Open Road Media Kindle Freebies

[koland]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

Of all times to be away from MobileRead for a couple of days. A number of my favourite sci-fi/fantasy authors are with Open Road these days. Of course, for all I know I wouldn't have been able to take advantage being in Canada, but it would have been nice to find out...

still going on - two more days

A few I checked for CA and UK were not free, so may be US only.

[CWatkinsNash]

I think I'm done. My final total is 193 books.

[Red Falcon]

Originally Posted by Req13

I picked up a lot of the sci-fi books, but would like to get more mystery. I'm not really familiar with most of the authors though. Can anyone give some solid recommendations? Much appreciated.

Howard Fast's The Masao Masuto Mysteries, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Dorothy Uhnak, Brian Freemantle (Spy Mysteries), Richard S Prather.



If you are into realistic and unromanticized Westerns I highly recommend Paul Leder. There is a lot of his short works in the free bonanza.

I have pulled close to a thousand books and I still have about 50 pages left to go through. I am grinning from ear to ear at my pile. Merry Christmas to us indeed. Thank You Open Road Media for this incredible largesse.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by sufue

I am just the opposite...I've picked up a lot of the mysteries - any recommendations, beyond those already mentioned, for sci-fi?

Aside from what's already been mentioned upthread, this is what stands out to me when I go through my list of acquisitions:

• Nancy Springer: she's got excellent short stories in the collection that's free (The Boy Who Plaited Manes is a simply wonderful faux-fairytale, which IIRC is included), and I liked the first few of her Books of the Isles vaguely Celtic faux-mythological fantasies which I got from Fictionwise back in the day
• Tanith Lee: gorgeously atmospheric dark fantasy, a little purple prose-y but very evocative; haven't read the particular books which are free in this, but really liked her Flat Earth and fairy tale series and glad to see ORM picking up her backlist
• Poul Anderson: an SFWA Grandmaster, IIRC; a little retro, but still solid storytelling and highly influential (there's a Baen anthology of tributes to his work)
• Brian W. Aldiss, Robert Silverberg, Fritz Leiber, Greg Bear: more old school classic authors who've had some works I liked
• James Morrow: sharp and satiric; have enjoyed the few works of his I've read (have not encountered the ones in the promo)
• John DeChancie: very entertaining humorous fantasy set at a castle that's a multiversal crossroads; there's one novel in it which is a nifty storytelling experiment (complete with reader quizzes), and another that has a brief but fantastic parody of golden age mystery whodunnit revelation tropes
• Victoria Strauss: I really enjoyed the Phoenix Pick freebie we got of one of her novels a while ago, enough to buy the sequel on sale, and am pleased to be able to try more of her work
• Pamela Sargent: a general rec on reputation; IIRC she's one of the pioneering 70s/80s feminist sfnal authors; also has some historical fiction (for more quality historical fiction by an sfnal author I recommend Cecelia Holland whose non-sf works are in this promo)
• Jessica Amanda Salmonson: another 70s feminist author who edited a bunch of anthologies about Amazons which I picked up on impulse from the used bookshop and enjoyed; she's got some novels about real-life Japanese samurai warrior Tomoe Gozen (I think these are actually straight historical fiction), and a non-fiction encyclopedia of famous legendary women which is well worth it (for more mythological encyclopedia stuff, I also recommend the works of Bernard Evslin which can be found in the Teen & Tween section)
• Elizabeth Ann Scarborough: simply delightful light fantasy; I have the particular books from Fictionwise editions and I think my old reviews of them are somewhere in the What Are You Reading? thread
• Robert Newman: an author from the Teen & Tween section; I recall liking Merlin's Mistake (in the promo) from the school library a long time ago, has many other novels included (and a sequel to MM that I've never read! )
• Patricia C. Wrede: good YA-ish fantasy; have not read the novels in this promo, but her Enchanted Forest Chronicles is one of my favourites
• Nancy A Collins & Chelsea Quinn Yarbro & Brian Stableford: if you're into dark fantasy/vampire fiction; Yarbro also has some historical supernatural suspenses which are pretty decent and I've read from old Fictionwise editions; Stableford is one of my favourite writers for genetic engineering, but I'm not as into his decadent dark fantasy, though it's still perfectly readable
• R. A. MacAvoy: another author I used to auto-buy during Fictionwise sales; excellent fantasy, though you only get 2 books out of a very worthwhile trilogy (have not read her sf novel yet)
• Ru Emerson: another ex-FW author; quite liked her Night-Threads series which is one of those “kidnapped to save the alternate world” stories which I'm a sucker for
• Marta Randall: have only read her non-sf murder mystery which is in the promo, but quite liked
• Susan Shwartz: excellent historical fiction with fantasy elements
• Clare Bell: a very good YA-ish historical novel with fantasy elements set at some point during one of the Mayan (IIRC) civilizations
• Dave Duncan: Scottish-Canadian author who's written historical adventure mysteries I really enjoy (The Alchemist's Apprentice series set in Renaissance Italy); ironically, have not read his far more prevalent sf/fantasy novels just yet even though I got a stack of them during a used bookshop sale
• Richard Monaco: have not read, but the 1st volume of his Parsifal saga of Arthurian fantasy, which we've gotten some of the rest of as Venture freebies, and which netted him a Pulitzer nom, is free
• Elizabeth A. Lynn: another old school feminist sfnal author; have enjoyed some of her short stories (collection and several novels in the promo)
• Ian R. MacLeod, Elizabeth Hand: have not read their novels, ISTR but recall liking some short stories
• Sean Williams, Lisa Goldstein, Jonathan Caroll, Liz Williams, Samuel R. Delany: on reputation; these are authors I've been meaning to try and have acquired a couple of their books on sale to do so, but haven't actually gotten around to reading yet (I think I actually read some Goldstein somewhere, but can't recall where)
• Frank Lauria & William Kotzwinkle: on reputation, but wrote some occult mystery-ish crossovers you may enjoy

