FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by andyh2000

Currently £0.76 at amazon.co.uk ($1). Sounds interesting.

Community reviews aren't great.

[salty-horse]

I posted about Esperance before, but I got a notification for both today, and they both feature a mosquito on the cover (or used to, in the case of Esperance).

Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Translated by Rahul Bery. An expansion of this short story.

For fans of David Cronenberg's films and lovers of Kafka, this gaucho-punk, sci-fi novel set in 2197 offers an explosive interpretation of an ultra-capitalistic society on the brink of climate collapse.**

The protagonist of this story has no understanding of the words “winter”, "cold”, or "snow" because he has never experienced the phenomena they describe. We find ourselves in Victorica, a province of La Pampa, Argentina, some time after 2197 – the year in which the last of the Antarctic icecaps melted and an unprecedented climate catastrophe ensued, radically transforming the landscape of the region into a Caribbean Pampas. It is here that the Dengue Child grows up, a mutant mix of child and mosquito, the result of crazy experimenting driven by ultra-capitalistic corporations racing against each other to own viruses and their cures, destroying even their very own children’s existence to cash in on the stock exchange.

Another of the surprising effects of the thaw is the appearance of powerful telepathic pebbles from the bowels of the earth that seem to encapsulate the world's original wisdom, and which are the subject of lucrative smuggling. Meanwhile, the wealthy of the region chose to cruise around on ships where they can experience ice-skating and hand carve ice from valuable remains of glaciers. In their ultra-air conditioned homes, their kids play Indians vs Christians, a brutal video game set in the historical 19th century.

The future according to Michel Nieva looks frenetic and shocking. His is one of the most exciting literary voices emerging from Argentina, packing punches in a deeply intelligent, informed, and humorful prose which takes root in Latin American storytelling and sci-fi tradition.

Esperance by Adam Oyebanji is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

A whip-smart thriller in the vein of Blake Crouch, Andy Weir, and Neal Stephenson, Esperance plumbs the depths of a seemingly impossible crime rooted in racism, intergenerational trauma, and an inhuman concept of justice**

Detective Ethan Krol is on the twentieth floor of a Chicago apartment building. A father and son have been found dead, their lungs full of sea water—hundreds of miles away from the ocean.

Abidemi Eniola has arrived in Bristol, England. She claims to be Nigerian, but her accent is wrong and she can do remarkable things with technology, things that her new friend, Hollie Rogers, has never seen before. Abi is in possession of a number of heirlooms that need to be returned to their rightful owners, and Hollie is more than happy to go along for the ride.

But neither Abidemi Eniola nor her heirlooms are quite what they seem. Abi is a target of Ethan Krol’s investigations, and Hollie’s life is about to become far stranger than she bargained for. In a clash of cultures, histories, and different ideas about justice, the consequences will be deadly…

[salty-horse]

One Way Witch (SHE WHO KNOWS #2) by Nnedi Okorafor is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

[Dr. Drib]

Kobo.uk

....has The Practical Magic Series, by Alice Hoffman, on sale for £0.99 for each one of the four volumes.

[salty-horse]

Hiero's Journey (Hiero #1) by Sterling E. Lanier is $1 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

The world ended. People survived.

Per Hiero Desteen was a priest, a telepath-and a highly trained killer.

Five thousand years after the apocalyptic event known only as The Death, Hiero is tasked with finding the secrets of the old world, which could protect his civilisation from massing enemies.

The planet is not the same as it used to be. Mutations have changed the way humans and animals live together, the holocaust known as The Death. The Brotherhood of the Unclean wants to wipe out all traces of surviving human society, allowing anarchy to rule the wasteland that once was North America.

Hiero's journey takes him into the heart of the Brotherhood's territory. The danger is great if he is caught . . . but even the smallest chance that humanity could be saved is worth the risk.

[salty-horse]

Loss Protocol by Paul McAuley is £1 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)
One of the major releases this year.

'Which one feels realer, truer. The world we lived in most of our lives, or the world we dreamed up?'

Eight years after the catastrophic downfall of the cult his sister Izzy had joined, Marc Winters has at last found a refuge from unwanted attention. The wildlife ranger of a small, unremarkable island, he's quietly helping to preserve what survives of nature in a world wracked by climate change and chaotic weather, and trying his best to put his past behind him.

