FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Do you know if the NESFA edition is available as an ebook?

Afraid they (it's 6 or 7 massive volumes) are not. NESFA never negotiated ebook rights.

[SomeSteve]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Jack of Shadows is part homage to Jack Vance, part prototype for ideas that went into the Amber series. You should try to find the corrected version. There is a significant copy/edit error in the original book version. It's corrected in the NESFA Press edition, matching the original serialization, but I don't know if it is corrected here.

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Do you know if the NESFA edition is available as an ebook?

This usenet post compares both the original paperback book and magazine versions of the misprinted passage:

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.book...m/CCcQutLDY9EJ

My edition of the ebook, same publisher, but from Kobo, is dated a couple of months earlier than the one from Amazon, and it contains the uncorrected version.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by curtw

As much as I would consider this to be general words of wisdom, I'd like to cite a counter-example. The books and stories in Mike Resnick's "Birthright" universe truly can be read in any order at all. Even the ones that are clearly sequential internally within the ouvre (Santiago, Widowmaker, Soothsayer/Oracle/Prophet as "miniseries". Maybe the three Eros books make more sense in order, but that's about it.) each book provides enough individual background that not only to they work as stand-alones, they can also make the earlier books more intriguing ("how did Penelope survive before this?")

For me, it was great fun to stumble across a favorite character from a previous book, and it really doesn't matter if the adventure you're reading comes before or after one you've read before.

Again, I'm going to disagree. This is a series and should be read in order.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by SomeSteve

This usenet post compares both the original paperback book and magazine versions of the misprinted passage:

https://groups.google.com/g/alt.book...m/CCcQutLDY9EJ

My edition of the ebook, same publisher, but from Kobo, is dated a couple of months earlier than the one from Amazon, and it contains the uncorrected version.

Thank you for the additional information on this. Interesting info, too, about the dragon.

[Fbone]

Verdigris Deep by Frances Hardinge is $2.99

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078W62RJG...v_ov_lig_dp_it

Ryan feels invisible: At school, he’s in a class with students older and cooler than him, and at home, he’s largely ignored during his parents’ petty arguments. And then he meets Josh. Josh is popular in the way that only beautiful boys can be—he’s almost electric. Both Ryan and his chatterbox sidekick, Chelle, fall under Josh’s spell, and the three soon become inseparable.

One summer afternoon, they sneak off to the troubled town of Magwhite. Trapped without bus fare for the ride home, Josh convinces his less mischievous companions their only solution is to steal coins from the infamous wishing well. Soon after, each develops a unique, sinister power. When the well witch appears, she gargles demands of her three new servants. Ryan, Josh, and Chelle have robbed her and now must obey her . . . and the wishes rotting at the bottom of her well.

[SomeSteve]

The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson, which was talked about here a couple of weeks ago, is now $1.99 at Amazon US and Kobo US.

https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Sword-.../dp/B00PI181JI

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-broken-sword-4

[tch65721]

A Midsummer Tempest (Holger Danske Book 2) by Poul Anderson - $1.99
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PI181I4

Nebula and World Fantasy Award Finalist: A fantastic tale of intrigue, love, war, magic, and swashbuckling adventure set in an alternate universe where fairies mingle freely with Englishmen and all of Shakespeare’s fictional characters are real

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by SomeSteve

My edition of the ebook, same publisher, but from Kobo, is dated a couple of months earlier than the one from Amazon, and it contains the uncorrected version.

Thanks for that. I went through my copy and corrected it.

This error is big enough that it is on the book's Wikipedia page.

The text of the serialization and the published book are slightly different. A copy-editing error garbled a conversation between Jack and Morningstar in chapter 6; the correct version appeared in the original magazine appearance and has been reprinted on pages 511–512 of The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume 3: This Mortal Mountain, NESFA Press, 2009.

I'm surprised the publisher didn't fix it.

BTW: Jack of Shadows has a great old 1970's cover.

[salty-horse]

Burning Girls and Other Stories by Veronica Schanoes is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
The title story, Burning Girls (free to read) is excellent.

In Burning Girls and Other Stories, Veronica Schanoes crosses borders and genres with stories of fierce women at the margins of society burning their way toward the center. This debut collection introduces readers to a fantasist in the vein of Karen Russell and Kelly Link, with a voice all her own.

