FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[salty-horse]

For a third Stardust post, the original illustrated edition by Charles Vess is also $3:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MZBQ6Y4

If you have a large screen device where you can comfortably read the text pages, you might want this.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

For a third Stardust post...

Whoops! Didn't realize mine was a duplicate.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

For a third Stardust post, the original illustrated edition by Charles Vess is also $3:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MZBQ6Y4

If you have a large screen device where you can comfortably read the text pages, you might want this.

Says this is 1 of 2. So individual comic instead of whole graphic novel version?

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

Says this is 1 of 2. So individual comic instead of whole graphic novel version?

For some reason Amazon lists the two editions as part of a series, but they're just different editions.
The one on sale is the newer edition. I don't know the differences, but the copyright page says there's "all new material".

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

Says this is 1 of 2. So individual comic instead of whole graphic novel version?

Originally Posted by salty-horse

For some reason Amazon lists the two editions as part of a series, but they're just different editions.

Yeah, that threw me too. But the newer one is something like 240 pages and the second older one is 220. The Look Inside preview shows some differences (I saw an extra, illustrated page), but they are essentially the same book.

[ottdmk]

I'm tempted to buy both the novel and illustrated novel versions of Stardust. The latter is published by DC Comics through ComiXology, btw, which is why you can only find it on Amazon.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

For a third Stardust post, the original illustrated edition by Charles Vess is also $3:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MZBQ6Y4

If you have a large screen device where you can comfortably read the text pages, you might want this.

Finally a use the Kindle Scribe.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Finally a use the Kindle Sage.

Assume you meant the Scribe. But no you'd want a color device for the Charles Vess art.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

I'm tempted to buy both the novel and illustrated novel versions of Stardust. The latter is published by DC Comics through ComiXology, btw, which is why you can only find it on Amazon.

I would have bought both if the Chuckie Vess one was a full graphic novel. But as a (beautifully) illustrated version of the book that I already bought, I knew I'd wind up reading it on my e-ink device and never read the illustrated version.

The illustrated version would make a great gift, but then you'd want paper not an ebook.

[salty-horse]

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North is $2 on Amazon.com
Was on my wishlist.

Ven was once a holy man, a keeper of ancient archives. It was his duty to interpret archaic texts, sorting useful knowledge from the heretical ideas of the Burning Age—a time of excess and climate disaster. For in Ven's world, such material must be closely guarded so that the ills that led to that cataclysmic era can never be repeated.

But when the revolutionary Brotherhood approaches Ven, pressuring him to translate stolen writings that threaten everything he once held dear, his life will be turned upside down. Torn between friendship and faith, Ven must decide how far he's willing to go to save this new world—and how much he is willing to lose.

[salty-horse]

The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe is $3 on Amazon.com
Based on the world introduced in the album and film of the same name. Written in collaboration with Yohanca Delgado, Eve L. Ewing, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Danny Lore, and Sheree Renée Thomas.

In The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, singer-songwriter, actor, fashion icon, futurist, and worldwide superstar Janelle Monáe brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of liberation—queerness, race, gender plurality, and love—become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in such a totalitarian landscape…and what the costs might be when trying to unravel and weave them into freedoms.

Whoever controls our memories controls the future.

Janelle Monáe and an incredible array of talented collaborators have crafted a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monáe such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts—as a means of self-conception—could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether you were human, AI, or other, your life and sentience were dictated by those who’d convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate.

That was until Jane 57821 decided to remember and break free.

Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it’s like to live in such a totalitarian society . . . and what it takes to get out of it. Building off the tradition of speculative fiction writers such as Octavia E. Butler, Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, and Nnedi Okorafor—and filled with powerful themes and Monáe’s emblematic artistic vision—The Memory Librarian serves to readers tales that dissect the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, reaching through to the worlds of memory and time, and the stakes and power that pulse there.

[CubGeek]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe is $3 on Amazon.com
Based on the world introduced in the album and film of the same name. Written in collaboration with Yohanca Delgado, Eve L. Ewing, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Danny Lore, and Sheree Renée Thomas.

I really liked this anthology-style collection. The first two stories are novella length, and the rest fall in the Short Story length. The stories are wide and varied in setting, from forbidden romance to rebels living on the outside to a Twilight Zone-esque story about an apartment's closet operating on a different timescale than the rest of the world to a group of kids playing in the woods and discovering a window into possible futures to a pair of sisters learning that they may hold the key to help further the rebellion...

The throughline of each story, in that the "New Dawn" neofacist government is targeting those they deem "Dirty" for cleansing, can seem at times prescient given the topics covered. And, in the spirit of some of the best Science Fiction (Speculative Fiction?), the issues and problems of our own world are examined through a lens that at once allows both critique and optimism to shine through. Though not always in equal measure.

[ZodWallop]

The Book of Sand by Theo Clare (aka Mo Hayder) is $0.99 at Amazon US. It's marketed as the first in a series and Mo died recently. But there is a sequel due out next year (The Book of Clouds).

The first in an epic series created by one of our finest and most inventive storytellers, also known as the international bestseller Mo Hayder

Sand. A hostile world of burning sun.

Outlines of several once-busy cities shimmer on the horizon. Now empty of inhabitants, their buildings lie in ruins.

In the distance a group of people—a family—walks toward us.

Ahead lies shelter: a “shuck” the family call home and which they know they must reach before the light fails, as to be out after dark is to invite danger and almost certain death.

To survive in this alien world of shifting sand, they must find an object hidden in or near water. But other families want it too. And they are willing to fight to the death to make it theirs.

It is beginning to rain in Fairfax County, Virginia, when McKenzie Strathie wakes up. An ordinary teenage girl living an ordinary life—except that the previous night she found a sand-lizard in her bed, and now she’s beginning to question everything around her, especially who she really is...

Two very different worlds featuring a group of extraordinary characters driven to the very limit of their endurance in a place where only the strongest will survive.

[salty-horse]

88 Names by Matt Ruff is $2 on Amazon.com

John Chu is a “sherpa”—a paid guide to online role-playing games like the popular Call to Wizardry. For a fee, he and his crew will provide you with a top-flight character equipped with the best weapons and armor, and take you dragon-slaying in the Realms of Asgarth, hunting rogue starships in the Alpha Sector, or battling hordes of undead in the zombie apocalypse.

Chu’s new client, the pseudonymous Mr. Jones, claims to be a “wealthy, famous person” with powerful enemies, and he’s offering a ridiculous amount of money for a comprehensive tour of the world of virtual-reality gaming. For Chu, this is a dream assignment, but as the tour gets underway, he begins to suspect that Mr. Jones is really North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, whose interest in VR gaming has more to do with power than entertainment. As if that weren’t enough to deal with, Chu also has to worry about “Ms. Pang,” who may or may not be an agent of the People’s Republic of China, and his angry ex-girlfriend, Darla Jean Covington, who isn’t the type to let an international intrigue get in the way of her own plans for revenge.

What begins as a whirlwind online adventure soon spills over into the real world. Now Chu must use every trick and resource at his disposal to stay one step ahead—because in real life, there is no reset button.

[Tarana]

The Starless Sea By Erin Morgenstern $2.99 Amazon, Kobo and B&N
Author of The Night Circus.