FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[salty-horse]

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 edited by Rebecca Roanhorse is $3 in the US (Amazon, Kobo)
Contents: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?918280
Some of these were published in free online magazines.

Here's a podcast about it with the editors and P. Djèlí Clark: https://geeksguideshow.com/2023/03/0...-fantasy-2022/

Amusingly, the Amazon thumbnail says Roanhorse wrote "Black Son" instead of "Black Sun". It's fixed in the actual ebook cover.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by ratinox

BOTH! Why settle for one or the other?

(but seriously, Eaters of the Dead does belong here in SF & Fantasy)

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by ratinox

(but seriously, Eaters of the Dead does belong here in SF & Fantasy)

Wasn't Eaters of the Dead essentially Michael Crichton's spin on Beowulf?

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Wasn't Eaters of the Dead essentially Michael Crichton's spin on Beowulf?

More or less. It's a mix of Beowulf and Ahmad ibn Fadlan's accounts of historical Vikings. Call it historical fantasy if you would.

Just -- for the love of all things -- do *not* judge by the movie adaptation. It's bad. I mean really bad. So bad that Omar Sharif retired (albeit temporarily) from acting over how disappointing it was for him.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by ratinox

More or less. It's a mix of Beowulf and Ahmad ibn Fadlan's accounts of historical Vikings. Call it historical fantasy if you would.

Just -- for the love of all things -- do *not* judge by the movie adaptation. It's bad. I mean really bad. So bad that Omar Sharif retired (albeit temporarily) from acting over how disappointing it was for him.

Sounds like it's up there with the movie versions of Battlefield Earth and Isaac Asimov's Nightfall. Battlefield Earth is kind of impressive in making a bad book into an ever worse movie.

[JSWolf]

delete post

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Manabi

Sounds like it's up there with the movie versions of Battlefield Earth and Isaac Asimov's Nightfall. Battlefield Earth is kind of impressive in making a bad book into an ever worse movie.

Bad book? Nope. Truly awful is the correct term. The movie is a lot better then the book because reading the book will take away more time of your life then the movie.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Manabi

Sounds like it's up there with the movie versions of Battlefield Earth and Isaac Asimov's Nightfall. Battlefield Earth is kind of impressive in making a bad book into an ever worse movie.

Battlefield Earth is a horrible book. But at least the movie is the most faithful (half of a) book to screen adaptation I can recall ever seeing... and that's absolutely damning with faint praise. The 13th Warrior, the film adaptation of Eaters of the Dead, is a bad movie, but the book is okay.

[sufue]

The High Lord is the third in the Black Magician trilogy. It has dropped to £2.99 at Kindle UK - not a super-great price, but at least something of a sale...

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003E1BGXC

Spoiler:

In the city of Imardin, where those who wield magic wield power, a young street-girl, adopted by the Magician's Guild, finds herself at the centre of a terrible plot that may destroy the entire world . . .

Sonea has learned much at the magicians' guild and the other novices now treat her with a grudging respect. But she cannot forget what she witnessed in the High Lord's underground room - or his warning that the realm's ancient enemy is growing in power once more. As Sonea learns more, she begins to doubt her guildmaster's word. Could the truth really be as terrifying as Akkarin claims, or is he trying to trick her into assisting in some unspeakably dark scheme?

[salty-horse]

Non-fiction:
Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

Transcending arguments over the definition of fantasy literature, Rhetorics of Fantasy introduces a provocative new system of classification for the genre. Drawing on nearly two hundred examples of modern fantasy, author Farah Mendlesohn identifies four categories—portal-quest, immersive, intrusion, and liminal—that arise out of the relationship of the protagonist to the fantasy world. Using these sets, Mendlesohn argues that the author's stylistic decisions are then shaped by the inescapably political demands of the category in which they choose to write.

Each chapter covers at least twenty books in detail, ranging from nineteenth-century fantasy and horror to some of the best works in the contemporary field.

[ZodWallop]

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick is $1.99 at Amazon, Kobo and B&N US.

The book that inspired Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s cinematic romance starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison—one of the most passionately romantic movies ever made. With a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Adriana Trigiani.

Burdened by debt after her husband's death, Lucy Muir insists on moving into the very cheap Gull Cottage in the quaint seaside village of Whitecliff, despite multiple warnings that the house is haunted. Upon discovering the rumors to be true, the young widow ends up forming a special companionship with the ghost of handsome former sea captain Daniel Gregg. Through the struggles of supporting her children, seeking out romance from the wrong places, and working to publish the captain's story as a book, Blood and Swash, Lucy finds in her secret relationship with Captain Gregg a comfort and blossoming love she never could have predicted.

Originally published in 1945, made into a movie in 1947, and later adapted into a television sitcom in 1968, this romantic tale explores how love can develop without boundaries, both in this life and beyond.

Thanks to SomeSteve for catching this!

[ZodWallop]

Portal of a Thousand Worlds by Dave Duncan is $2.99 at Amazon, Kobo, B&N US.

A massive fantasy tale told in a single book. What a concept!

The looming threat of a once-in-a-millennium magical event sends nineteenth-century China into violent chaos in this epic alternate-history fantasy.

Author of the Seventh Sword series Dave Duncan transports us to Imperial China in an alternate nineteenth century—an Asian epoch not unlike the Boxer Rebellion era—with a spellbinding tale of rebellion, political intrigue, larceny, seduction, shape-shifting, dark magic, and murder. These are troubled years in the Good Land.

Ten centuries have passed since the last time the Portal of a Thousand Worlds opened, bringing chaos, upheaval, and radical change to the then-ruling dynasty, and now the mystical gateway is rumored to be on the verge of opening once more. Only the Firstborn—he who has been reincarnated through countless generations and remembers all he has ever learned—knows what the future holds, but he has been imprisoned for refusing to comply with a repressive imperial government’s wishes.

Now, those hoping to seize the opportunity for wealth and position are hatching sinister plots. And as the cold-hearted dowager empress closely guards a fateful secret, and a rebel army led by a fanatical zealot gathers strength under the Bamboo Banner, the cataclysm approaches. . . .

[ZodWallop]

Warrior of the Altaii by Robert Jordan is $3.99 at Amazon, Kobo, B&N US.

Epic fantasy legend, and author of #1 New York Times bestselling series The Wheel of Time®, Robert Jordan's never-before published novel, Warrior of the Altaii:

Draw near and listen, or else time is at an end.

The watering holes of the Plain are drying up, the fearsome fanghorn grow more numerous, and bad omens abound. Wulfgar, a leader of the Altaii people, must contend with twin queens, warlords, prophets and magic in hopes of protecting his people and securing their future. Elspeth, a visitor from another world, holds the answers, but first Wulfgar must learn to ask the right questions.

But what if the knowledge that saves the Altaii will also destroy them?

[salty-horse]

Azura Ghost by Essa Hansen is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Sequel to Nophek Gloss.

[salty-horse]

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Part of a series, but they are standalone. Was on my wishlist.

Wandering cleric Chih of the Singing Hills travels to the riverlands to record tales of the notorious near-immortal martial artists who haunt the region. On the road to Betony Docks, they fall in with a pair of young women far from home, and an older couple who are more than they seem. As Chih runs headlong into an ancient feud, they find themself far more entangled in the history of the riverlands than they ever expected to be.

Accompanied by Almost Brilliant, a talking bird with an indelible memory, Chih confronts old legends and new dangers alike as they learn that every story—beautiful, ugly, kind, or cruel—bears more than one face.