FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[nana77]

There is "The Ganymede Takeover", by Ray Nelson, Philip K. Dick (on Kobo UK); "Deus Irae", by Philip Dick (on Kobo UK); "Blade Runner" (on Kobo UK) @2,99$.
Ps: I wasn't to know, there is a Pocketbook UK (https://pocketbook.ch/en-ch/news/pocketbook-uk-launch) that has a nice store, and quite a few deals also: https://pocketbook.uk/ebook/fiction-...cience-fiction

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

When There Are Wolves Again by E. J. Swift is £3 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)
Critically acclaimed. Out today in paperback, so I think that's why it was discounted.

Also $3 in the US: Kobo, Amazon

[Cactus Chef]

Shadow & Claw (The Book of the New Sun #1) by Gene Wolfe is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe's most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly.

Shadow & Claw brings together the first two books of the tetralogy in one volume:

The Shadow of the Torturer is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession -- showing mercy toward his victim.

Ursula K. Le Guin said, "Magic stuff . . . a masterpiece . . . the best science fiction I've read in years!"

The Claw of the Conciliator continues the saga of Severian, banished from his home, as he undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic, and learn the truth about his hidden destiny.

"One of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century." -- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

[salty-horse]

The Annotated Arabian Nights (The Annotated Books) translated by Yasmine Seale is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

**“[A]n electric new translation . . . Each page is adorned with illustrations and photographs from other translations and adaptations of the tales, as well as a wonderfully detailed cascade of notes that illuminate the stories and their settings. . . . The most striking feature of the Arabic tales is their shifting registers—prose, rhymed prose, poetry—and Seale captures the movement between them beautifully.” —Yasmine Al-Sayyad, New Yorker

A magnificent and richly illustrated volume—with a groundbreaking translation framed by new commentary and hundreds of images—of the most famous story collection of all time.**

A cornerstone of world literature and a monument to the power of storytelling, the Arabian Nights has inspired countless authors, from Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe to Naguib Mahfouz, Clarice Lispector, and Angela Carter. Now, in this lavishly designed and illustrated edition of The Annotated Arabian Nights, the acclaimed literary historian Paulo Lemos Horta and the brilliant poet and translator Yasmine Seale present a splendid new selection of tales from the Nights, featuring treasured original stories as well as later additions including “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” and definitively bringing the Nights out of Victorian antiquarianism and into the twenty-first century.

For centuries, readers have been haunted by the homicidal King Shahriyar, thrilled by gripping tales of Sinbad’s seafaring adventures, and held utterly, exquisitely captive by Shahrazad’s stories of passionate romances and otherworldly escapades. Yet for too long, the English-speaking world has relied on dated translations by Richard Burton, Edward Lane, and other nineteenth-century adventurers. Seale’s distinctly contemporary and lyrical translations break decisively with this masculine dynasty, finally stripping away the deliberate exoticism of Orientalist renderings while reclaiming the vitality and delight of the stories, as she works with equal skill in both Arabic and French.

Included within are famous tales, from “The Story of Sinbad the Sailor” to “The Story of the Fisherman and the Jinni,” as well as lesser-known stories such as “The Story of Dalila the Crafty,” in which the cunning heroine takes readers into the everyday life of merchants and shopkeepers in a crowded metropolis, and “The Story of the Merchant and the Jinni,” an example of a ransom frame tale in which stories are exchanged to save a life. Grounded in the latest scholarship, The Annotated Arabian Nights also incorporates the Hanna Diyab stories, for centuries seen as French forgeries but now acknowledged, largely as a result of Horta’s pathbreaking research, as being firmly rooted in the Arabic narrative tradition. Horta not only takes us into the astonishing twists and turns of the stories’ evolution. He also offers comprehensive notes on just about everything readers need to know to appreciate the tales in context, and guides us through the origins of ghouls, jinn, and other supernatural elements that have always drawn in and delighted readers.

