FREE/BARGAIN - DRM-Free - 2015

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Free

Nefertiti's Heart (The Artifact Hunters Book 1) by A. W. Exley

Cara Devon has always suffered curiosity and impetuousness, but tangling with a serial killer might cure that. Permanently.

London, 1861. Impoverished noble Cara has a simple mission after the strange death of her father - sell off his damned collection of priceless artifacts. Her plan goes awry when aristocratic beauties start dying of broken hearts, an eight inch long brass key hammered through their chests. A killer hunts amongst the nobility, searching for a regal beauty and an ancient Egyptian relic rumoured to hold the key to immortality.
Her Majesty's Enforcers are in pursuit of the murderer and they see a connection between the gruesome deaths and Cara. So does she, somewhere in London her father hid Nefertiti's Heart, a fist sized diamond with strange mechanical workings. Adding further complication to her life, notorious crime lord, Viscount Nathaniel Lyons is relentless in his desire to lay his hands on Cara and the priceless artifact. If only she could figure out his motive.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0139OZJYK/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0139OZJYK/
http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0139OZJYK/

The Publisher is the Author, so it's self-published....right?


Don
(Moderator)

[murg]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

The Publisher is the Author, so it's self-published....right?


Don
(Moderator)

Depends on what the chances are that two different people named A. W. Exley were involved in the production of this book.

[Dr. Drib]

From the first post:

"This thread is for pointing out free and bargain DRM-Free ONLY titles to each other. Please don't post any self-published books (unless you have read them yourself, think they are excellent, and you're not connected to the author in any way) and please do a search before posting to avoid duplicates."[Italics added]


Don
(Moderator)

[ATDrake]

New Humble Bundle is up, and it's for:

Humble Audiobook Bundle Star Wars, with both radio drama adaptations starring Mark Hamill, as well as readings of the Expanded Universe tie-in novels and such.

Top-tier is $15, more-than-average is currently just under $10, but likely to fluctuate a great deal in the next couple of hours, and there'll be more stuff added next week.

Cue the John Williams score!

It is a period of bundle war.
Copycat bundlers multiply
like womp rats all across
the galaxy but like a good
Jedi, the one true bundle
returns to restore DRM-freedom
to the galaxy.

Name your price for Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama and Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi.

If you pay more than the average price, you'll also get Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith, and Star Wars: Dark Empire.

If you pay $15 or more, you'll receive all of the above plus Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: Dark Forces Collector’s Trilogy. May the bundle be with you!

Also, a reminder that the following bundles are ending in the next day or two:

The Women in Science Fiction Bundle from StoryBundle, full of backlist works by notable award-winners, with a freebie bonus song track and Lightspeed magazine issue for newsletter subscribers (no purchase necessary).

Open Road Media Sci-Fi Bundle presented by Groupees, with lots of backlist works by prominent authors. There's apparently a minor formatting issue with one of the books, please see the follow-up responses to Andanzas' post in the SF/F megathread for details.

[ATDrake]

New Humble Bundle is up, and it's for:

Humble Book Bundle Neil Gaiman Rarities, featuring a mix of comics and prose work by Neil Gaiman (ISFDB, Wikipedia).

Current better-than-average is actually, surprisingly, hovering around the top-tier mark, but I expect it to fluctuate over the next few hours. Probably best to splurge for the top-tier anyway, which is $15.

Name your price for Adventures in the Dream Trade (essays, poems, lyrics & original AMERICAN GODS blog), Gods & Tulips (controversial 1993 speech, an essay on running signings, & a speech on comics), Free Speeches (speeches by Neil, Frank Miller, & others), Being An Account of the Life and Death of the Emperor Heliogabolous (24 hour comic, written & drawn by Neil Gaiman), and Ghastly Beyond Belief (Neil's rare & never republished second book of oddball quotes).

If you pay more than the average price, you'll also get Sweeney Todd & Other Stories (Neil's lost, unfinished, never republished graphic novel with Michael Zulli), Angels & Visitations (first collection of prose fiction, non-fiction, & poetry), Day of the Dead (fully annotated Babylon 5 script), An Honest Answer & Other Stories (Bryan Talbot's collaborations & Dave McKean too), Feeders & Eaters with Mark Buckingham (Neil's collaborations with Mark Buckingham, including a comic about Alan Moore), Neil Dreams (short comics of dreams, by and about Neil, done by & with Rick Veitch), and the two controversial UK comics anthologies Outrageous Tales From The Old Testament (controversial 80s comics anthology. Neil nearly sent one publisher to prison. Alan Moore, Dave McKean, Dave Gibbons & more), and Seven Deadly Sins (controversial 80s comics anthology. Neil does sloth. Alan Moore does lust), which also feature contributions from Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Dave McKean, Bryan Talbot and more.

