FREE/BARGAIN - Science Fiction, Fantasy - 2015

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

FREE! Star Trek: Where no man has gone before: Where no man has gone before by Gene Roddenberry

There is an on-going debate by many people that this series, and many story lines that are introduced in novels, are not considered to be "canon" with the remaining Star Trek series, despite the many facts and examples of the Star Trek references and technology and characters. They continue the stories from the first series, and even is adapted from some of the cancelled scripts. Many elements of this series are used in the following Star Trek TV shows and movies. We get to learn that James T. Kirk's middle name is Tiberius, Spock's mother is named Amanda Grayson, Robert April is the first captain of the Enterprise, Uhura is now seen in command of the bridge of the Enterprise, and the saying "Beam us up, Scotty" is also heard spoken on screen for the first time.


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01053N72E/


http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01053N72E/
http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01053N72E/

It's not clear from the description, but this book appears to be a plot summary of each episode in the TV series.

[Kieran Seymour]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's not clear from the description, but this book appears to be a plot summary of each episode in the TV series.

Having just downloaded it to see exactly what is going on, it's actually synopses for the animated series (hence the cover) with occasional colour screengrabs to liven things up. And that's it.

Unfortunately, I've seen better edited Wikipedia knock-offs. The introduction clearly hasn't been re-read (missing spaces between words, poor capitalisation) and the contents page with the list of episodes is actually for Season 1 of the Gotham television series.

I think it's a case of "move along, nothing to see here"...

[murg]

Originally Posted by Kieran Seymour

Having just downloaded it to see exactly what is going on, it's actually synopses for the animated series (hence the cover) with occasional colour screengrabs to liven things up. And that's it.

Unfortunately, I've seen better edited Wikipedia knock-offs. The introduction clearly hasn't been re-read (missing spaces between words, poor capitalisation) and the contents page with the list of episodes is actually for Season 1 of the Gotham television series.

I think it's a case of "move along, nothing to see here"...

So what you are saying, is that it is worth every penny that the author/publisher is charging for it...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by murg

So what you are saying, is that it is worth every penny that the author/publisher is charging for it...

Even free, I don't think it is worth it, given the editing effort required to make it into a reasonable quality book.

[Kieran Seymour]

Originally Posted by murg

So what you are saying, is that it is worth every penny that the author/publisher is charging for it...

Absolutely. In fact, I'd be quite prepared to pay double the asking price for it

[Harlock415]

I just object to the name of Gene Roddenberry as the author.

[itisbomb]

The Magicians
by Lev Grossman

is $2.99 at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002AU...=the+magicians

Below is the blurb:
The New York Times bestselling novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world, soon to be an original series on Syfy

“The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this.”
—George R.R. Martin

“Sad, hilarious, beautiful & essential to anyone who cares about modern fantasy.”
—Joe Hill

“A very knowing and wonderful take on the wizard school genre.”
—John Green

“The Magicians may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I’ve read this century.”
—Cory Doctorow

Like everyone else, precocious high school senior Quentin Coldwater assumes that magic isn't real, until he finds himself admitted to a very secretive and exclusive college of magic in upstate New York. There he indulges in joys of college-friendship, love, sex, and booze- and receives a rigorous education in modern sorcery. But magic doesn't bring the happiness and adventure Quentin thought it would. After graduation, he and his friends stumble upon a secret that sets them on a remarkable journey that may just fulfill Quentin's yearning. But their journey turns out to be darker and more dangerous than they'd imagined. Psychologically piercing and dazzlingly inventive, The Magicians, the prequel to the New York Times bestselling book The Magician King and the #1 bestseller The Magician's Land, is an enthralling coming-of-age tale about magic practiced in the real world-where good and evil aren't black and white, and power comes at a terrible price.

[hemisphire]

The ebook for The Human Division by John Scalzi is now on sale for $2.99!
http://torforgeblog.com/2015/06/29/t...sale-for-2-99/

[scottken]

Originally Posted by hemisphire

The ebook for The Human Division by John Scalzi is now on sale for $2.99!
http://torforgeblog.com/2015/06/29/t...sale-for-2-99/

Thanks!

[ATDrake]

Some major-author Canadian sf/fantasy bargains from Kobo's Canada Day sale (may or may not be price-matched in other stores), supposedly good until July 6th, probably not available in other regions as these are mostly the regional Canadian publisher versions (not couponable):

Guy Gavriel Kay (ISFDB, Wikipedia; World Fantasy Award-winner) titles:

@ $4.99: The River of Stars, 2nd in the Under Heaven duology set in a Tang Dynasty China analogue
@ $6.99: Under Heaven (this may seem pricey, but there is no money-saving omnibus edition of these yet, and GGK's books normally go for $11.99 each off-sale and are rarely on; also, our petro-dollar is really low right now, so you might make out pretty well on the exchange rate if you're not one of us)

The three component parts of his Fionavar Tapestry trilogy (Arthurian/real-world crossover) are currently slightly cheaper than the price of the $19.99 omnibus edition, though there's a chance the omnibus might go on sale at some point.

