FREE/BARGAIN - Science Fiction, Fantasy - 2015

[Rev. Bob]

The first Dorothy Must Die book is on sale for $1.99. It's a publisher promotion (book 2 comes out in 2 weeks), so it should be valid anywhere in the US. I know Amazon, Kobo, Google Play, and B&N are honoring the price.

I should note that there are three prequel novellas (all before the first book), and the first of those (No Place Like Oz) is $1.99, but I'm not sure whether that's a promotion or not.

[Brendan Moody]

The new Humble Books Bundle is all post-apocalyptic stuff: novels, anthologies, magazines, comics, a game, and an audiobook.

Humble Post-Apocalyptic Book Bundle

The world may be over, but we can still read! Whether it's a nuclear holocaust, a contagion outbreak, or a zombie apocalypse, the world isn't going to last forever... until then, you can read about all the possibilities right here! Name your price for Lightspeed Magazine, July 2010, Lightspeed Magazine, March 2013, Gather, Darkness!, After the End: Recent Apocalypses, Wasteland Vol. 1: Cities In Dust, A Gift Upon the Shore, Wool - Omnibus Edition (Audiobook), and Defiance (Game). If you pay more than the average price, you'll also get Futureland, After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, The Massive Vol. 1: Black Pacific, Daybreak, The Wild Shore, and Damnation Alley. If you pay $15 or more, you'll receive all of the above plus The End is Nigh, Parable of the Sower, and The Strain Vol. 1. The pre-apocalypse just got a lot wordier so get reading!
Pay what you want like it's an "end of the world" sale. Before the apocalypse, the contents of this bundle would have cost you up to $184 if purchased separately, but here at Humble Bundle, you pay what you want.

Read anywhere -- apocalypse or no apocalypse. These books are available in PDF, ePUB, and MOBI formats, meaning you can read them anywhere at any time. Instructions and a list of recommended reading programs can be found here.The comics are available in multiple formats as well including CBZ, PDF, and ePUB, so they work on your computer, e-readers, iPads, cell phones, and a wide array of mobile devices! Instructions and a list of recommended reading programs can be found here.

Game Requirements. Please check out the full system requirements for the game Defiance here prior to purchasing.

Support charity. You choose where your money goes -- between the creators and two charitable causes (Worldbuilders and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America Emergency Medical and Legal Fund). If you like what we do and what this bundle has to offer, the Humble tip jar somehow survived the apocalypse!

[ATDrake]

Free from the author('s republishing consortium) via KDP Select @ Amazon:

Torch Song by Shelley Singer (ISFDB, SYKM), 1st in her Blackjack trilogy of post-apocalyptic dystopian sci-fi action adventure thrillers starring an apparently lesbian mercenary (apparently also YA, from the categories which include LGBT and lesbian, though that may refer to a relatively minor character instead of the lead), originally out from Five Star in 2007 titled as "Blackjack", under the pseudonym of Lee Singer.

IT’S 2066. AND YOU CAN'T TRUST ANYBODY…

Rica Marin’s a mercenary—a hired gun, soldier, and spy who answers only to whoever can keep her in the meds she and her only living relative need to survive the plagues that scourge the earth after biological warfare’s wiped out pretty much everything.

It’s a strange world that’s left—composed of tiny city-states like Redwood, Sierra, and Rocky—run with a variety of futuristic machines and broken-down ones. Fancy new cars float as well as roll, but the Internet’s now so glitchy you can't even blog properly—newspapers have come back! So many machines are in disrepair that a fixer in this world isn't someone who rigs elections or cleans up after murders—it’s a person who can repair both an elevator and an ancient toilet. But roving bands of bandits, godders, causies, breeders, khakis, and toxies threaten to destroy what’s just been fixed.

Anywhere there are people—however few—there’ll be power plays, and Rica’s current job at the Blackjack Casino is to run interference between the warring clans of Tahoe, in tiny Sierra. But then the city-state of Rocky gets ambitious. And that means war.

Free again from the author via KDP Select @ Amazon:

The Ptorrigan Lode by fellow MR member author Kathryn Lance (ISFDB, Wikipedia), a self-published sequel to her 1985 Warner Questar future space colony sci-fi novel Pandora's Genes, which was nominated for a Locus Best First Novel Award back in the day (and which we were previously offered free a couple of years ago).

By the award-winning author of Pandora's Genes, a tale of betrayal and revenge in the asteroid belt. (the rest of the blurb consists of some praise from a website review, but this is pretty much the story right there)

[salty-horse]

The Book of the Dead, an anthology of mummy stories, is free for today only (March 19):

The Book of the Dead is the first - and only - anthology of all-original mummy stories, and explores how these fascinating monsters both became embedded in Western culture, but also remain relevant and fascinating to this day. It has been a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards, and has had stories selected for several 'Best of' anthologies.