If you pay $15 or more, you'll receive all of the above plus Duran Duran (Neil's never republished first book, ridiculously expensive second hand), Love, Fishie (poems by Neil & Maddy Gaiman, a privately printed gift for his 42nd birthday), A Little Gold Book of Ghastly Stuff (out of print & collectible book of short fiction, essays, poems, many never reprinted), and Manuscript Found In A Milk Bottle (never before reprinted short story with brand new intro).

Also, StoryBundle is offering for the next week or so:

The Disasters Bundle curated by Kevin J. Anderson (ISFDB, Wikipedia), consisting of assorted backlist and newly-written sfnal apocalyptic and mishap-themed works by established authors.

Minimum $5 gets you 6 books, top-tier $15 gets 4 more novels + 1 anthology (I think the anthology has been previously offered in a Humble Bundle apocalyptic-themed one, though that may have been another in that particular trilogy, and the Ocean novel has been in a previous StoryBundle).

[ATDrake]

Wildside Press is back with the new Tuesday freebie for:

The H. B. Fyfe Minipack™ by the late H. B. Fyfe (ISFDB, SF Encyclopedia entry), a mini-collection of some of his vintage science fiction stories.

Horace B. Fyfe (1918-1997) was an engineer by trade and a popular science fiction writer. He published extensively in SF magazines from his first appearance in Astounding in February 1940 until his last publication in Analog in January 1967. Sadly, Alzheimer’s cut short his career, but his family stepped in to save many of his files, including more than 90 unpublished stories and an unpublished historical novel.

Most of his unpublished works is either juvenilia or attempts to break into other fields, such as suspense or romance, that misfired. But a few are lost gems, and we will shortly have a third collection of his stories published, The 24th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK™: H.B. Fyfe (vol. 3) which will include two previously unpublished SF tales. And our next ghost story MEGAPACK™ will have a ghost story that would have been right at home in the original Weird Tales.

Enjoy!

Humble Bundle has a couple of good-quality ebooks among its game offerings for:

Humble Total War Bundle which contains at the basic level ($1 minimum for Steam keys), three ebooks. 1 of them is a tie-in novel, but for military history aficionados, two of them are non-fiction works from Osprey Publishing, which are general works on Alesia 52 and Roman Soldier versus Germanic Warrior, about those respective Gaulish and Germanic conflicts. I had a peek inside both of them, and they're perfectly cromulent books which are not game-specific tie-ins, but quasi-scholarly how-these-battles-worked-out things with proper bibliographical references and further reading recommendations, as you might expect an Osprey book to have. Certainly worth it for the price, even if you're not interested in the actual games.

Bundles expiring soon:

Humble Book Bundle Neil Gaiman Rarities which will switchover at 11 AM Pacific Time tomorrow on Wednesday; pretty much the only HB I've personally seen where the average went above the top-tier. Still a pretty good deal if you're a fan, as they went and added 3 more books to the average tier, including an illustrated volume of short stories and poems set in the world of the popular Stardust novel/GN.

StoryBundle's Dragons & Darkness Bundle of mostly indie fantasy novels on the expected theme expires in a couple of days, and please see Dr. Drib's dedicated thread here for linkage and discussion about the contained authors' works which may help you decide whether or not you want it. There's also a freebie available if you're a newsletter subscriber.

ETA: also for aspiring programmer-type people who like to create games,

Humble Weekly Bundle Play and Create with Game Maker is offering the binaries and source code for 2 games in exchange for your valid email address (no purchase necessary).

[GeoffR]

Rebellion Publishing have some fantasy on sale at £0.99.

These books are DRM-free if you buy them direct from the publisher, but have DRM (at least in some countries) if you buy the same book from a retailer.

[cromag]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Wildside Press is back with the new Tuesday freebie for:

The H. B. Fyfe Minipack™ by the late H. B. Fyfe (ISFDB, SF Encyclopedia entry), a mini-collection of some of his vintage science fiction stories.

Horace B. Fyfe (1918-1997) was an engineer by trade and a popular science fiction writer. He published extensively in SF magazines from his first appearance in Astounding in February 1940 until his last publication in Analog in January 1967. Sadly, Alzheimer’s cut short his career, but his family stepped in to save many of his files, including more than 90 unpublished stories and an unpublished historical novel.

Most of his unpublished works is either juvenilia or attempts to break into other fields, such as suspense or romance, that misfired. But a few are lost gems, and we will shortly have a third collection of his stories published, The 24th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK™: H.B. Fyfe (vol. 3) which will include two previously unpublished SF tales. And our next ghost story MEGAPACK™ will have a ghost story that would have been right at home in the original Weird Tales.

Enjoy!

...

In case anyone else needs a reminder to the Wildside Press freebie page (like I did):

http://wildsidepress.com/freebies/

[ATDrake]

Oops, sorry, that didn't copy-paste correctly. Fixed, thanks!

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by murg

Depends on what the chances are that two different people named A. W. Exley were involved in the production of this book.

