FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[salty-horse]

Coldwire (The StrangeLoom Trilogy #1) by Chloe Gong is £1 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)
Young adult

Are you jealous, Ward? Exceedingly. Your attention belongs to me.The future is loading . . .

For decades, the world has been caught in a cold war between two powerful nations: Medaluo and Atahua. The Medan orphans who live in Atahua suffer the cost. Their enrolment at Nile Military Academy is mandatory. Either serve as a soldier, or risk being labelled a spy.

Eighteen-year-old Eirale is one such orphan. Having recently graduated and joined NileCorp's forces, she's doing well for herself - until Atahua's most wanted anarchist frames her for assassinating a government official and she's given a choice: cooperate with him to search for a dangerous program in Medaluo or go down for treason.

Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Lia is close to her own graduation when she's paired with her academic nemesis for one final assignment. But when they are ordered to infiltrate Medaluo in virtual reality, Lia quickly realises there is much more at stake than her school ranking.

As Eirale and Lia tear through Medaluo on separate courses, the two start to suspect they are pieces in a larger conspiracy - and the closer they get to the truth, the closer their worlds come to a shattering collision.

From #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Chloe Gong comes the start of a daring new dystopian series following two young soldiers who must depend on unlikely allies in their fight for survival.

[Cactus Chef]

The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

A debut novel of remarkable beauty and invention, The Fortunate Fall is back in print for the first time in almost three decades as a Tor Essential, with a new introduction by Jo Walton

Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure.

On its first publication in 1996, The Fortunate Fall was hailed as an SF novel of a wired future on par with the debuts of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. Now it returns to print, as one of the great underground classics of the last several decades in SF.
Maya Andreyeva is a "camera," a reporter with virtual-reality-broadcasting equipment implanted in her brain. What she sees, millions see; what she feels, millions share.
And what Maya is seeing is the cover-up of a massacre. As she probes into the covert political power plays of a radically strange near-future Russia, she comes upon secrets that have been hidden from the world...and memories that AI-controlled thought police have forced her to hide from herself. Because in a world where no thought or desire is safe, the price of survival is betrayal - of your lover, your ideals, and yourself.
This new Tor Essentials edition of The Fortunate Fall includes a new introduction by Jo Walton, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards.

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

[salty-horse]

Angel Mage by Garth Nix is $1 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Young adult

A new epic fantasy masterpiece from Garth Nix, bestselling author of the Old Kingdom series.

More than a century has passed since Liliath crept into the empty sarcophagus of Saint Marguerite, fleeing the Fall of Ystara. But she emerges from her magical sleep still beautiful, looking no more than nineteen, and once again renews her single-minded quest to be united with her lover, Palleniel, the archangel of Ystara.

It’s a seemingly impossible quest, but Liliath is one of the greatest practitioners of angelic magic to have ever lived, summoning angels and forcing them to do her bidding. Four young people hold her interest: Simeon, a studious doctor-in-training; Henri, a dedicated fortune hunter; Agnez, a glory-seeking musketeer; and Dorotea, icon-maker and scholar of angelic magic.

The four feel a strange kinship from the moment they meet, the beginnings of a found family, but do not suspect their importance. And none of them know just how this morally grey heroine plans to use them, as mere pawns in her plan, no matter the cost to everyone else . . .

Fans of Cassandra Clare, Holly Black, and Leigh Bardugo will fall in love with Angel Mage, a feminist fantasy of magic and monsters that takes place in an alternate European world ruled by fearsome magic and deadly passions.

[pdurrant]

The first three of Robert Asprin's humorous MilSF "Phule's Company" series are £0.99 at Kobo today.

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/series/phule-s-company-1

[salty-horse]

The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones is $1 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

If he finds the right world, Jamie can get Home again.

When Jamie stumbled upon the powerful Them playing Their mysterious games, They threw him out to the Boundaries of the worlds. Since then, he's been yanked from world to world, doomed to wonder in hope of one day finding his way back to his own city.

Bit by bit, though, Jamie realizes there are rules They have to play by. He forms an alliance with two other lost Homeward Bounders—bitter, powerful Helen and demon-hunter Joris—and takes a desperate chance, hoping that the three wanders can find a way back to their home worlds at last.

Once he becomes a pawn in a game played by a powerful group he calls Them, 12-year-old Jamie is repeatedly catapulted through space and time.