The Book of the Dead contains original stories from Gail Carriger, Paul Cornell, Adam Roberts, Roger Luckhurst, Jesse Bullington, David Thomas Moore, Lou Morgan, Molly Tanzer, Jenni Hill, Michael West, Sarah Newton, Den Patrick, Glen Mehn, Jonathan Green, Louis Greenberg, Will Hill, Maurice Broaddus and Maria Dahvana Headley. The illustrations are by Garen Ewing, and the introduction is courtesy of John J Johnston, of the Egypt Exploration Society.

Announcement

Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

[specficwriter]

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin $1.99 US. Here is the KOBO link, but it is available elsewhere also:

https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/eb...dispossessed-1

[GA Russell]

I've never read anything by Terry Pratchett, but the Discworld stories are fantasies, right? If so...

Thief of Time - 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/Thief-Time-Dis...dp/B000W916WK/

*****

Unseen Academicals - 99 cents
http://www.amazon.com/Unseen-Academi...dp/B002Q1YE4O/

[Brendan Moody]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

I've never read anything by Terry Pratchett, but the Discworld stories are fantasies, right?

Indeed they are. And in addition to the two you mention, a few others are at bargain prices:

Night Watch ($1.99)
http://www.amazon.com/Night-Watch-Di...dp/B000W912Q0/

Going Postal ($1.99)
http://www.amazon.com/Going-Postal-D...dp/B000W965QM/

Reaper Man ($1.99)
http://www.amazon.com/Reaper-Man-Dis...dp/B000UVBT4A/

Guards! Guards! ($1.99)
http://www.amazon.com/Guards-Discwor...dp/B000UVBT7M/

Sourcery ($1.99)
http://www.amazon.com/Sourcery-Discw...dp/B000W913S2/

There are a few more in the series at $3.99, but those are stable long-term prices rather than current bargains.

The Discworld books can largely be read as standalones. There are sub-series with ongoing character arcs, but they're not essential to enjoying individual books. If anyone wants to start at the beginning of a given arc, though, Guards! Guards! and Going Postal are both the first in sub-series. And while Thief of Time features some recurring characters, it's not really part of a sub-series.

[hemisphire]

Some of the Discworld books are no longer discounted at Amazon, but I found them at Google Play.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by hemisphire

Some of the Discworld books are no longer discounted at Amazon, but I found them at Google Play.

Yeah, there was a big Harper Collins sale and they were part of it--but the books appear to be moving off sale today. There are still some of the books on sale from what I saw, but the prices are changing.

[brudigia]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Yeah, there was a big Harper Collins sale and they were part of it--but the books appear to be moving off sale today. There are still some of the books on sale from what I saw, but the prices are changing.

It is also discounted "The Long Mars", the third book of the Long Earth Series. $1.99 on Amazon, cannot see it at Google.

http://www.amazon.com/Long-Mars-Nove...qid=1426875885

[Ginwen]

Originally Posted by brudigia

It is also discounted "The Long Mars", the third book of the Long Earth Series. $1.99 on Amazon, cannot see it at Google.

http://www.amazon.com/Long-Mars-Nove...qid=1426875885

Thanks, I've been waiting to buy that one until it came down a bit (or, in this case, came down a lot)

[ATDrake]

For the Role-Playing SFnal Gentle Readers in the audience, a couple of deals on officially licensed authorized tie-in RPG manuals to 2 popular fantasy series.

Bundle of Holding is offering the following bundles for a limited time (DRM-free PDF available worldwide) with tiered pricing:

1. Bundle of Laundry from Cubicle 7, based on Charles Stross' (ISFDB, Wikipedia) Hugo Award-winning The Laundry Files series of Lovecraftian bureaucracy urban fantasy spy thriller spoofs.
   
   This is good until March 24th, and the $9 base level Starter Collection gets you:
   • The Laundry Core Rulebook
   • The Agent's Handbook
   
   At the more-than-average-level (currently just under $25) for the Bonus Collection, you also get the following campaign/sourcebooks:
   • The Mythos Dossiers
   • God Game Black
   • Black Bag Jobs
   • Cultists Under the Bed
   • License to Summon
   
   Here's the publisher's official site for the RPG and their PDF sample page, should you be interested.
2. The Dying Earth from Pelgrane Press, based on the late Jack Vance's (ISFDB, Wikipedia) eponymous highly popular and influential post-apocalyptic fantasy setting (Wikipedia), for which we actually did get one of the RPG books as an anniversary giveaway freebie from his estate's official website in 2014.
   
