FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[ZodWallop]

Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling is $1.99 at Amazon US.

From one of the godfathers of cyberpunk, this is the Nebula Award–nominated novel about “a brave new world of nearly constant future shock”—plus all the short fiction set in Schismatrix’s Shaper/Mechanist universe.

Many thousands of years in the future, the human race has split into two incompatible factions. The aristocratic Mechanists believe that humans can only achieve their greatest potential through technology and enhancing their bodies with powerful prosthetics. The rebel Shapers view these “improvements” as abominations, and their faith in genetic enhancements over mechanical ones has led to violent, even murderous, clashes between the two sects.

One man is caught in the middle. The child of Mechanists, Abelard Lindsay is a former Shaper diplomat who was betrayed and cast out of the fold. Scrupulously trained in the fine art of treachery and deceit, he travels freely between the warring camps during his never-ending exile, embracing piracy and revolution all along the way. But while saving his own skin is Lindsay’s main motivation, a greater destiny awaits him, one that could offer a bold new hope for a tragically sundered humankind.

A breathtaking flight of unparalleled imagination, Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix Plus also includes every subsequent excursion into the Mechanist and Shaper universe, complementing his acclaimed novel with the complete collection of mind-boggling Schismatrix short fiction.

[snarkophilus]

The Serpentwar Saga collection (all four books) by Raymond E. Feist is on sale in Oz for $5.99

Amazon AU
Google Play Books

[salty-horse]

Rebellion Publishing are having a sale for the new titles from earlier this year, with a discount price of $3.99 (from $6.99).

Here's their store with DRM-free titles, but it's price-matched at Amazon and maybe other retailers, if you're so inclined.

The titles are:

Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed
Liquid Crystal Nightingale by EeLeen Lee
Made to Order, edited by Jonathan Strahan
Sexton Blake and the Great War (The Sexton Blake Library 1) by Mark Hodder
The Human Son by Adrian J Walker
The Outcast Hours, edited by Mahvesh Murad & Jared Shurin
Weave the Lightning (The Bourshkanya Trilogy 1) by Corry L. Lee

Of the titles, I've been interested in The Outcast Hours, an anthology of night-time stories (previously on sale); Made to Order, an anthology of robot revolution stories; and Beneath the Rising, a blend of science fiction and cosmic horror.

[ottdmk]

Kobo is having an e-book bundle sale. Lots of the usual self-published suspects, but there are three that folks should definitely take a look at:

Guy Gavriel Kay: Three Novels

Raymond E. Feist: The Darkwar Saga

Robert J. Sawyer: The WWW Trilogy

[salty-horse]

A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker is $4.99 on Amazon.com

I don't know if this is a sale, or the book moving to a lower price tier.

After a global pandemic makes public gatherings illegal and concerts impossible, except for those willing to break the law for the love of music—and for one chance at human connection.

In the Before, when the government didn't prohibit large public gatherings, Luce Cannon was on top of the world. One of her songs had just taken off and she was on her way to becoming a star. Now, in the After, terror attacks and deadly viruses have led the government to ban concerts, and Luce's connection to the world--her music, her purpose—is closed off forever. She does what she has to do: she performs in illegal concerts to a small but passionate community, always evading the law.

Rosemary Laws barely remembers the Before times. She spends her days in Hoodspace, helping customers order all of their goods online for drone delivery—no physical contact with humans needed. By lucky chance, she finds a new job and a new calling: discover amazing musicians and bring their concerts to everyone via virtual reality. The only catch is that she'll have to do something she's never done before and go out in public. Find the illegal concerts and bring musicians into the limelight they deserve. But when she sees how the world could actually be, that won’t be enough.

River of Gods by Ian McDonald is $3.99 on Amazon.com

A superpower of two billion people, a dozen new nations from Kerela to the Himalayas, artificial intelligences, climate-change induced drought, water wars, strange new genders, genetically improved children that age at half the rate of baseline humanity, and a population where males outnumber females four to one.

This is India in 2047, one hundred years after its birth.