(Honestly, I'd just recommend grabbing the lot. It's only around what, 700 or so books for the sfnal stuff? )

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I think I'm done. My final total is 193 books.

I'm at 170, but is that the final total? I'm monitoring this thread for more recs that are in my line

[Atunah]

I do know one thing, my cloud collections are totally out of wack at this point. It wont add the books to the collections no matter what I try. They are added on the website in my account, but on my kindle they are still cluttering around outside of the collections I put them in. Then some I put in, went back out overnight. There must be some severe lag between whats on the website my account cloud and my kindle cloud. Same collections of course.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Loosheesh

I'm at 170, but is that the final total? I'm monitoring this thread for more recs that are in my line

LOL Yeah, I have a feeling I'll be getting more before it's over. But I'm forcing myself to get this first haul organized before I'll let myself even look at getting any more books.

[Catlady]

My count is 210, and that's without any science fiction. It's likely I'll add more tomorrow.

[Morus]

If nobody has mentioned this.
Also check author's page you have particular interest in since not all the free books show when searching by genre.

[Req13]

Originally Posted by sufue

I am just the opposite...I've picked up a lot of the mysteries - any recommendations, beyond those already mentioned, for sci-fi?

I don't think I could do a better job than ATDrake. I got most of what he recommends.

Thanks to all for the mystery recommendations.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Morus

If nobody has mentioned this.
Also check author's page you have particular interest in since not all the free books show when searching by genre.

I suppose that you mean an author whom you've already found a book of [that is awkward, if not incorrect, grammar, but you know what I mean] in the sale?

Welcome as a poster on MobileRead.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Req13

I don't think I could do a better job than ATDrake. I got most of what he recommends.

Thanks to all for the mystery recommendations.

Yes, ATDrake adds a lot to the forum. But occasionally you need to know Danish to really appreciate some of his posts.

[GtrsRGr8]

I think that my strategy is going to be to pick the low-hanging fruit, and not let the thought of what I may have missed bother me. Ignorance is sometimes bliss.

But today was a slow day for markdowns (think: there wasn't much I thought worthy of posting), so I might have time to peruse the sale some more before the day is over. If so, some of your suggestions will have been helpful in that regard. So, thanks.

[ATDrake]

^

For you, some ORM non-fiction I noticed while sorting through my acquisitions. This is only a tiny fragment of what's available for non-fic, though, and a lot of fiction authors wrote in multiple fields and/or have memoirs and essay collections.

• Biographies: Diana Souhami, Marion Meade, Catherine O'Sullivan Shore, Ruth Gruber, Fred Kaplan
• Cookbooks: James Beard, Marlene Dietrich, Gioietta Vitale
• Essays/Autobiographies: Alice Walker, Rebecca West, Iris Murdoch, John Gardner, May Sarton, Geoffrey Householder, Candy Darling
• History: Rebecca West, Walter Lord, Ernie Bradshaw, Emily Hahn
• Investigative, Journalism, True Crime: Ruth Gruber, Gordon Thomas, Joseph DiMona
• Mythology, Folklore & Legend: Bernard Evslin, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Sorche N Leodhas
• Industry Retrospectives/Advice: Richard Curtis (writing and literary agency), Richard Kirshenbaum (advertising), Helen Gurley Brown (relationship advice), Herbert Warren Wind (sports)
• Literary/Arts Criticism: Mary McCarthy, George Steiner
• Travel Writing: Laurence Durrell, Tristan Jones, Emily Hahn

Mix of Fiction & Non- for particular subject interest

• LGBT: Paul Monette, Jane Rule, William J. Mann, Helen Eisenbach, Diana Souhami
• Feminist & other activist: Alix Shulman, Robin Morgan, Jessica Amanda Salmonson
• Indigenous & African-American & Jewish & other cultural: Ray Young Bear, Alice Walker, Virginia Hamilton, Peter Singer, Clancy Sigal, Howard Engel, Johanna Kaplan

[cromag]

Several of John Gardner's books are in the giveaway, including In the Suicide Mountains. They're under the Fantasy genre -- which, strictly speaking, they are -- but they're also considered Literary works by some vendors. He's a very good writer. I first bought In the Suicide Mountains back in the 70s -- I'm glad to have it again!

In the Suicide Mountains