But then his narrowboat is burgled, the counterterrorism police come calling, and everything he thought he knew about the cult and his sister's fate is turned upside down. A cabal of so-called deep dreamers has revived the cult's crazy belief that the world could be healed by collective dreams fuelled by psychotropic mushrooms. They appear to think that Winters possesses information crucial to their success, and when he tries to discover more about them, he becomes inextricably entangled in plans that challenge his very existence.

Blending noir-inflected conspiracies and double-crosses, fantasies of dream science, and elegiac evocations of a depleted world, Loss Protocol's chimerical story keeps its secrets until the last page.

[Joykins]

Romantasy _Enchanting the Fae Queen_ by Stephanie Burgis is on sale for $2.99 in North America.

Publisher link with links to all the online stores.

Queen Lorelei is a notorious fae seductress, with a trail of broken hearts in her wake. But behind her glamorous lifestyle and sparkling mask lurks a dangerously intelligent woman who’d do anything to keep her people safe, including kidnap the empire’s most famous hero.

The virtuous high general Gerard de Moireul represents all that is moral and true. He has to, after his parents were executed for treason. The last thing he needs is the Queen of Balravia, who showers glitter and rainbow-colored sparkles everywhere she goes without the slightest regard for good taste, decorum, or royal dignity.

They’re opposites in every way, but when they're swept up together in a grand--and deadly--fae tournament, they discover all of each other’s most hidden truths--and how perfectly they might be suited for each other after all.

[salty-horse]

The Memory of the Ogisi (The Forever Desert #3) by Moses Ose Utomi is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

The epic conclusion to Moses Ose Utomi's critically-acclaimed Forever Desert series, The Memory of the Ogisi shatters every truth, interrogates every lie, and is a story of oppression you'll never forget.

[salty-horse]

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

A cozy fantasy novel in which a loveable cast of characters trapped within their roles of dragon hunter, princess, and more must come together to take their fates into their own hands.

Dragons are common in the backwater kingdom of Bellemontagne, coming in sizes from mouselike vermin all the way up to castle-smashing monsters. Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax (who would much rather people call him Robert) has recently inherited his deceased dad’s dead job as a dragon catcher/exterminator, a career he detests with all his heart in part because he likes dragons, feeling a kinship with them, but mainly because his dream has always been the impossible one of transcending his humble origin to someday become a prince’s valet. Needless to say, fate has something rather different in mind…

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Loss Protocol by Paul McAuley is £1 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)

Also $1 in the US: Kobo, Amazon

[salty-horse]

Will Do Magic for Small Change by Andrea Hairston is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

Andrea Hairston's historical fantasy Will Do Magic for Small Change presents a tale of alien science and earthbound magic and the secrets families keep from each other.
Cinnamon Jones dreams of stepping on stage and acting her heart out like her famous grandparents, Redwood and Wildfire. But she's always been theatrically challenged. That won't necessarily stop her! But her family life is a tangle of mysteries and secrets, and nobody is telling her the whole truth.
Before her brother died, he gave Cinnamon The Chronicles of the Great Wanderer—a tale of a Dahomean warrior woman and an alien from another dimension who perform at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. They are a story of magic or alien science, but the connection to Cinnamon's past is unmistakable.
When an act of violence wounds her family, Cinnamon and her theatre squad determine to solve the mysteries and bring her worlds crashing together.

[Yapyap]

There’s a John Scalzi Humble Bundle available, it seems - from what I can tell, not even wildly georestricted (since it shows as available for me, for €17.12 for the bundle): https://www.humblebundle.com/books/j...or-books-books

I’ve only read Redshirts and I have Old Man’s War that I’ve not got around to, so I’m considering it .. but I already have so many other books waiting for their turn.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

There’s a John Scalzi Humble Bundle available, it seems - from what I can tell, not even wildly georestricted (since it shows as available for me, for €17.12 for the bundle): https://www.humblebundle.com/books/j...or-books-books

From John's bsky this afternoon:
"(Addendum: Available in the US, don't know about the rest of the world, there may be rights issues, etc. Entirely unrelated: VPNs are neat.

Also, World Central Kitchen is my selected charity, but 100% of my own cut is going to
@scalzifamily.foundation, which funds various local and artistic stuff.)"

[JSWolf]

John Scalzi and Tor made DRM removal legal. When Tor switched to going DRM Free, I think the first book they did so with was one of John's eBooks. Some stores had trouble with it and the DRM was not removed. So John posted directions on how to remove the DRM with Tor's blessing.

I think it may have been Redshirts.

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

John Scalzi and Tor made DRM removal legal.

Just because an author is giving instructions on how to circumvent DRM doesn't make it "legal".