has brought a veritable deluge to the KDP Select exclusive-or-else slushpile, as usual.

For comparison purposes, there are usually around 9-12 pages worth of stuff to wade through over at eReaderIQ before I hit the previous day's listings. Today? 19 pages.

See kids? This is why you don't add to the slushpile on the 1st of the month, new release Tuesdays (and Mondays are also a bad idea) if you want your book to get noticed.

I was highly tempted to just skip the lot entirely after doing a bunch of posts for the official non-repeat freebies, until I spotted the title feature, which was certainly significant enough to come back and post. I almost missed it in the slushpile by the way, and if I hadn't gone back for a second look, you probably wouldn't be seeing it now.

The Book of Ultimate Truths by Robert Rankin (ISFDB, Wikipedia) is 1st in his Cornelius Murphy Trilogy, which like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy", is increasingly inaccurately named with 4 books in it.

This comedic thwarting-the-impending-apocalypse fantasy was originally out from Doubleday UK in 1993 and is now offered free courtesy of the author for the next 5 days, who has marked down the next two books in the trilogy to $5 each (down from the $6.99 he seems to charge for his backlist), for a limited time.

Free with DRM until the 5th @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT

Description
Get this book free and for a limited time only complete the Cornelius Murphy Trilogy for a special price - offer runs from 1st to 5th June

Cornelius Murphy is a big-haired seventeen year old tall school leaver, devoted avoider of regular employment and Stuff of Epics. And together with his diminutive companion and bestest friend Tuppe (the stuff of epics to a slightly lesser degree) they set out in a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado to travel the length of the British Isles in search of the missing chapters from a great and wonderful tome: The Book of Ultimate Truths. Penned by self-styled Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived, Hugo Rune.

Although few people remember Rune today, in his time he was lionised by society for his many achievements.

He spoke seventeen languages, played darts with the Dalai Lama and shared his sleeping bag (on separate occasions) with Albert Einstein, Lawrence of Arabia, George Formby and Marilyn Munroe. He was worshipped as a god by an East Acton cargo cult and once scaled Everest in a smoking jacket and a pair of plus-fours to win a bet with Oscar Wilde. He travelled to Venus in the company of George Adamski, reinvented the ocarina and was yearly burned in effigy by the Chiswick Townswomens’ Guild.

He was an expert swordsman, a world traveller, a poet, a painter, a guru unto gurus and a passionate hater of Bud Abbot. He won a first at Oxford, squandered three fortunes, made love to a thousand women, imbibed strange drugs and almost pipped Einstein for the Nobel Prize. He was barred from every Chinese noodle parlour in West London and died penniless in a Hastings boarding house in his ninetieth year.

He penned nearly eight million words, wrote the songs that made the whole world sing and knew all the answers to all the big questions. And he was, as his acolyte Aleister Crowley once said, One Hell of a Holy Guru!

His greatest work The Book of Ultimate Truths explains in terms understandable to the layman just what life is all about. Why there are always two small screws left over when you reassemble that broken toaster. Where all the yellow handled screwdrivers go to. The truth about the A-Z street directory and the Forbidden Zones that lie hidden all around us. The spontaneous generation of crowds. Where the flat hedgehogs upon country roads really come from. The real deal about Time, the Creation of the Universe and pretty much everything really.

Throughout his long life he was constantly under attack from the Forces of Darkness that sought to stop him revealing these Ultimate Truths.
And now Cornelius and Tuppe must battle these same Dark Forces if they are to seek out and publish the missing chapters of Rune. The going won’t be easy, as they encounter demonic Scotsmen, mad monks and cake-obsessed evil fairies, but it will be a lot of fun and The Book of Ultimate Truths must be republished. The survival of Mankind depends upon it.

The Book of Ultimate Truths is the first instalment of a three part Epic Adventure to out-Epic-Adventure all three-part Epic Adventures that have gone before. The further adventures of Cornelius, Tuppe and Hugo Rune can be found in
RAIDERS OF THE LOST CAR PARK
and
THE MOST AMAZING MAN WHO EVER LIVED

Just from volume alone, perhaps, we've ended up with an unusual amount of non-repeat backlist offerings, and it seems to be a good day for mystery/crime readers.

Jonnie Jacobs offers the 1996 Kensington-published: Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery)

Adams Media/Tyrus-published Lynn Kostoff, from whom we got an official freebie last year, offers her 1991 Crown-published noir thriller: A Choice of Nightmares

Edgar & Stoker Award-nominee and fellow MR member author Billie Sue Mosiman returns with a supernatural suspense novel, originally out from Five Star in 2004: Bad Trip South She is also offering repeats of many of her shorter works, and has restored some of her yanked-from-KDP selections to Smashwords, where she offers a supernatural thriller free, which I encourage you all to download to show that Amazon is not the only place that authors can get attention by exclusively freebieing things: ANGELIQUE-A Supernatural Horror Story of Angels

MLR Press-published Marshall Thornton, from whom we had an official freebie earlier this year, returns with a set of 60s period suburban housewife sleuth mystery stories, some of which he says have been previously published: The Development: Three Jan Birch Mysteries

Ellora-published Lily Harlem offers an f/m erotic sports romance: Scored

Samhain-published Ann Rainey offers an f/m contemporary erotic romance: Instructing Sarah

Patrick Hilyer has written a wine/travel guide for UK imprint Alastair Sawday and offers a murder mystery based in a French vineyard: Broke the Grape's Joy

Signet-published YA author Barbara Bartholomew returns with a children's travel tale: : The Housecar Family She also offers a number of repeats.

