The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear is £1 in the UK (
Kobo,
Amazon)
Set in the world of
White Space.
Quote:
Dr. Sunyata Song must travel across the Milky Way to learn to communicate with the greatest discovery of her century: an artificial intelligence the size of a stellar system, in Hugo Award-winning author Bear's next science fiction epic.
Information doesn't want to be free. Information wants to vanish without a trace.
Sunya Song's job is to stop that from happening.
She's an archinformist: a specialist historian whose job usually involves sitting at a console at her university job near the Galactic Core, sorting ancient documents and restoring corrupted files. But now, the research opportunity of a lifetime has sent her - and her family - halfway across the galaxy to save the archaeological find of the century: an ancient alien artificial intelligence called the Baomind.
As vast as a stellar system, the Baomind orbits a dying red giant, and the star's time has nearly ended.
The remote research station and its small fleet of ships come under attack by fanatic Freeport pirates who believe that artificial intelligence is an abomination that must be destroyed, putting the lives of Sunya and her family at risk.
Tens of thousands of light years from home, isolated from all help, Sunya is the only one who can save them all.
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Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell is £1 in the UK (
Kobo,
Amazon)
Quote:
Shesheshen has made a fatal mistake for a monster: she's fallen in love.
Shesheshen is a shapeshifter - one who is perfectly content to stay as an amorphous lump in her swamp unless impolite monster hunters invade intent on murdering her. Then, she meets warm-hearted Homily, who mistakes Shesheshen for a human like her.
But just as Shesheshen is about to confess her true identity, Homily reveals she's hunting the shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Shesheshen didn't curse anyone, but to give them both a chance at happiness, she must figure out why Homily's family thinks she did - while surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to build a life with the woman she loves.
A glorious, funny, occasionally slightly violent love story which asks us to examine - and re-examine - the meaning of legacy, family and love.
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