I'd say that the chances are "slim" and "none." ha

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

Free

Nefertiti's Heart (The Artifact Hunters Book 1) by A. W. Exley
. . . .

Since the post is still up, perhaps it's okay to make a post about it before it gets moved to a different thread . . . .

Speaking of Nefertiti, archaeologists think that the tomb of Nefertiti may have been found. This is really big news.

Nerfertiti was the wife of a relatively minor, but very famous, pharaoh named Tutankhamen. Perhaps you've heard of him.ha His tomb was located and excavated in the early 1900's (if memory serves me correctly), by a fellow by the name of Howard Carter. However, the location of Nefertiti's tomb has been/was one of the great mysteries remaining in Egyptology.

Well, some researcher, maybe an archaeologist himself (I don't remember), was working, or doing some looking around, in the tomb of Tutankhamen and noticed some unusual cracks in a wall. They appeared to him, at least, to be the signs of a hidden, sealed entrance to another tomb.

The speculation is that if it is another tomb it might be Nefertiti's! Archaeologists have long wondered why the tomb of Tutankhamen was small (even though he died at a young age and there wasn't much time to build his tomb). And with the tomb being adjacent to Tutankhamen's, it would make great sense.

The article that I read about this said that it would be years (I've forgotten how many, but a lot) before the truth could be determined. I don't remember the article saying or indicating why it would take so long.

[GeoffR]

Is there a list maintained anywhere of publishers who sell DRM-free ebooks from their websites?

Something that listed such publishers by genre, and with information about any geographical restrictions would be useful I think.

I have noticed that some publishers such as Rebellion Publishing and Soho Press are selling DRM-free from their website but put DRM on the books they sell through retailers, so there is an extra incentive to buy direct from the publisher in those cases.

[ATDrake]

New Wildside Press freebie for this Tuesday:

The Second Golden Age of Crime & Mystery Megapack™ featuring vintage stories by the late Ruth Chessman (IMDB).

I first encountered Ruth Chessman’s work when browsing back issues of Manhunt magazine—and I was immediately intrigued. Manhunt was a noir/hardboiled digest-sized mystery magazine, and female bylines were uncommon. A quick check showed that she also published stories in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine as well as a 1965 middle-grade novel called Bound for Freedom, which was adapted as a movie.

She must have instilled her love of crime writing in her family, since her daughter turns out to be none other than mystery writer Jane K. Cleland—who was kind enough to grant us permission to reprint her late mother’s work. (Jane also supplied us with copies of hard-to-find stories.)

Ruth Chessman was a very good, if far too infrequent writer. This collection assembles most of her published short fiction. Enjoy!

Also, a reminder that the following is expiring tomorrow:

Humble Comics Bundle Forbidden Comics supporting Banned Books Week, full of quality graphic novels which have been challenged or banned in various places, including fiction and non-fiction works by Alan Moore, Jaime Hernandez, volumes of popular comics Elfquest and The Boys, the very moving Barefoot Gen about the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing, and more (plus an audiobook at the top-tier level, read by Wil Wheaton of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame).

Two or so titles are repeats from previous HBs, but if you didn't pick those up long ago, now is a good time to get them. The $12-ish average is close enough to the $15 top-tier that you might as well splurge and get the lot.

[ATDrake]

New Humble Bundle is up and it's for:

Humble Audiobook Bundle Goosebumps presented by Scholastic featuring the very popular children's/YA horror adventure novel series (Wikipedia) by R. L. Stine.

Current average is somewhere between $7-8, with more books to be added next week, top-tier is $15.

Name your price for Classic Goosebumps #04: The Haunted Mask, Classic Goosebumps #05: One Day at Horrorland, Classic Goosebumps #06: The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, and Classic Goosebumps #11: The Werewolf of Fever Swamp.

If you pay more than the average price, you'll also get Classic Goosebumps #16: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight, Classic Goosebumps #18: Return of the Mummy, Classic Goosebumps #19: Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes, Classic Goosebumps #21: Vampire Breath, and Classic Goosebumps #22: Stay Out of the Basement.

If you pay $15 or more, you'll also receive Classic Goosebumps #01: Night of the Living Dummy, Classic Goosebumps #25: Night of the Living Dummy 2, and Classic Goosebumps #29: The Ghost Next Door.

Also, StoryBundle is now offering for the next 3 weeks:

The Video Game Bundle 7.0 full of non-fiction and fiction books about classic video games.

$3 minimum gets you 4 books, including 1 novel, 1 short story anthology, and 2 behind-the-scenes guides to the popular game Baldur's Gate and two game companies named Blizzard.

$12 top-tier gets you 3 behind-the-scenes guides to the Nintendo Game Boy, Konami shooter games, and Metal Gear Solid, and 1 illustrated novel and its accompanying audiobook version.

[Froide]

Deleted. Sorry, wrong thread.