Free (Kindle) 4 titles by Rod Serling [Twilight Zone Vintage Sci-Fi/Horror TV Tie-In]

[ATDrake]

Posting in advance today, since everything expires tomorrow (I think), and given the holiday/post-holiday sales rush, it'd probably be best if everyone gets the maximum chance to pick up anything they're particularly interested in. And I really want to go back to sleep and not do stuff for the rest of the day. --> <-- soon, hopefully

Also, today would have been the late Rod Serling's 90th birthday (and I really shouldn't have to link you to info on him since if you pay any attention at all to sfnal TV or pop culture you should already know who he is and what he created, but here's what ISFDB, IMDB, and Wikipedia have to say), so it would be nice to have the feature thread for his works still on the actual day in many time zones.

Well, I normally don't post things that have already appeared in another thread already, but the original Twilight Zone is like my 2nd-favourite-bestest-and-most-personally-influential* TV show ever, so these were a major treat for me (and I hope for you, too) when they started popping up in the KDP slushpile around 2am and I was debating whether or not to post it right away since this offer was probably just good for Serling's actual birthday and I'd already used up my 3-non-repeat-thread allotment for those Baker 1-day freebies, but then exhaustion caught up with me and I slept on it (and I was kind of hoping a few more might show up).

(Also, the Sci-Fi/Fantasy megathread only found 3 out of the 4, so I'm claiming the last one as fair game.)

Anyway, Rod Serling's Night Gallery (Wikipedia) was a not-nearly-as-inventive but overall pretty decent follow-up to TZ which tilted a lot more mystical/supernatural/horror-ish and they used to play reruns of the old episodes of it all the time (I think maybe they still do) over at the not-so-local independent Washington state channel broadcasting from across the border that ironically got much better reception than any of our local channels, even the CBC, so I have a mild nostalgia for it, too, though I'm not nearly as acquainted with it as with TZ.

3 of the titles (free courtesy of Rod Serling Books) are related to The Night Gallery (and Kieran Seymour did a very nice write-up of their exact contents which is more detailed than the blurbs over in the SF/F megathread a few hours ago). The last is an actual Twilight Zone story, excerpted from one of the collections.

These all have new forewords introducing the original material.

All of these are being done via KDP Select's exclusive-or-else program which takes them out of the other stores entirely, but on the other hand does make the freebies available to enjoy in all the Amazon regional stores worldwide. I'm just linking to the main store for convenience, but you should be able to get them from wherever you happen to be (provided you have an Amazon account). If it's 1-day freebie and his estate aren't using the max allowable 5 out of 90, then you have until the standard KDP Select freebie server switchover at midnight PST to pick them up, if you haven't already.

Incidentally, the recent Image Entertainment Blu-Ray Complete Series collection (much cheaper to save up and splurge on the boxset than the individual seasons separately unles you can get them on really deep-discount sale, but they have all the same contents anyway and there's no bonus disc in the Complete) of the original TZ series is excellent and highly recommended, and chock-full of amazing extras including all the original radio plays and isolated music scores for all the episodes and new commentaries with old actors and noted TZ commentator Marc Zicree and lots of other great stuff. IIRC they're repackaging it into some sort of cut-down sets (maybe on DVD), which you should avoid and hold out for the entire fully-loaded thing.

And this has been the (advance) selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.

Because.

Enjoy!

1. The Big Tall Wish with a new foreword by Anne Serling (ISFDB), originally published in 1961 in the anthology More Stories from the Twilight Zone, out from Bantam Books, adapted from episode 27 of season 1 (IMDB) @ Amazon (available to Canadians and very likely worldwide)
   
   When it first aired in 1959, The Twilight Zone was nothing less than groundbreaking television. Freed from the censors’ strict oversight due to the show’s classification as science fiction, the 156 episodes explored classic, powerful, and moving human themes—love, hate, pride, jealousy, terror—in a unique style. The program sparked the imaginations of countless writers and filmmakers around the world.
   
   With this short story -- taken from More Stories from the Twilight Zone, a brand new collection of 19 of Rod Serling’s favorite spine-tingling tales, prepare yourself, in the words of Serling himself, “…to enter that fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. And it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call…The Twilight Zone.”
2. The Season to Be Wary with a new foreword by Mark Olshaker (ISFDB), a festively-named collection, the 1st in The Night Gallery series, originally out from Little, Brown & Co. in 1967 @ Amazon (available worldwide)
   
   The Season To Be wary is unique in that it is one of the first examples of Rod Serling publishing stories he created first in narrative form. This collection of three novellas provides poignant insights into the human condition with all its’ moral and ethical dilemmas. Of the three, Escape Route and Eyes were included in the pilot for The Night Gallery, with the latter starring Joan Crawford and directed by new comer, Steven Spielberg. Darkly disturbing, these stories remain relevant today.
3. Night Gallery with a new foreword by Jim Benson (ISFDB) & Scott Skelton (ISFDB), originally out from Bantam Books in 1971 @ Amazon (available worldwide)
   
   The Night Gallery is one of three books written by Rod Serling based on stories he created for the 1970 television series by the same name. Similar to his Stories From The Twilight Zone books, he novelized six of the show’s scripts for this volume, including They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar, which was nominated for an Emmy award. Although he didn’t have the creative control he had with The Twilight Zone stories, these are every bit as poignant.
4. Night Gallery 2 with a new foreword by Benson & Skelton again, originally out from Bantam in 1972 @ Amazon (available worldwide)
   
   The Night Gallery 2 is one of three books written by Rod Serling based on stories he created for the 1970 television series by the same name. Similar to his Stories From The Twilight Zone books, he novelized five of the show’s scripts in this volume, including The Messiah on Mott Street, which was also nominated for an Emmy award. Although he didn’t have the creative control he had with The Twilight Zone stories, these are every bit as poignant.

* The other two in my Top 3 are Batman: The Animated Series and associated spinoffs/continuations, and Star Trek, in case you were morbidly curious.