[WillAdams]

Steven Brust's Dumas homage, _The Baron of Magister Valley_ (essentially _The Count of Monte Cristo with the names changed and serial numbers filed off) is $2.99 on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Baron-Magiste...dp/B07LF623JS/

One of his "Paarfi Romances", it is set in the same world as his Dragaera/Taltos books (which series is drawing to a close).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The first three of Robert Asprin's humorous MilSF "Phule's Company" series are £0.99 at Kobo today.

https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/series/phule-s-company-1

Excellent books for anyone who has not read them.

If you do not live in the UK, you can get these books by using Kobo travel service.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

Steven Brust's Dumas homage, _The Baron of Magister Valley_ (essentially _The Count of Monte Cristo with the names changed and serial numbers filed off) is $2.99 on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Baron-Magiste...dp/B07LF623JS/

One of his "Paarfi Romances", it is set in the same world as his Dragaera/Taltos books (which series is drawing to a close).

I remember the series as The Khaavren Romances. I thought they were well done.
Apache

[ZodWallop]

Magic Time by Marc Scott Zicree and Barbara Hambly is $2 at Amazon and Kobo. I'm mainly familiar with Zicree from his Twilight Zone Companion. Amazon, Kobo

A top-secret government experiment goes wrong, nullifying technology and unleashing magic across the world in this post-apocalyptic fantasy series debut.

"Taut writing, interesting characters, fascinating situations. Magic Time takes up where The Stand leaves off." —Harry Turtledove

Reality is not what it was. Welcome to Magic Time.

For rising young lawyer Cal Griffin, it's just another day in the Big City—until the lights go off . . . for good.

Suddenly packs of pale crouched figures are stalking the darkened subways, monsters prowl Times Square, and the people all around Cal are . . . changing. Similar weirdness is happening everywhere, from the dank, cold heart of a West Virginia coal mine to a remote lab in South Dakota—where a team of government scientists has unwittingly invited something catastrophic into the world—to the highest levels of power in Washington, D.C.

And Cal Griffin is not the only one struggling to comprehend the surreal, devouring chaos surrounding him—nor the only one who will be forced to accept a new role in this brave new world of nightmare and wonder. For the forces bled from the stilled machines are fueling a consciousness both newly born and ancient—and more than one unlikely hero will be needed for the titanic battle between the darkness and the light.

"A good story written by an excellent team. . . . If you like Terry Brooks' Running With The Demon, you'll like this too. . . . I want to know what happens next." —SFRevu.com

Books 2 and 3 are $3 a piece. Each book is written by Zicree and a different collaborator. Strange.

[bookmarked]

Cast in Blood (the latest in the Chronicles of Elantra series) by Michelle Sagara is on sale for $2.99 at Amazon and Kobo today.

[JSWolf]

When did $1.99 and $2.99 become $2.00 and $3.00?

[Martinoptic]

Rounding up?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When did $1.99 and $2.99 become $2.00 and $3.00?

You have been warned about this several times already. Drop it.

[salty-horse]

Devil of the Deep by Falencia Jean-Francois is $1 on Amazon.com (only, I suspect. I think the Amazon label of "Typical Price" replaces "Digital list price", which Kobo uses to reject price-matching)

Lu watched the love of his life walk the plank and sink into the inky-black depths of the sea. Nnenna was dead . . . or so he thought.

Five years later, Lieutenant “Lu” Ortega, dutiful fleet officer, embarks on a mission to hunt down a powerful talisman now in the hands of a runaway mermaid. On his quest, he discovers the impossible: Nnenna is still alive. Fierce and cunning, and as breathtaking as ever, Nnenna ’s won enough bloody sword fights as a pirate captain to earn the nickname “Devil of the Deep.” She has come to reject the system of order that Lu clings to, and worse, she’s protecting the very quarry he's tracking: Pearl Highwater, who has defied the all-powerful sea god and might hold a valuable key to finding her people’s lost island.

When the tides and fates bring them together, Nnenna, Lu, and Pearl must choose their loyalties, find their courage, and race to protect the island from false gods and forces of evil—or risk unleashing an ancient curse that could destroy them all.

[ottdmk]

A Matter of Magic, a collection of Patricia C. Wrede's Regency fantasies Mairelon the Magician and The Magician's Ward, is on sale at Kobo Canada for $1.99 CDN ($1.79 CDN if you're a Kobo VIP member.)

I'm a big fan of Wrede's, and I've re-read those two books more than once. Great value for money here.