FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[kyrilson]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Not completely fantasy. There were several tech companies in what later became known as Silicon Valley back in the 1950s. Shockley Semiconductor in 1955. HP (to my surprise) started in 1939. My Mom said Dad frequently flew to that area back in the early 60s as part of his work for Honeywell working for NASA. But, a 67 year career is a bit of a stretch for anybody given you'd have to be actively working until your late 80s.

It says he’s 67 years old. You don’t start a career at birth.


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[SomeSteve]

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North is £0.99 at Amazon UK and Kobo UK. It's been at this price for a few days.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DI7HLDG

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the...harry-august-1

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Manabi

So the "a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley" is complete nonsense. It only stretches back to the 1980s, and Silicon Valley was already humming along at that point.

Sounds like whoever wrote the blurb for the eBook thinks Silicon Valley started in the 80s.

Possibly because the 1980s is when the moniker came into general use (it was coined in the early 1970s).

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by kyrilson

Silicon Valley started around 1953. That’s 70 years ago.

I don't think a specific year can be assigned, but Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory was founded in 1955, what is the case for 1953?

[Quoth]

The HP Garage at 367 Addison Avenue is now designated an official California Historical Landmark, and is marked with a plaque calling it the "Birthplace of 'Silicon Valley'".

The company won its first big contract in 1938 to provide the HP 200A, a low distortion frequency oscillator for Walt Disney's production of the animated film Fantasia, which allowed Hewlett and Packard to formally establish the Hewlett-Packard Company on July 2, 1939.

—Wikipedia
Curiously I thought it was earlier!
Semiconductors existed before Shockley demonstrated the transistor in 1947 in Bell Labs, and Westinghouse France had one about the same time, but those were Germanium.
The MOSFET was silicon and 1959, though the idea was proposed in the 1920s and again in 1930s. An early expert was killed in WWII, maybe the siege of Leningrad? Materials were not pure enough!

The first working silicon transistor was developed at Bell Labs on January 26, 1954, by Morris Tanenbaum. The first production commercial silicon transistor was announced by Texas Instruments in May 1954. This was the work of Gordon Teal, an expert in growing crystals of high purity

It was purely materials that held it back.
I started learning Electronics in 1966. I never heard the term "Silicon Valley" before 1970s.
The term was in wide use before 1980.
Texas Instruments was called Geophysical Service Incorporated from 1930 to 1951. They were based in Dallas, Texas.
So there was no "Silicon Valley" till after the mid 1950s and likely the term grew in the 1970s. But Tech companies in the area from 1930s and more so from 1960s.

Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley.

, if set in 2021, (takes time to write & publish) then born in 1954 and likely career starts about 20+ (older if Masters), so 1974. But "Silicon Valley" as term is likely 4 to 6 years old and Silicon production is 20 years old in 1974.

If 67 in 2023 and did a Masters, then he's 25 years late to the Silicon party and maybe 10 years after "Silicon valley" became a common term. I was soldering ICs, never mind silicon transistors in late 1960s.

IBM is a Victorian company. Hollerith Business Systems or something. RCA (demise 1986?) was a Victorian company. Honeywell founded 1906.
Philips spun off their semiconductors as NXP, and started Electronics about 1926, before that light bulbs.
Motorola started in 1930s with record players in cars, then valve (tube) radios.
UK Pye Electronics, taken over by Philips in 1967 was a Victorian company.
Eveready/NCC/Energiser was Victorian era.

You'd need to be in your 90s now to have had any significant career at the start of the Transistor era and all the pioneers of the electronic circuits, all first used with tubes/valves, are probably dead.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by kyrilson

Silicon Valley started around 1953. That’s 70 years ago. So yes, he could definitely be there since the beginning.

Not unless designing at -3 years old. Try 1972 to 1978 for start of career (1978 or later is more feasible).

[GlennD]

This seems like a lot of silicon valley for the science fiction deals thread.

[kyrilson]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Not unless designing at -3 years old. Try 1972 to 1978 for start of career (1978 or later is more feasible).

It says he’s 67 yrs old, not that he’s been in the industry that long. Anyways, this is unproductive. It’s just a silly book. .

[Tarana]

The Star Fox By Poul Anderson $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Science fiction

When destructive aliens invade a human space colony, Earth’s government backs down… but veteran naval captain Gunnar Heim is determined to rescue the survivors and take the ruthless Aleriona head-on.

[BionicGecko]

Originally Posted by GlennD

This seems like a lot of silicon valley for the science fiction deals thread.

[salty-horse]

Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth is $3 worldwide(?) (Kobo US, Kobo WW, Amazon.com
This was Roth's first adult novel, after the YA success with Divergent.

A decade ago near Chicago, five teenagers defeated the otherworldly enemy known as the Dark One, whose reign of terror brought widespread destruction and death. The seemingly un-extraordinary teens—Sloane, Matt, Ines, Albie, and Esther—had been brought together by a clandestine government agency because one of them was fated to be the “Chosen One,” prophesized to save the world. With the goal achieved, humankind celebrated the victors and began to mourn their lost loved ones.

Ten years later, though the champions remain celebrities, the world has moved forward and a whole, younger generation doesn’t seem to recall the days of endless fear. But Sloane remembers. It’s impossible for her to forget when the paparazzi haunt her every step just as the Dark One still haunts her dreams. Unlike everyone else, she hasn’t moved on; she’s adrift—no direction, no goals, no purpose. On the eve of the Ten Year Celebration of Peace, a new trauma hits the Chosen: the death of one of their own. And when they gather for the funeral at the enshrined site of their triumph, they discover to their horror that the Dark One’s reign never really ended.

[salty-horse]

The Shades of Magic trilogy by V. E. Schwab are $3 each in the US. (Kobo, Amazon)
These are:
A Darker Shade of Magic
A Gathering of Shadows
A Conjuring of Light

[salty-horse]

After Atlas by Emma Newman is £2.99 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)
Second in the Planetfall series, but is standalone.

A stunning science fiction mystery where one man's murder is much more than it seems...

Gov-corp detective Carlos Moreno was only a baby when Atlas left Earth to seek truth among the stars. But in that moment, the course of Carlos's entire life changed. Atlas is what took his mother away; what made his father lose hope; what led Alejandro Casales, leader of the religious cult known as the Circle, to his door. And now, on the eve of the fortieth anniversary of Atlas's departure, it's got something to do why Casales was found dead in his hotel room-and why Carlos is the man in charge of the investigation.

To figure out who killed one of the most powerful men on Earth, Carlos is supposed to put aside his personal history. But the deeper he delves into the case, the more he realizes that escaping the past is not so easy. There's more to Casales's death than meets the eye, and something much more sinister to the legacy of Atlas than anyone realizes...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The Shades of Magic trilogy by V. E. Schwab are $3 each in the US. (Kobo, Amazon)
These are:
A Darker Shade of Magic
A Gathering of Shadows
A Conjuring of Light

They are $2.99 each at eBooks.com in ePub.

Also, they are available on Kindle Unlimited at Amazon US.

[pdurrant]

Book Bale is a new subscription service from the same people as Arc Manor.

They're offering a $4.99/month subscription, for which you can download $30 of ebooks from their site every month. The books once bought are yours permanently. Your rights to the books you've bought don't stop when your subscription stops.

And with the coupon code TWICE, you can get the first two months for $1.99 per month.

This offer is only good for one more day.

You can sign up at https://bookbale.club/

I'm not sure that they have a big enough selection for me, but I'm going to give them a go for a couple of months. I'll cancel after that if they don't have anything more that interests me. But for $1.99/month, if they only have a couple of books, it'll have been well worth it.