Beautifully illustrated throughout with art from Europe and the Arab and Persian world, the latter often ignored in English-language editions, The Annotated Arabian Nights expands the visual dimensions of the stories, revealing how the Nights have always been—and still are—in dialogue with fine artists. With a poignant autobiographical foreword from best-selling novelist Omar El Akkad and an illuminating afterword on the Middle Eastern roots of Hanna Diyab’s tales from noted scholar Robert Irwin, Horta and Seale have created a stunning edition of the Arabian Nights that will enchant and inform both devoted and novice readers alike.

[Cactus Chef]

I'm still fond of the Richard Burton translation, myself.

Seems like we should maybe have a thread for "Classics" deals.

[jbusnengo]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

Seems like we should maybe have a thread for "Classics" deals.

Please, no. I can already envision the constant arguments about whether a particular book counts as a classic.

[JSWolf]

One problem with classic deals as a thread is it's too broad. It can be any genre.

[salty-horse]

Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Literary SF. Critically acclaimed.

For fans of Station Eleven and Light from Other Stars, Ethan Chatagnier’s propulsive, genre-bending debut novel asks: what happens when we discover intelligent life just next door? And what does it really mean to know we’re not alone in the universe?

The odds of the planet next door hosting intelligent life are—that’s not luck. That’s a miracle. It means something.

In December 1960, Crystal Singer, her boyfriend Rick, and three other MIT grad students take a cross-country road trip from Boston to Arizona to paint a message in the desert. Mars has been silent for thirty years, since the last time Earth solved one of the mathematical proofs the Martian civilization carved onto its surface. The latest proof, which seems to assert contradictory truths about distance, has resisted human understanding for decades. Crystal thinks she’s solved it, and Rick is intent on putting her answer to the test—if he can keep her from cracking under the pressure on the way. But Crystal’s disappearance after the experiment will set him on a different path than he expected, forever changing the distance between them.

Filled with mystery and wonder, Ethan Chatagnier’s Singer Distance is a novel about ambition, loneliness, exploration, and love—about how far we’re willing to go to communicate with a distant civilization, and the great lengths we’ll travel to connect with each other here on Earth.

[salty-horse]

The Knife and the Serpent by Tim Pratt is $1 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

From Hugo Award winning author Tim Pratt comes a new, high-concept space opera, exploring technology, family and the price we pay to follow our destiny, perfect for fans of Peter F. Hamilton and Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Tamsin and Glenn, ordinary as anyone in the Bay Area. Tamsin is shocked when her grandmother is murdered.

But the surprises keep coming when she finds out that grandma was an oligarch in exile from an adjacent universe in the Nigh-Space continuum. Tamsin finds herself heir to vast wealth and a terrifying future, but the dimension-crossing killers out to exterminate her family are after her. Unless she gets them first… first…

Now Glenn has learned that his girlfriend Vivy is a secret agent for an interdimensional organisation devoted to protecting the inhabitants of Nigh-Space from fascists, tyrants, and hostile aliens. And she’s in trouble. Glenn never imagined he’d end up in another universe on a sarcastic spaceship trying to save his girlfriend, but there he is…

[salty-horse]

Scarlet Morning (Scarlet Morning #1) by ND Stevenson is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Illustrated, middle-grade.

From the powerhouse creator of Nimona comes a breathtaking illustrated novel, the start of a trilogy, following two orphans who leave the only home they’ve ever known to sail with an eccentric crew of pirates.
Viola and Wilmur have been waiting for their parents for fifteen boring years in the colorless town of Caveat. Their lives are a drudge of salt, trash, pirate stories, and what-ifs . . . until one very stormy night, when Captain Cadence Chase breaks down their door. They cut a deal with the captain: Chase can take their most prized possession, a mysterious Book, but only if she takes them, too. After all, if their parents aren’t coming, Viola and Wilmur might as well have a grand adventure to find them.
Setting sail into the treacherous and beautiful world beyond Caveat, the two inseparable friends must uncover the facts behind legend—and the key to saving all of Dickerson’s Sea from obliteration—before the truth tears them apart.
Wickedly funny, deeply emotional, and sharply incisive, Scarlet Morning is a tale of love, betrayal, and the extraordinary lengths we’d go to save a world broken beyond repair.