@ $2.99 The Summer Tree, 1st
@ $4.99 The Wandering Fire, 2nd
@ $9.99 The Darkest Road, 3rd

Even if the 3rd one doesn't drop later, the combined price is still $2 cheaper than the omnibus, and you could always just buy the first 2 and then wait to see if this one drops while you read them.

(Disclaimer: this is not an endorsement for actually buying the series if it's not already something you know you'll like, as these are my 2nd-least-favourite books of GGKs, although that's just a personal taste thing and the actual writing/plotting/characterization is decent enough, unlike that of Ysabel, which is my least-favourite GGK book for well-deserved reasons.)

Margaret Atwood (ISFDB, Wikipedia; Arthur C. Clarke Award-winner for The Handmaid's Tale)

@ $9.99 The MaddAddam Trilogy: Oryx and Crake; The Year of the Flood; MaddAddam 3-book omnibus edition (normally somewhere in the $25 CAD range off-sale, IIRC; I personally didn't like the 1st book enough to continue the rest even from the library which I may one day do out of sheer morbid curiosity, but a lot of people enjoy these)

Also, retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's (Wikipedia, cover of David Bowie's Space Odyssey sung on the station, former commander of the International Space Station) non-fiction memoir about his astronaut training and part of his time on the ISS is on sale as well if you're interested (normally in the $12 range or so):

@ $4.99 An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

[pdops]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Some major-author Canadian sf/fantasy bargains from Kobo's Canada Day sale (may or may not be price-matched in other stores), supposedly good until July 6th, probably not available in other regions as these are mostly the regional Canadian publisher versions (not couponable):

Thanks ATDrake. This one looks interesting too and it's couponable
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/the-furnace-4

The Furnace by Timothy S. Johnston $3.79
The Tanner Sequence (Book #1)

SYNOPSIS

Dead Space, 2401 AD
Kyle Tanner is about to die. Alone, floating in a vacsuit only a few million kilometers from a massive, uncaring sun, he has barely enough time or juice to get out a distress signal before either his oxygen runs out or he succumbs to the radiation.
When the CCF sent investigator Kyle Tanner to SOLEX One, a solar energy harvester past Mercury, he thought it would be an open-and-shut murder case. A crew member was found dead, minus his head and hands. Not the worst Tanner has ever seen, but the deeper he delves, the more nightmarish it becomes. A shadowy figure, bleeding from his hands, assaults Tanner in his quarters. Then two more turn up dead, missing their heads and hands as well.
With no one to trust and everyone a suspect-even the intriguing chief engineer, Shaheen-Tanner must navigate a crew on the brink of madness to uncover a conspiracy that could threaten the whole of the human race. Even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice.

[Little.Egret]

Diversion books reprint from 1983

Broken Symmetries by Paul Preuss

"Paul Preuss has done a fine thing. He has written a magnificent book in BROKEN SYMMETRIES. I admire his knowledge and artistry." -Roger Zelazny

Introduces theoretical physicist Peter Slater and world-traveling photojournalist Anne-Marie Brand. They meet in Hawaii, where Anne-Marie is in pursuit of a story about the giant atom-smasher TERAC, the newest and biggest particle accelerator in the world, built amidst the pineapple fields of Oahu. Dr. Martin Edovich is the triumphant scientist behind the project-he claims that "his" discovery of I-particles will win him the Nobel Prize and change the face of physics.
But Peter Slater predicted the existence of I-particles long ago and suspects that they are unstable-explosive and potentially cataclysmic.


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01068R4TK/


http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01068R4TK/
http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01068R4TK/

Paul Preuss is the author of numerous stand-alone novels as well as novels in Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime series, based upon incidents, characters, and places from Clarke's short stories.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Kieran Seymour

Having just downloaded it to see exactly what is going on, it's actually synopses for the animated series (hence the cover) with occasional colour screengrabs to liven things up. And that's it.

Unfortunately, I've seen better edited Wikipedia knock-offs. The introduction clearly hasn't been re-read (missing spaces between words, poor capitalisation) and the contents page with the list of episodes is actually for Season 1 of the Gotham television series.

I think it's a case of "move along, nothing to see here"...

I noticed in the sample that I downloaded that the TOC reads more like a listing of episodes of Batman the animated series than animated Star Trek.

[Demingy]

Jack of Souls is on sale at Amazon for $0.99 for a couple days before it goes back up to $6.99. This is the book I borrowed last month and I enjoyed it so much I took advantage of this sale so I could read it again (and so my fiance could read it since he doesn't have Prime). Sorry about the long link, the link button keeps making my browser close.

http://www.amazon.com/Jack-Souls-Kni...=Jack+of+souls

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Demingy

Jack of Souls is on sale at Amazon for $0.99 for a couple days before it goes back up to $6.99. This is the book I borrowed last month and I enjoyed it so much I took advantage of this sale so I could read it again (and so my fiance could read it since he doesn't have Prime). Sorry about the long link, the link button keeps making my browser close.

http://www.amazon.com/Jack-Souls-Kni...=Jack+of+souls

Got it.

Thank you!