Newbie writer Laurie Kellogg who says she has been a finalist in that Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest which is the newbie with promising manuscript prize offers a contemporary romance, if you're interested: Hypnotic Seduction (The Seduction Series)

Jo Robertson, another RWA Golden Heart finalist, offers the manuscript which she says got her the nomination nod: The Watcher (The Bigler County Romantic Thriller Series) She also has an historical romance free (not nominated).

I'm including this self-pub guide because I think a lot of authors could really use it, if the information proves trustworthy: Ballistic Basics: A writer's primer on firearms and the forensics that track them

Sample skim say the prose on this is a little unpolished, but otherwise serviceable with nothing noticeably wrong, and the author has included some historical notes, and the time period and setting are Relevant To My Interests, so I'm including,: The Serpent and the Slave (The Chronicles of Britannia) The author says he has won a short story prize from the Sunday Express UK newspaper and that his YA fantasy novel was longlisted for a local children's novel award: Linkage for the also-free YA fantasy and the archaeological thriller

Well, this mashup of global warming apocalyptic thriller and Arthurian legend just plain looks cracktastic. Sample doesn't read badly either (not something which can be taken for granted in the KDP slushpile), so: A Darkness Past Midnight (The Merlin Protocol)

Backlist/published story repeats from Dave Wolverton writing as David Farland, Doreen Owens Malek, fellow MR member Paul Levine. Established author repeats from Edith Hope Fine (scientific biography), Marilyn Peake, Lori Brighton. Small press/special interest expertise repeats from Books We Love/BWLPP including previously title-featured Lee Killough, Celtic music website owner Gregory L. Mahan, transsexual porn star Meghan Chavalier.

Happy reading, if you manage to spot something you think you might like.

