FREE/BARGAIN - Science Fiction, Fantasy - 2016

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Clicking on "More books coming soon" is says:

More generally, they always release the bonus stuff a week after the bundle comes out, whether they're book or game bundles. So as long as it says there's more coming, it'll be a week from the bundle launch.

I'm probably not going to get this one, especially with the reports of poor formatting.

[bgalbrecht]

If you're into shorter science fiction, Lightspeed's People of Colour Destroy Science Fiction (and fantasy and horror) kickstarter campaign ends in 7 hours. It's about $600 from its final stretch goal, and some of the backer options include a year's subscription to either Lightspeed or Nightmare magazine plus all the back issues.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

If you're into shorter science fiction, Lightspeed's People of Colour Destroy Science Fiction (and fantasy and horror) kickstarter campaign ends in 7 hours. It's about $600 from its final stretch goal, and some of the backer options include a year's subscription to either Lightspeed or Nightmare magazine plus all the back issues.

All the yearly sub levels include the back issues, so the $24 level for a year of Nightmare and $36 for a year of Lightspeed. If you have all the Lightspeed back issues they'll give you all the back issues of Fantasy instead. And if you have both of those, they'll give you the back issues of Nightmare. (Someone asked this in the comments and the reply said they could do that.)

If you've never backed one of the Destroy Kickstarters before, you can get 73 back issues of Lightspeed + another 12 issues + POC Destroy Fantasy + POC Destroy Horror + the JJA POC Sampler. If they hit $50k before the Kickstarter ends, the JJA POC Sampler will be boosted to a full anthology volume. (Right now they're less than $500 from reaching that goal.)

It's a very good deal for first-time backers, and even for second-time backers (since they get 59 back issues of Fantasy). Not quite as good a deal for third-time backers, but I backed at the $36 level to keep supporting them. Was planning to get another year of Lightspeed anyway.

BTW, they have announced what the Destroy Kickstarter will be next year: People with Disabilities Destroy Science Fiction. Also, they're handing it off to Uncanny Magazine, so hopefully there'll be back-issue boosters of the new magazine next year. (Although it looks like that'll be just 20 issues max a year from now.)

[bgalbrecht]

I bought the Humble bundle despite the bad formatting and lack of TOCs because I am a fan of Bester and Zelazny, they are DRM-free, and I'll be able to get rid of some print books now. I've only looked at the epubs on a PC from Calibre, I don't know if I'll have different opinions when reading them on my Nook Simple Touch. Here are very quick notes on the contents:

Venus Prime 1: No cover, has TOC, looks well formatted.
The Stars My Destination: No TOC, the "ASCII art" towards the end of the book was only so-so rendered.
The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth: No cover, has TOC, some fonts look too light.
Dragonworld: has cover, TOC, some of the illustrations are only so-so.
The Deceivers: has cover, TOC, the afterward is missing from the TOC.
Zelazny's Chaos and Amber: Missing TOC.
Wild Cards: Death Draws Five: Missing TOC, chapter breaks. Has a list of chapters at the very end which might help if one wants to fix the formatting in Sigil or something.
The Demolished Man: Has TOC, looks OK, but HUGE chapter titles.
Zelazny's To Rule in Amber: Missing TOS, otherwise OK, I think.
Damnation Alley: Has TOC with a single chapter. Has some sort of sigil that may be chapter breaks, I'll have to check my print copy to see what's up.
Wild Cards: Deuces Down: Missing TOC, either no splits or weird splits between stories, some messed up lyrics (with page splits).
Robot Dreams: has TOC, cover, looks OK.
The Computer Connection: has TOC, cover, looks OK, link to chapter goes to blank page.
Robot Visions: has TOC, cover, interior illustrations that look good.
Roger Zelazny's Shadows of Amber: Has TOC, cover.
The Last Defender of Camelot: Has TOC, cover.
Eye of Cat is actually both Isle of the Dead and Eye of Cat (as I sort of expected): No cover, TOC just links to start of each book.
Zelazny's The Dawn of Amber: I already had this one, it had no TOC, so I'm guessing the bundled version didn't either.

I don't consider missing covers a show stopper, but I'd guess that I'd want to spend at least 10-15 minutes fixing some of these epubs. A lot of print books don't bother with TOCs either, especially when the chapters are just numbered.

[GeoffR]

Thanks for the info on the formatting issues. For the problems such as missing scene breaks in the ePub, are they also missing in the PDF version? or is it just a case of a bad conversion from PDF to ePub?

I think I will get the bundle anyway and just spend a bit of time fixing the books up, but it would be useful if the PDF versions could be used as a reference when fixing the ePubs.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Thanks for the info on the formatting issues. For the problems such as missing scene breaks in the ePub, are they also missing in the PDF version? or is it just a case of a bad conversion from PDF to ePub?

I think I will get the bundle anyway and just spend a bit of time fixing the books up, but it would be useful if the PDF versions could be used as a reference when fixing the ePubs.

