Tuesday Wildside Press freebie is up, and it's for a vintage children's adventures tales by a guy who was apparently best known for being a psychic researcher (kind of like how William Moulton Marston, creator of Wonder Woman, is best known outside of comic book circles for inventing the lie detector):
Tahara Among African Tribes by Harold Sherman (
Wikipedia)
Harold Morrow Sherman (1898-1987) was most famous as a psychic researcher and New Thought author. His Your Key to Happiness (1935) has been reprinted numerous times.
He also had a second career as an author of children’s books, and it should come as no surprise that in the Tahara series, he blended classic New Thought elements such as mentalism, spiritualism, and the supernatural with exciting adventure stories aimed at young boys. The mix works well for the globe-trotting young heroes, and their exciting adventures around the world hold up well today.
Tahara Among African Tribes (originally published in 1933) is the first (of 4) volumes about Tahara. The complete series is available as The Tahara Boy Adventurer MEGAPACK™ from Wildside Press.
StoryBundle has a new offering for the next 2 weeks or so:
The Epic Fantasy Bundle (2015), with titles chosen by media tie-in and Dune continuation author Kevin J. Anderson, as a mix of new and established authors (probably mostly from Anderson's WordFire Press imprint, which is also sold via Baen's e-bookstore).
At the pay-what-you want level (apparently a minimum $5 if you try setting the sliders), you get 6 books (1 of which has shown up in the
Humble Bundle Sci-Fi eBook Bundle 2 presented by WordFire Press, at the top tier level): there's an anthology of unicorn stories featuring a new tale by Peter S. Beagle (who should not need any introduction in the field of unicorn tales), a humorous urban fantasy by frequent Anne McCaffrey co-writer Jody Lynn Nye, and a few works by other established authors, including noted fantasy comic illustrator James A. Owen (of
Starchild fame).
At the $15 top-tier, there's a bonus 4 novels and 2 novellas, which include among them works by YA fantasy author Sherwood Smith, Hugo winner Paolo Bacigalupi and Hugo-nominated Tobias S. Bucknell in a shared world setting that was originally published by Audible Frontiers.
And as a bonus for subscribing to the newsletter, everyone gets a free novella that's a collaboration between Anderson himself and Neil Peart of the Canadian rock band Rush.
NB: unlike Humble Bundle, there seems to be no way to top up your purchase to upgrade to a higher tier, so please be sure of which level you actually might want to get before splurging.
And over at Bag of Holding, if you're a Lovecraftian RPG fan, there's currently a bundle available from Pelgrane Press' gamebooks:
Trail of Cthulhu (
Wikipedia) for the next 13 days
Starter Collection level at $9.95 includes 4 titles (well, 3 titles and what looks like a 4-song soundtrack):
- Trail of Cthulhu (retail price $21): The complete rulebook of investigative horror set in the 1930s. Because Trail uses the GUMSHOE System, it's not about hunting for clues but interpreting them -- figuring how they solve the mystery.
- Stunning Eldritch Tales (retail $9): Four adventures for the Pulp style by GUMSHOE System designer Robin D. Laws.
- Keeper's Resource Book & Screen (retail $8): A book for Keepers with clues, benefits, NPCs, and information about life in the 1930s. Includes a .PDF with all the tables you need to run a Trail game.
- Four Shadows (retail $5): Atmospheric music by James A. Semple to enhance your Trail sessions.
Bonus Collection at pay-more than average (currently just under $24) adds 5 supplementary titles:
- The Armitage Files (retail $17): Ten mysterious documents by Robin D. Laws filled with clues, along with clear advice for the Keeper on how to improvise sandbox-style adventures based on the players' interpretations.
- Bookhounds of London (retail $20): Kenneth Hite's brilliant campaign setting of disreputable hustlers who sell rare Mythos texts -- and sometimes defend humanity from their own customers.
- The Book of The Smoke (retail $13): Also known as The Occult Guide to London, Paula Dempsey's companion volume to Bookhounds is a primer for playing in the dismal fog of 1930s London.
- Arkham Detective Tales Extended Edition (retail $9): Five labyrinthine law-enforcement investigations by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan.
- Rough Magicks (retail $6): Kenneth Hite explains the rules of magick for Investigators and Mythos creatures alike.
Here's the publisher's
dedicated mini-site about the game, and their
blog page with links to sample excerpts and the like. The total approximate retail cost of these is $109.
You can download your PDFs/mp3s for a limited time directly from the site, and they'll also be added to your library over at DriveThruRPG.com for permanent retrieval.
Again, there's no obvious way to top up your bundle from a lower tier, so be sure of what you want to get before purchase. Also, 10 percent of it goes to the Cancer Research UK charity, if you're interested.