   This is good until March 31st and the $8 base level Starter Collection gets you:
   • The Dying Earth (which was the freebie we got last year)
   • The Dying Earth Revivification Folio
   • The Compendium of Universal Knowledge
   • The Scaum Valley Gazetteer
   
   The more-than-average Bonus Collection level (currently just under $18) also nets you:
   • Cugel's Compendium
   • Turjan's Tome of Beauty and Horror
   • Rhialto's Book of Marvels
   • Kaiin Player's Guide
   • Tooth, Talon, & Pinion
   • In the Footsteps of Fools
   
   Here's Pelgrane's webcatalogue index page for TDE, as well as their dedicated TDE-centric site, which has info and sample downloads, etc.

Both of these contain RPG books that are collectively valued at over $100 retail for the top tiers, according to the site, and are DRM-free PDF downloads both directly via the Bundle of Holding site itself (for a limited time, apparently, to avoid server meltdown), as well as via the automatic addition of your purchase to your DriveThruRPG account for permanent re-download availability. Payment is possible via Paypal, Amazon Payments, and Bitcoin, and part of your purchase benefits the charity listed on the page.

Unlike the Humble Bundle model, there doesn't seem to be any way to top up your purchase after having bought a lower tier, so please be sure of which tier you want. That said, they do say on their FAQ page that if they add any extra books to the Bonus Collection Level and you paid for that earlier, the new ones are automatically added in your purchase library, even if the price has gone up. There's also a refund policy I didn't really look at.

So, if you happen to game and enjoy either (or both) of these series, hopefully you'll be able to pick up something useful and entertaining (assuming you haven't bought it all previously).

[DebbyS]

Thanks for the info about the Bundle of Laundry. I do not expect ever to play any RPGs, but having the playbooks will, I hope, increase my enjoyment of the excellent, fun series.

[itisbomb]

Rain Wilds Chronicles
by Robin Hobb

The series seems to be currently discounted at Amazon.

Dragon Keeper (Rain Wilds Chronicles, Vol. 1) is $1.99
http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Keeper-...kindle+edition

Dragon Haven (Rain Wilds Chronicles, Vol. 2) is $1.99
http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Haven-R...kindle+edition

City of Dragons: (Volume 3 of the Rain Wilds Chronicles) is $2.24
http://www.amazon.com/City-Dragons-T...kindle+edition

Blood of Dragons (Rain Wilds Chronicles Book 4) is $4.99
http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Dragons-...kindle+edition

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by DebbyS

Thanks for the info about the Bundle of Laundry. I do not expect ever to play any RPGs, but having the playbooks will, I hope, increase my enjoyment of the excellent, fun series.

I just splurged on them myself (also not a gamer), and I'd highly recommend starting your supplementary reading with the Mythos Dossiers sourcebook if you got the top tier.

It does write-ups on the various Lovecraftian creature species a bit in the style of Stross' novellas, where Bob is reading all these old letters and case documents etc. relevant to the investigation, and they do a great mix of fake memos, newspaper clippings, excerpts from old books and diaries, internet message board and auction sites, and bureaucratic meeting minutes and such (the transcript of the interview with the BLUE HADES is especially hilarious*, as is the taskforce committee for finding a way to combat DEEP SEVEN). There's stuff like this scattered around the rest of the manuals, but this has the most of it and the others consist of much more RPG how-to mechanics (the Agent's Handbook does have some amusing paperwork forms for expenditures and requisitions and such, and God Game Black does fill in a bunch of details following the events of The Fuller Memorandum and The Apocalypse Codex).

It's a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be (I was expecting just a lot of appendix-type supplementary non-canonical-but-based-loosely-on-Stross'-notes-IIRC-his-old-blogposts-about-the-RPG-licensing backgrounder info of varying niftiness) and I'm glad I went and splurged. (But then I'm a sucker for appendix-type supplementary material, so YMMV for other Gentle Readers who aren't so much into what amounts to DIY authorized fanfic.)

*

Spoiler:

ASHDOWN: Will a geas even work on you?
RUPERT: I am curious to see you try.
FISHER: Right. Ahem. Blue-Hades-Fast-Bracket- Journey-Doctor. By the authority vested in me by the emissaries of Y’ghonzzh N’hai I have the power to bind and to release, and your tongue be tied of these matters of which we have spoken until you hear these words again: Blue-Hades- Fast-Bracket-Journey-Doctor. How do you feel?
RUPERT: I feel no different.
ASHDOWN: Well, he wouldn’t, would he? I mean, you can’t feel a geas, can you?
FISHER: You were looking at me, Miles. I think you put the geas on me instead of Rupert.
ASHDOWN: It works for whoever is in the room, doesn’t it?
FISHER: Besides, I think you mispronounced Y’ghonzzh. There’s an emphasis on the ghon like this. Ga-hon. Ga-hon.
ASHDOWN: No, the emphasis is on the end. Zuh-zh.
FISHER: Ga-hon.
ASHDOWN: Zuh-zh.
RUPERT: Are you two qualified to interview me?