FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The novel is available for free online: http://www.starshiptitanic.com/novel/page01.html
(For referencing convenience, all words are in alphabetical order)

That... was weird.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by ReadingManiac

That... was weird.

And a waste of time, since I don't get the joke.

[badgoodDeb]

I highly recommend The Curse Of Chalion, in case anybody needs a slight nudge! So does my SO - we audio-listened to it together. (I had previously read the ebook too.)

[Dazrin]

I glossed right over that one, thanks for highlighting it.

I see that it's the first book in the same world that the Penric and Desdemona novellas are set in (they're wonderful!) so I'm going to have to try it.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

I glossed right over that one, thanks for highlighting it.

I see that it's the first book in the same world that the Penric and Desdemona novellas are set in (they're wonderful!) so I'm going to have to try it.

Yes, set a few hundred years later. Some techniques have been forgotten, some regimes are changed. (Written earlier than all the Penrics, actually.) It's book length, rather than novella.

[Tarana]

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me By Collected Authors $1.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
FYI - not intended for kids! Some of these are gruesome.

The fairy tale lives again in this book of forty new stories by some of the biggest names in contemporary fiction.

Neil Gaiman, “Orange”

Aimee Bender, “The Color Master”

Joyce Carol Oates, “Blue-bearded Lover”

Michael Cunningham, “The Wild Swans”

These and more than thirty other stories by Francine Prose, Kelly Link, Jim Shepard, Lydia Millet, and many other extraordinary writers make up this thrilling celebration of fairy tales—the ultimate literary costume party.

Spinning houses and talking birds. Whispered secrets and borrowed hope. Here are new stories sewn from old skins, gathered by visionary editor Kate Bernheimer and inspired by everything from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” and “The Little Match Girl” to Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard” and “Cinderella” to the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel” and “Rumpelstiltskin” to fairy tales by Goethe and Calvino and from China, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, Norway, and Mexico.

Fairy tales are our oldest literary tradition, and yet they chart the imaginative frontiers of the twenty-first century as powerfully as they evoke our earliest encounters with literature. This exhilarating collection restores their place in the literary canon.

[Tarana]

The Soldier Son Trilogy By Robin Hobb $3.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

And a waste of time, since I don't get the joke.

The joke is that the novel's been sorted so that all words are in alphabetical order, for the sake of referencing convenience. You can much more easily find the word you're looking for now.

Granted it makes the novel largely unreadable, but sacrifices have to be made for the sake of convenience.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by Manabi

The joke is that the novel's been sorted so that all words are in alphabetical order, for the sake of referencing convenience. You can much more easily find the word you're looking for now.

Granted it makes the novel largely unreadable, but sacrifices have to be made for the sake of convenience.

Yeah, I got that after the first few pages. I just don't get where this is funny, creative, or even an interesting version of snarky.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Tarana

The Soldier Son Trilogy By Robin Hobb $3.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N

Thanks. Picked up a copy for the Nook.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DuskyRose

Yeah, I got that after the first few pages. I just don't get where this is funny, creative, or even an interesting version of snarky.

Then this kind of humour isn't for you. And that's OK. Not everyone has the same taste in humour.

[salty-horse]

Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott is $2.99 on Amazon.com
This is the first in a new trilogy based on Alexander the Great's life, genderswapped and set in space.

The Baron of Magister Valley by Steven Brust is $2.99 on Amazon.com
This is a retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo set in Brust's Dragaera.

The Abyss Beyond Dreams by by Peter F. Hamilton is $2.99 on Amazon.com
Set in the Commonwealth universe. Apparently, knowledge of the previous books is recommended.

[salty-horse]

The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin is $1.99 on Amazon.com
This is a collection of 17 stories. Some very famous ones (The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas) and others that were the basis of novels.

[salty-horse]

Or What You Will by Jo Walton is $2.99 on Amazon.com
A novel about writing.

He has been too many things to count. He has been a dragon with a boy on his back. He has been a scholar, a warrior, a lover, and a thief. He has been dream and dreamer. He has been a god.

But “he” is in fact nothing more than a spark of idea, a character in the mind of Sylvia Harrison, 73, award-winning author of thirty novels over forty years. He has played a part in most of those novels, and in the recesses of her mind, Sylvia has conversed with him for years.

But Sylvia won't live forever, any more than any human does. And he's trapped inside her cave of bone, her hollow of skull. When she dies, so will he.

Now Sylvia is starting a new novel, a fantasy for adult readers, set in Thalia, the Florence-resembling imaginary city that was the setting for a successful YA trilogy she published decades before. Of course he's got a part in it. But he also has a notion. He thinks he knows how he and Sylvia can step off the wheel of mortality altogether. All he has to do is convince her.

[lkmiller]

Highly recommend Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott. I had read it from the library, and I put it on my Hugo ballot. Also at Kobo US for the same price. Happy to have my own copy now!