06-01-2012, 02:42 PM	#1
ATDrake Wizzard Posts: 11,517 Karma: 33048258 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Roundworld Device: Kindle 2 International, Sony PRS-T1, BlackBerry PlayBook, Acer Iconia	Free (Kindle KDP) The Book of Ultimate Truths by Robert Rankin [Comedic Fantasy] Well, the 1st of the month has brought a veritable deluge to the KDP Select exclusive-or-else slushpile, as usual. For comparison purposes, there are usually around 9-12 pages worth of stuff to wade through over at eReaderIQ before I hit the previous day's listings. Today? 19 pages. See kids? This is why you don't add to the slushpile on the 1st of the month, new release Tuesdays (and Mondays are also a bad idea) if you want your book to get noticed. I was highly tempted to just skip the lot entirely after doing a bunch of posts for the official non-repeat freebies, until I spotted the title feature, which was certainly significant enough to come back and post. I almost missed it in the slushpile by the way, and if I hadn't gone back for a second look, you probably wouldn't be seeing it now. The Book of Ultimate Truths by Robert Rankin (ISFDB, Wikipedia) is 1st in his Cornelius Murphy Trilogy, which like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy", is increasingly inaccurately named with 4 books in it. This comedic thwarting-the-impending-apocalypse fantasy was originally out from Doubleday UK in 1993 and is now offered free courtesy of the author for the next 5 days, who has marked down the next two books in the trilogy to $5 each (down from the $6.99 he seems to charge for his backlist), for a limited time. Free with DRM until the 5th @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT Description Get this book free and for a limited time only complete the Cornelius Murphy Trilogy for a special price - offer runs from 1st to 5th June Cornelius Murphy is a big-haired seventeen year old tall school leaver, devoted avoider of regular employment and Stuff of Epics. And together with his diminutive companion and bestest friend Tuppe (the stuff of epics to a slightly lesser degree) they set out in a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado to travel the length of the British Isles in search of the missing chapters from a great and wonderful tome: The Book of Ultimate Truths. Penned by self-styled Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived, Hugo Rune. Although few people remember Rune today, in his time he was lionised by society for his many achievements. He spoke seventeen languages, played darts with the Dalai Lama and shared his sleeping bag (on separate occasions) with Albert Einstein, Lawrence of Arabia, George Formby and Marilyn Munroe. He was worshipped as a god by an East Acton cargo cult and once scaled Everest in a smoking jacket and a pair of plus-fours to win a bet with Oscar Wilde. He travelled to Venus in the company of George Adamski, reinvented the ocarina and was yearly burned in effigy by the Chiswick Townswomens’ Guild. He was an expert swordsman, a world traveller, a poet, a painter, a guru unto gurus and a passionate hater of Bud Abbot. He won a first at Oxford, squandered three fortunes, made love to a thousand women, imbibed strange drugs and almost pipped Einstein for the Nobel Prize. He was barred from every Chinese noodle parlour in West London and died penniless in a Hastings boarding house in his ninetieth year. He penned nearly eight million words, wrote the songs that made the whole world sing and knew all the answers to all the big questions. And he was, as his acolyte Aleister Crowley once said, One Hell of a Holy Guru! His greatest work The Book of Ultimate Truths explains in terms understandable to the layman just what life is all about. Why there are always two small screws left over when you reassemble that broken toaster. Where all the yellow handled screwdrivers go to. The truth about the A-Z street directory and the Forbidden Zones that lie hidden all around us. The spontaneous generation of crowds. Where the flat hedgehogs upon country roads really come from. The real deal about Time, the Creation of the Universe and pretty much everything really. Throughout his long life he was constantly under attack from the Forces of Darkness that sought to stop him revealing these Ultimate Truths. And now Cornelius and Tuppe must battle these same Dark Forces if they are to seek out and publish the missing chapters of Rune. The going won’t be easy, as they encounter demonic Scotsmen, mad monks and cake-obsessed evil fairies, but it will be a lot of fun and The Book of Ultimate Truths must be republished. The survival of Mankind depends upon it. The Book of Ultimate Truths is the first instalment of a three part Epic Adventure to out-Epic-Adventure all three-part Epic Adventures that have gone before. The further adventures of Cornelius, Tuppe and Hugo Rune can be found in RAIDERS OF THE LOST CAR PARK and THE MOST AMAZING MAN WHO EVER LIVED Just from volume alone, perhaps, we've ended up with an unusual amount of non-repeat backlist offerings, and it seems to be a good day for mystery/crime readers. Jonnie Jacobs offers the 1996 Kensington-published: Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery) Adams Media/Tyrus-published Lynn Kostoff, from whom we got an official freebie last year, offers her 1991 Crown-published noir thriller: A Choice of Nightmares Edgar & Stoker Award-nominee and fellow MR member author Billie Sue Mosiman returns with a supernatural suspense novel, originally out from Five Star in 2004: Bad Trip South She is also offering repeats of many of her shorter works, and has restored some of her yanked-from-KDP selections to Smashwords, where she offers a supernatural thriller free, which I encourage you all to download to show that Amazon is not the only place that authors can get attention by exclusively freebieing things: ANGELIQUE-A Supernatural Horror Story of Angels MLR Press-published Marshall Thornton, from whom we had an official freebie earlier this year, returns with a set of 60s period suburban housewife sleuth mystery stories, some of which he says have been previously published: The Development: Three Jan Birch Mysteries Ellora-published Lily Harlem offers an f/m erotic sports romance: Scored Samhain-published Ann Rainey offers an f/m contemporary erotic romance: Instructing Sarah Patrick Hilyer has written a wine/travel guide for UK imprint Alastair Sawday and offers a murder mystery based in a French vineyard: Broke the Grape's Joy Signet-published YA author Barbara Bartholomew returns with a children's travel tale: : The Housecar Family She also offers a number of repeats. Newbie writer Laurie Kellogg who says she has been a finalist in that Romance Writers of America Golden Heart contest which is the newbie with promising manuscript prize offers a contemporary romance, if you're interested: Hypnotic Seduction (The Seduction Series) Jo Robertson, another RWA Golden Heart finalist, offers the manuscript which she says got her the nomination nod: The Watcher (The Bigler County Romantic Thriller Series) She also has an historical romance free (not nominated). I'm including this self-pub guide because I think a lot of authors could really use it, if the information proves trustworthy: Ballistic Basics: A writer's primer on firearms and the forensics that track them Sample skim say the prose on this is a little unpolished, but otherwise serviceable with nothing noticeably wrong, and the author has included some historical notes, and the time period and setting are Relevant To My Interests, so I'm including,: The Serpent and the Slave (The Chronicles of Britannia) The author says he has won a short story prize from the Sunday Express UK newspaper and that his YA fantasy novel was longlisted for a local children's novel award: Linkage for the also-free YA fantasy and the archaeological thriller Well, this mashup of global warming apocalyptic thriller and Arthurian legend just plain looks cracktastic. Sample doesn't read badly either (not something which can be taken for granted in the KDP slushpile), so: A Darkness Past Midnight (The Merlin Protocol) Backlist/published story repeats from Dave Wolverton writing as David Farland, Doreen Owens Malek, fellow MR member Paul Levine. Established author repeats from Edith Hope Fine (scientific biography), Marilyn Peake, Lori Brighton. Small press/special interest expertise repeats from Books We Love/BWLPP including previously title-featured Lee Killough, Celtic music website owner Gregory L. Mahan, transsexual porn star Meghan Chavalier. Happy reading, if you manage to spot something you think you might like.