FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Now £1 on Kobo!

I got my price-match in before it changed. And they've done the price-match. £0.89 for me!

[Kieran Seymour]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Now £1 on Kobo!

I've just spent an hour quietly fuming about Amazon and now you've gone and taken the wind right out of my sails. Rude!



The Navigator's Children, the final novel in Tad Williams' Last King of Osten Ard series, is also down to 99p. Amazon only at the moment, but it's a monthly deal so possibly also to be reduced at Kobo later on when they've put an extra hamster on the wheel.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Kieran Seymour

I've just spent an hour quietly fuming about Amazon and now you've gone and taken the wind right out of my sails. Rude!



The Navigator's Children, the final novel in Tad Williams' Last King of Osten Ard series, is also down to 99p. Amazon only at the moment, but it's a monthly deal so possibly also to be reduced at Kobo later on when they've put an extra hamster on the wheel.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Twenty Trillion Leagues... has significant illustrations, so I wonder if there is actually a technical difference between the kindle and epub versions?

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Not sure what you mean. It's the same book, and it's basic illustrations - it's not a "fixed layout" or anything like comics where the text is inside the illustrations.

amazon reduces image quality and size relative to what is delivered by EPUB from other ebook retailers. For azw3 (and maybe KFX?) delivered to e-ink devices they change color to grayscale. They also sometimes convert PNG and GIF to JPEG even when that actually increases size while reducing quality.

The azw3 delivered via D&T had the same image degradations except that color images were still color when delivered.

So, not the same book.

[Quoth]

KFX is mono unless a colour device and tailored to the device.

The azw3 is now only on the K3 to PW1, all newer devices get KFX.
The old mobi (KF7) is only needed by K1, K2 and DX family. Mostly they can't get delivery now, though the International versions of DX (DXi and DXG) may still get delivery via EDGE version of 2G-GSM.
The azw3 & old mobi have colour images/covers if that's the source.

Amazon always ditched fonts if "too many" and resampled images if "too big" on all formats.

Also the source is often epub and only the azw3 is close or identical. The old mobi is terribly degraded (HTML3, no CSS & limited fonts) and KFX conversion is Amazon's concept of a conversion, so while full featured, it's less like the source than azw3.

I've switched to using a K3 (gen 3 / Keyboard) which got azw3/KF8 added in a FW update in 2017 instead of the PW3 (gen7?) which now gets the less good for conversion KFX.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

amazon reduces image quality and size relative to what is delivered by EPUB from other ebook retailers. For azw3 (and maybe KFX?) delivered to e-ink devices they change color to grayscale. They also sometimes convert PNG and GIF to JPEG even when that actually increases size while reducing quality.

The azw3 delivered via D&T had the same image degradations except that color images were still color when delivered.

So, not the same book.

Price matching would be for the same edition from the same publisher regardless of Amazon's possible shenanigans with image quality or greyscale transformation.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The azw3 is now only on the K3 to PW1, all newer devices get KFX.

Amazon always ditched fonts if "too many" and resampled images if "too big" on all formats.

I have a PW3 and Voyage that each get azw3. Not everyone updates to the latest firmware.

Even images that are small enough that they don't get resized get more heavily compressed unless they were already heavily compressed.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive #5) by Brandon Sanderson is £1 in the UK (Amazon, Kobo still full price)
The final book in the first Stormlight Archive arc. New release.

For those in the UK, it's om ePub at £0.99 from Google Play Books (in ePub).

https://play.google.com/store/books/...AQBAJ&hl=en_GB

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Just be careful about buying this at Amazon. It's graphic heavy and Amazon lives to play games with the graphics. So you could get B&W if there is any color and you could get lower resolution. So buy from Kobo and try to price match.

As mentioned previously, Kobo UK has already lowered their price so no need to price match now.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Kobo price match is rejected because this is a Kindle-only sale.

Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is also $0.75 at Google Play Books (in ePub) in the US

https://play.google.com/store/books/...AQBAJ&hl=en_US

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is also $0.75 at Google Play Books (in ePub) in the US

https://play.google.com/store/books/...AQBAJ&hl=en_US

Thanks Jon!

I'm not sure this will entirely be my cuppa and the reviews are pretty mixed, but hey, illustrated AND only 75 cents? I'm there.

Would you believe the Jules Verne classic adventure under the sea is the first book I read after getting my Nook in 2010? No clue why, just that I always loved it as a kid and was hankering for a re-read.

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by Kieran Seymour

The Navigator's Children, the final novel in Tad Williams' Last King of Osten Ard series, is also down to 99p. Amazon only at the moment, but it's a monthly deal so possibly also to be reduced at Kobo later on when they've put an extra hamster on the wheel.

Now on Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the...tor-s-children

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is also $0.75 at Google Play Books (in ePub) in the US

https://play.google.com/store/books/...AQBAJ&hl=en_US

I'll mention this to customer support, but I wonder if Kobo will get the new price soon.
The problem with Google's book store is they completely block it off for anyone outside the US, so you can't even check the price.

[Aleron Ives]

Hmm... the Osten Ard sale is still UK exclusive. I wonder if it's worth travelling for it. I got the other three books from a Humble Bundle sale. Can anybody confirm whether the US and UK editions differ, e.g. when it comes to spelling or punctuation?

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by graycyn

Thanks Jon!

I'm not sure this will entirely be my cuppa and the reviews are pretty mixed, but hey, illustrated AND only 75 cents? I'm there.

Would you believe the Jules Verne classic adventure under the sea is the first book I read after getting my Nook in 2010? No clue why, just that I always loved it as a kid and was hankering for a re-read.

I enjoyed it - I have it in actual old-fashioned paper - but Roberts is an author who is sometimes more clever than fun. Always worth a read, though, in my opinion.