Emma Goldman—yes, that Emma Goldman—takes tea with the Baba Yaga and truths unfold inside of exquisitely crafted lies. In "Among the Thorns," a young woman in seventeenth century Germany is intent on avenging the brutal murder of her peddler father, but discovers that vengeance may consume all that it touches. In the showstopping, awards finalist title story, "Burning Girls," Schanoes invests the immigrant narrative with a fearsome fairytale quality that tells a story about America we may not want—but need—to hear.

Dreamy, dangerous, and precise, with the weight of the very oldest tales we tell, Burning Girls and Other Stories introduces a writer pushing the boundaries of both fantasy and contemporary fiction.

The Test by Sylvain Neuval is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Novella.

Britain, the not-too-distant future.
Idir is sitting the British Citizenship Test.
He wants his family to belong.

Twenty-five questions to determine their fate. Twenty-five chances to impress.
When the test takes an unexpected and tragic turn, Idir is handed the power of life and death.
How do you value a life when all you have is multiple choice?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Thanks for that. I went through my copy and corrected it.

This error is big enough that it is on the book's Wikipedia page.



I'm surprised the publisher didn't fix it.

BTW: Jack of Shadows has a great old 1970's cover.

That's the one I have is in an air-conditioned storage unit! (Not by itself, of course! )

Don't forget the dragon! (The discussion is further down on that linked page.)

DON'T FORGET THE DRAGON!

[Fbone]

The Cyberiad: Stories by Stanislaw Lem is $2.99

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CKDFE9W...v_ov_lig_dp_it

[ZodWallop]

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

From science fiction Grand Master Clifford D. Simak, an interstellar adventure of aliens, fairies, and time travel.

Until the day he was murdered, Professor Peter Maxwell was a respected faculty member of the College of Supernatural Phenomena. Imagine his chagrin when he turns up at a Wisconsin matter transmission station several weeks later and discovers he’s not only dead but unemployed.

During an interstellar mission to investigate rumors of dragon activity, this alternate Maxwell was intercepted by a strange alien race that wanted him to carry knowledge of a remarkable technology back to Earth, and it seems someone does not want the information shared. Suddenly, it’s essential for Maxwell to find his own killer.

He enlists the aid of Carol Hampton of the Time College, along with her pet saber-tooth tiger, a ghost with memory issues, and the intelligent Neanderthal Man recently rescued from a prehistoric cooking pot.

But the search is pointing them toward the goblins, fairies, and assorted Little Folk living in reservations on campus, and into the dangerous heart of an interspecies blood feud that has been raging for millions of years.

Ingeniously inventive and unabashedly tongue-in-cheek, this novel demonstrates multi-award-winning fantasy and science fiction favorite Clifford D. Simak operating at the imaginative peak of his considerable powers.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak is $2 at

The Goblin Reservation is also available through Kobo Plus though I picked it up a while back as part of The Works of Clifford D. Simak Volume Four which also includes Time Is the Simplest Thing and The Big Front Yard and Other Stories also available through Kobo Plus.

[ZodWallop]

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Illustrated Edition by Douglas Adams and Chris Riddell is $2 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US. It's a classic and I really like Douglas Adams. But I have DNFed this book several times. I appreciate the humor, but it just never feels like it is going anywhere (yes, I know the history of the book originating as a radio serial. Knowing it doesn't make the experience of reading it any better. I wouldn't read a novelization of one of Grandpa Simpson's stories either).

This beautifully illustrated edition of the New York Times bestselling classic celebrates the 42nd anniversary of the original publication—with all-new art by award-winning illustrator Chris Riddell.

It’s an ordinary Thursday morning for Arthur Dent . . . until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly after to make way for a new hyperspace express route, and Arthur’s best friend has just announced that he’s an alien.

After that, things get much, much worse.

With just a towel, a small yellow fish, and a book, Arthur has to navigate through a very hostile universe in the company of a gang of unreliable aliens. Luckily the fish is quite good at languages. And the book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . . . which helpfully has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large, friendly letters on its cover.

Douglas Adams’s mega-selling pop-culture classic sends logic into orbit, plays havoc with both time and physics, offers up pithy commentary on such things as ballpoint pens, potted plants, and digital watches . . . and, most important, reveals the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Now, if you could only figure out the question. . . .

[salty-horse]

I'll counter the lukewarmness with a recommendation. It's fine, funny, and a classic for a reason. Maybe don't go in expecting a propulsive plot, or much logic to it, but you have to admit it starts out with the biggest bang possible.