I looked at a couple, The Stars My Destination's PDF has all of the proper hallucinogenic imagery towards the end of the novel, but the Deuces Down PDF basically looks as bad as the ePub. Since Deuces Down has no illustrations, it's missing the original illustrations referenced in the copyright. I couldn't find my print copy of Damnation Alley, so I'm guessing it might not have named or numbered chapters. With novels, the TOC might not have been there originally, but usually with something like Deuces Down which is several stories by different authors, there's a TOC.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

I bought the Humble bundle despite the bad formatting and lack of TOCs because I am a fan of Bester and Zelazny, they are DRM-free, and I'll be able to get rid of some print books now. I've only looked at the epubs on a PC from Calibre, I don't know if I'll have different opinions when reading them on my Nook Simple Touch. Here are very quick notes on the contents:

Venus Prime 1: No cover, has TOC, looks well formatted.
The Stars My Destination: No TOC, the "ASCII art" towards the end of the book was only so-so rendered.
The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth: No cover, has TOC, some fonts look too light.
Dragonworld: has cover, TOC, some of the illustrations are only so-so.
The Deceivers: has cover, TOC, the afterward is missing from the TOC.
Zelazny's Chaos and Amber: Missing TOC.
Wild Cards: Death Draws Five: Missing TOC, chapter breaks. Has a list of chapters at the very end which might help if one wants to fix the formatting in Sigil or something.
The Demolished Man: Has TOC, looks OK, but HUGE chapter titles.
Zelazny's To Rule in Amber: Missing TOS, otherwise OK, I think.
Damnation Alley: Has TOC with a single chapter. Has some sort of sigil that may be chapter breaks, I'll have to check my print copy to see what's up.
Wild Cards: Deuces Down: Missing TOC, either no splits or weird splits between stories, some messed up lyrics (with page splits).
Robot Dreams: has TOC, cover, looks OK.
The Computer Connection: has TOC, cover, looks OK, link to chapter goes to blank page.
Robot Visions: has TOC, cover, interior illustrations that look good.
Roger Zelazny's Shadows of Amber: Has TOC, cover.
The Last Defender of Camelot: Has TOC, cover.
Eye of Cat is actually both Isle of the Dead and Eye of Cat (as I sort of expected): No cover, TOC just links to start of each book.
Zelazny's The Dawn of Amber: I already had this one, it had no TOC, so I'm guessing the bundled version didn't either.

I don't consider missing covers a show stopper, but I'd guess that I'd want to spend at least 10-15 minutes fixing some of these epubs. A lot of print books don't bother with TOCs either, especially when the chapters are just numbered.

Thank you for the detailed information on this.

It's clear that they need to get their ass in gear on these ebooks, before offering them to the public.

Perhaps they could hire you to fix them (next time?) and give them to you FREE for your services.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Thank you for the detailed information on this.

It's clear that they need to get their ass in gear on these ebooks, before offering them to the public.

Perhaps they could hire you to fix them (next time?) and give them to you FREE for your services.

Ha-ha! In the case of Deuces Down, I think it was originally created back in 2002, for a format that probably didn't support images or TOCs, and was converted with Calibre and lightly tweaked with Sigil. Although, if it had been converted from PDF, I wonder what happened to the original illustrations since they're missing from the PDF too.

Anyway, I wasn't complaining, I was just responding to the discussion about the formatting of the ebooks, since some people were on the fence because of the hit-or-miss formatting.

[sinoue]

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut is $1.99 on Amazon

[vsalvaggio]

Rides a Dread Legion by Raymond E. Feist is $0.99 on Amazon.

[specficwriter]

The Sharing Knife by Bujold

Amazon US and others

http://www.amazon.com/Beguilement-Sh...dp/B000QCQ9RU/

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by specficwriter

The Sharing Knife by Bujold

Amazon US and others

http://www.amazon.com/Beguilement-Sh...dp/B000QCQ9RU/

$0.99 in US since Feb 15 as noted

The Curse of Chalion was $1.99 in US 5 hours ago

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC11AQ/

[ATDrake]

X-link to the DRM-free megathread for this Tuesday's Wildside Press freebie:

If You Was A Moklin by the late Murray Leinster, a vintage science fiction short originally published in Galaxy Magazine. This is supposed to have some sort of embedded audio version of a radio play adaptation in the ePub and PDF as well.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

X-link to the DRM-free megathread for this Tuesday's Wildside Press freebie:

If You Was A Moklin by the late Murray Leinster, a vintage science fiction short originally published in Galaxy Magazine. This is supposed to have some sort of embedded audio version of a radio play adaptation in the ePub and PDF as well.

That's different. Here's what the page with the audio says from the PDF:

If your ebook player supports it, you may be able to click the
button below to play the original X Minus One radio version, which
aired on NBC on June 12, 1956. We have verified it as working with
epub 3.0 players and .Acrobat players with Flash support.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Manabi

That's different. Here's what the page with the audio says from the PDF:

If your ebook player supports it, you may be able to click the
button below to play the original X Minus One radio version, which
aired on NBC on June 12, 1956. We have verified it as working with
epub 3.0 players and .Acrobat players with Flash support.

the X-Minus One episode #55 is available at the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/OTRR_X_Minus_One_Singles