FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[Dazrin]

The original Sword of Shannara trilogy is on sale for $3 at Amazon and "various retailers".

The Sword of Shannara
The Elfstones of Shannara
The Wishsong of Shannara

https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Shannar...dp/B000FBFMZM/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/swo...oks/1100292962
https://play.google.com/store/books/...annara_Trilogy

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by svenlind

Edit: Make sure you get the 1954 edition. I read somewhere that the the author made a milder revison of the original, because he found a little too rough.

At first I thought you were reverring to Fire Time, which wasn't even published until 1974.

The version of Broken Sword I have is the Open Road one which is the 1954 version.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

At first I thought you were reverring to Fire Time, which wasn't even published until 1974.

The version of Broken Sword I have is the Open Road one which is the 1954 version.

This is a book I've read a few times and I was unaware of any changes to it (I have an old paperback from the 70s....which I might have replaced with an ebook. I'll have to go check).

Here's the info from the wiki article for anyone interested, I found it helpful since it lists a few of the word changes so you could verify your copy:

"The original 1954 text is known for its unique prose styling which makes liberal use of archaic words, spellings and phrasings.[8] Examples include spelling "fairy" as "faerie", the word "glaive" in place of "sword", and archaic phrasing such as the word "will" in place of "want".[8] The 1971 revised text frequently replaces and at times altogether removes some of these stylings.[8] Author Poul Anderson explained these alterations in the introduction to the 1971 edition, referring to his younger self in the third person:

'A generation lies between us. I would not myself write anything so headlong, so prolix, and so unrelievedly savage. This young, in many ways naive lad who bore my name could, all unwittingly, give readers a wrong impression of my work and me. At the same time, I don’t feel free to tamper with what he has done.' "

[Aleron Ives]

Is there a way to tell which version you're getting from the various stores?

[salty-horse]

Hammerfall by C.J. Cherryh is $2 in the US (Kobo US, Kobo WW, Amazon.com)
First in a duology.

... part of a far-ranging series, The Gene Wars, set in an entirely new universe scarred by the most vicious of future weaponry, nanotechnology. In this brilliant novel -- possibly Cherryh's masterwork -- the fate of billions has come down to a confrontation between two profoundly alien cultures on a single desert planet.

"The mad shall be searched out and given to the Ila's messengers. No man shall conceal madness in his wife, or his son, or his daughter, or his father. Every one must be delivered up." -- The Book of the Ila's Au'it

Marak has suffered the madness his entire life. He is a prince and warrior, strong and shrewd and expert in the ways of the desert covering his planet. In the service of his father, he has dedicated his life to overthrowing the Ila, the mysterious eternal dictator of his world. For years he has successfully hidden the visions that plague him -- voices pulling him eastward, calling Marak, Marak, Marak, amid mind-twisting visions of a silver tower. But when his secret is discovered, Marak is betrayed by his own father and forced to march in an endless caravan with the rest of his world's madmen to the Ila's city of Oburan.

Instead of death, Marak finds in Oburan his destiny, and the promise of life -- if he can survive what is surely a suicidal mission. The Ila wants him to discover the source of the voices and visions that afflict the mad. Despite the dangers of the hostile desert, tensions within the caravan, and his own excruciating doubts, Marak miraculously reaches his goal -- only to be given another, even more impossible mission by the strange people in the towers.

According to these beings who look like him yet act differently than anyone he has ever known, Marak has a slim chance to save his world's people from the wrath of Ila's enemies. But to do so, he must convince them all -- warring tribes, villagers, priests, young and old, as well as the Ila herself -- to follow him on an epic trek across the burning desert before the hammer of the Ila's foes falls from the heavens above.

Written with deceptive simplicity and lyricism, this riveting, fast-paced epic of war, love, and survival in a brave new world marks a major achievement from the masterful C.J. Cherryh.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Is there a way to tell which version you're getting from the various stores?

The version I got from publisher Open Road Media includes the following in the Introduction by Michael Dirda:

“Perhaps the finest American heroic fantasy”—so E. F. Bleiler, the great scholar of supernatural and fantasy literature, summed up The Broken Sword. Poul Anderson himself felt that the original version of the book was too “savage” and, for a revised edition published in 1971, smoothed out its sentences and slightly altered one important section. Yet most readers prefer the brutal, lyrical excess of the 1954 text and it is that which is reprinted here. In the era of A Game of Thrones we can handle a bit of savagery.

I can also confirm via a text search that my ebook contains 46 instances of the word "faerie" but only one of the word "fairy" (in use with the phrase "fairy tale"), so the Open Road Media version (ISBN: 978-1-4976-9586-3) is almost certainly the unexpurgated version. This seems to be the one available for sale at most sites (e.g. https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-broken-sword-4).

Incidentally, the Kindle version of The Broken Sword appears to be on sale right now, so, remove all doubt and buy it again for $1.99:
https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Sword-.../dp/B00PI181JI

EDIT: The ISBN is slightly different on the Kobo listing, but I'm positive they're the same edition. In any case, the Michael Dirda introduction is visible in the Kobo Book Preview, so you're getting the right one.

[ottdmk]

Deeply disappointed that the Sword of Shannara Trilogy is not on sale in Canada. Grumble grumble grumble...

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Is there a way to tell which version you're getting from the various stores?

Read the description. The last line reads:

This edition contains the author’s original text.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

Deeply disappointed that the Sword of Shannara Trilogy is not on sale in Canada.

Time to travel, then?

[svenlind]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Is there a way to tell which version you're getting from the various stores?

Read the sample of the book on Amazon

In the introduction it is clearly said that it is 1954 edition.
That applies to both editions on Amazon.

[Aleron Ives]

Tales From Watership Down by Richard Adams is currently $2 for the first time.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006414I8Y
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/tal...watership-down

[Hollow Man]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Tales From Watership Down by Richard Adams is currently $2 for the first time.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006414I8Y
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/tal...watership-down

I'd been waiting a while for it to go on sale, so was happy to notice it this morn!

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Spear by Nicola Griffith is $3 in the US (Amazon.com, Kobo.com)
Arthurian retelling.

Reposting this because it's on sale again, and I've since read it and can recommend it as excellent. Lyrical, magical, historically grounded and carefully resaerched, queer, shifting the focus away from Arthur onto Percival.
If you can get the audiobook, it's probably the best way to experience it, as it's read by the author with correct pronunciations.

[ZodWallop]

The Visitors by Clifford D. Simak is $2 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US.

An enormous, mysterious box descends upon smalltown Minnesota, spelling trouble for the world, in this classic adventure from a Science Fiction Grand Master.

Forestry student Jerry Conklin is fly-fishing when something huge lands on his car, crushing it into the earth. It looks like a big black box—about fifty feet high and two hundred feet long—and the object stirs up quite a commotion among the townspeople of Lone Pine, Minnesota. One of them even shoots at it—and quickly pays for it with his life.

Around the country, people scramble to determine what exactly the box is. Is it a machine? Or maybe a sentient being? What does it want? They have no way of knowing.

Jerry, meanwhile, has firsthand knowledge after the visitor abducts him. Then, just as he discovers it is a living, intelligent creature, it releases him into the darkness of night.

As Jerry searches for a way back to civilization, more visitors descend upon Earth. They seem harmless enough. Then they begin eating trees, and that’s only the beginning...

[Aleron Ives]

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky is currently $3.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DN8BQMD
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/children-of-time-6

The other two novels in the series have yet to ever reach this price, and I don't know if a fourth novel is in the works, either, so the series may or may not be complete.