[DrNefario]

Will Wight's entire 12-book Cradle series, plus short story collection, is currently free on Amazon.

Here's a UK link to book 1 (Unsouled): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unsouled-Cr.../dp/B01H1CYBS6

Lindon is born Unsouled, the one person in his family unable to use the magical Paths of the sacred arts. He uses every trick and technique he can borrow or steal to improve his life, but it seems he will never be able to join the ranks of the truly powerful.

Until the heavens descend and show him the future.

When Lindon becomes the only one who sees the approaching doom, he must leave his homeland to save it... and to see how far he can go by walking his own Path.

The story collection is called Threshold and is not linked as part of the series.

This is a self-published martial arts/cultivation fantasy, widely regarded as one of the stars of self-publishing. I have read and enjoyed book 1.

Various books in the series have been made free many times before so check your libraries. I was only missing book 12 and the story collection. (I didn't really expect book 12 to go free, since the previous promotions were usually when the next book came out, and the series is now complete. I think the current giveaway is because of a premium edition kickstarter.)

[gbm]

Us Amazon link

I had books 1-9 so thanks, more to add to the TBR pile.

Download in epub is available.

bernie

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Will Wight's entire 12-book Cradle series, plus short story collection, is currently free on Amazon.

Here's a UK link to book 1 (Unsouled): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unsouled-Cr.../dp/B01H1CYBS6



The story collection is called Threshold and is not linked as part of the series.

This is a self-published martial arts/cultivation fantasy, widely regarded as one of the stars of self-publishing. I have read and enjoyed book 1.

Various books in the series have been made free many times before so check your libraries. I was only missing book 12 and the story collection. (I didn't really expect book 12 to go free, since the previous promotions were usually when the next book came out, and the series is now complete. I think the current giveaway is because of a premium edition kickstarter.)

[Jeanphi]

@gbm
"Download in epub is available."
Where, how ?
Do I have to go to KOBO or elsewhere ?
Thank you in advance.

[salty-horse]

You can download DRM-free books in "Manage your content and devices" page.

Has anyone here read the Cradle books to recommend them? Otherwise, that's against the self-published rule, no?

I'm only asking because Mushroom Blues is currently free (to celebrate a new story set in the same world) and I still haven't read it to recommend. But there, I mentioned it :P

[salty-horse]

Seven Surrenders (Terra Ignota #2) by Ada Palmer is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

*2018 LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL CATEGORY*

From 2017 John W. Campbell Award winner, Ada Palmer, the second book of Terra Ignota, a political SF epic of extraordinary audacity

“A cornucopia of dazzling, sharp ideas set in rich, wry prose that rewards rumination with layers of delight. Provocative, erudite, inventive, resplendent.” —Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings

In a future of near-instantaneous global travel, of abundant provision for the needs of all, a future in which no one living can remember an actual war…a long era of stability threatens to come to an abrupt end.

For known only to a few, the leaders of the great Hives, nations without fixed locations, have long conspired to keep the world stable, at the cost of just a little blood. A few secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction can ever dominate, and the balance holds. And yet the balance is beginning to give way.

Mycroft Canner, convict, sentenced to wander the globe in service to all, knows more about this conspiracy the than he can ever admit. Carlyle Foster, counselor, sensayer, has secrets as well, and they burden Carlyle beyond description. And both Mycroft and Carlyle are privy to the greatest secret of all: Bridger, the child who can bring inanimate objects to life.

Shot through with astonishing invention, Ada Palmer's Seven Surrenders is the next movement in one of the great SF epics of our time.