In the new nation of Bharat, in the face of the failure of the monsoon, nine lives are swept together — a gangster, a cop, his wife, a politician, a stand-up comic, a set designer, a journalist, a scientist, and a dropout — to decide the future of Mother India.

River of Gods teems with the life of a country choked with peoples and cultures — one and a half billion people, twelve semi-independent nations, nine million gods. A war is fought, a love is betrayed, a mystery from a different world decoded, as the great river Ganges flows on.

[salty-horse]

Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky is $1.99 on Amazon.com
The beginning of a 10-novel epic fantasy.

The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace for decades, bastions of civilization, prosperity and sophistication, protected by treaties, trade and a belief in the reasonable nature of their neighbours.

But meanwhile, in far-off corners, the Wasp Empire has been devouring city after city with its highly trained armies, its machines, its killing Art...And now its hunger for conquest and war has become insatiable.

Only the ageing Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see that the long days of peace are over. It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people, before a black-and-gold tide sweeps down over the Lowlands and burns away everything in its path.

But first he must stop himself becoming the Empire's latest victim.

[bookmarked]

Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison is Free today

Hugo Award Finalist: A mystery at the heart of a desert planet and its ruling class must be solved in this thrilling tale from a Grand Master of Science Fiction.

Brion Brandd has just triumphed in the planetary contest called the “Twenties, ”a series of physical and mental trials meant to push contestants to their limits. But before he can fully recover from these tests, he’s recruited by former Twenties champion Ihjel for a mission of utmost importance.

Brandd and Ihjel travel to the hellish desert planet of Dis, where the ruling class, known as the magter, have suddenly begun acting wildly aggressive and unpredictable, threatening the peace in the region. With a nuclear blockade surrounding Dis, Brandd and Ihjel are sent planetside to investigate.

Their pursuit will not be easy, for while the magter have seemingly lost their senses, the local population lives in total harmony with the brutal surroundings. What is it that separates the classes, yet also connects them? In this suspenseful novel by the author of Deathworld, Brandd will have to call on all of his formidable skills and gifts to uncover the truth—before both sides are annihilated.

[gbm]

Originally Posted by bookmarked

Planet of the Damned by Harry Harrison is Free today

Always free at Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks.

bernie

[Tarana]

A Heritage of Stars By Clifford D. Simak $1.99 at Amazon and Kobo
Sorry, I can't seem to copy/paste the links again today! I really need someone to check this laptop.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by Tarana

A Heritage of Stars By Clifford D. Simak $1.99 at Amazon and Kobo
Sorry, I can't seem to copy/paste the links again today! I really need someone to check this laptop.

A Heritage of Stars By Clifford D. Simak:
https://smile.amazon.com/Heritage-St.../dp/B00YTFTA0S

https://www.amazon.com/Heritage-Star.../dp/B00YTFTA0S

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by gbm

Always free at Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks.

How does that work? The book is from 1962 and Harrison died in 2012. I don't see how it can be in the American public domain, as Gutenberg claims.

(Ah. Forgot to renew the copyright in 1990, probably...)

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

How does that work? The book is from 1962 and Harrison died in 2012. I don't see how it can be in the American public domain, as Gutenberg claims.

(Ah. Forgot to renew the copyright in 1990, probably...)

Exactly so. There's that weird period in USA copyright law from 1925 to 1963, where if the copyright wasn't renewed 28 years after registration, it's no longer in copyright in USA. From works from 1964 onwards, their copyright was given an extended renewal (1976 act) automatically (1992 act) which was then extended again (1998 act).

So most works published in 1963 will have fallen into the USA public domain on 1st January 1992, but no works published in 1964 will fall into the USA public domain until 1st January 2060. A difference in copyright length of 67 years!

[Roos]

And all of that because Disney wants the sole right of the bloody mouse :-(

[binaryhermit]

the one volume version of The Lord of the Rings is $1.99 on Amazon again
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007978OY6/

[ReadingManiac]

Originally Posted by gbm

Always free at Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks.

bernie

Oooh, thank you!