FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

I was rejected once, when my request was handled after the price went back up. Pointing to the price in Google's cache, or ereaderiq, didn't help. I did not take or "fake" a screenshot.

Now I wait for the price match to go through before downloading the file from the ADE server, to at least have the opportunity to request a refund.

That's a good idea to wait before downloading.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by maddz

I've been asked for a screenshot a handful of times, and I've applied for (and generally got) 65+ price matches. I think only 1 or 2 were rejected in the end. As part of my price match process, I automatically take a screenshot (especially if the Amazon price is a Daily Deal).

I did some checking and only found 1 price match request that was rejected. That was to a book from Google. And I do automatically take a screenshot when I am wanting a match on a short term deal.

I could fake a screenshot but I suspect that the vast majority of Kobo's customers do not have those skills.

[salty-horse]

Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Translated by Asa Yoneda. Was on several 2024 highlight lists. This is a mosaic novel composed of short stories.
Review by Niall Harrison on Locus

From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions an Earth where humans are nearing extinction, and rewrites our understanding of reproduction, ecology, evolution, artificial intelligence, communal life, creation, love, and the future of humanity.

In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of "Mothers." Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings--but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world.

Unfolding over fourteen interconnected episodes spanning geological eons, at once technical and pastoral, mournful and utopic, Under the Eye of the Big Bird presents an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Fbone

My concern is if they don't price match because sale is over then I've greatly overpaid.
Today there is a book on Amazon for 1.99 but Kobo is 7.99. It's too late in the day to try for the price match with offices closed. I'm not willing to take that risk.

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Now I wait for the price match to go through before downloading the file from the ADE server, to at least have the opportunity to request a refund.

I am taking screenshots of the competing price. I think waiting to download until the refund arrives is a good idea. I'll do that in future. But £3.95 (Kobo with price match) instead of £4.34 (Amazon) or £11.99 (Kobo), as in my latest purchase, is well worth doing.

But it sounds like refusal to price-match is rare.

[maddz]

The books are supposed to match on ISBN, publisher and publication date. Amazon you'll need to try and find an ISBN - they don't exactly make it visible. If you're lucky, it's in the preview. I have seen it right down the page as well. If the covers match, along with the publisher and publication date, then you should get the match.

Note you've got up to 7 days to submit a request.

[salty-horse]

The Golem of Brooklyn by Adam Mansbach is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
This was just covered by Wizards vs. Lesbians favorably.

In Ashkenazi Jewish folklore, a golem is a humanoid being created out of mud or clay and animated through secret prayers. Its sole purpose is to defend the Jewish people against the immediate threat of violence. It is always a rabbi who makes a golem, and always in a time of crisis.

But Len Bronstein is no rabbi—he’s a Brooklyn art teacher who steals a large quantity of clay from his school, gets extremely stoned, and manages to bring his creation to life despite knowing little about Judaism and even less about golems. Unable to communicate with his nine-foot-six, four hundred-pound, Yiddish-speaking guest, Len enlists a bodega clerk and ex-Hasid named Miri Apfelbaum to translate.

Eventually, The Golem learns English by binge-watching Curb Your Enthusiasm after ingesting a massive amount of LSD and reveals that he is a creature with an ancestral memory; he recalls every previous iteration of himself, making The Golem a repository of Jewish history and trauma. He demands to know what crisis has prompted his re-creation and whom must he destroy. When Miri shows him a video of white nationalists marching and chanting “Jews will not replace us,” the answer becomes clear.

The Golem of Brooklyn is an epic romp through Jewish history and the American present that wrestles with the deepest questions of our humanity—the conflicts between faith and skepticism, tribalism and interdependence, and vengeance and healing.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I am taking screenshots of the competing price.

If you know the book will go on sale again, and you don't consider it an urgent purchase, another strategy is to just wait a day or so. Kobo doesn't always mirror Amazon's sales, but it seems that when lots of price matching requests come in, Kobo will eventually lower the price so as to not need to pay the extra 10% anymore.

A book I was watching went on sale yesterday at Amazon, and I believe this had an effect on the sales rank at Kobo, which probably meant Kobo was doing a lot of price matching. The book is now on sale today at Kobo, so I can just buy it without having to jump through any hoops.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Kobo doesn't always mirror Amazon's sales, but it seems that when lots of price matching requests come in, Kobo will eventually lower the price so as to not need to pay the extra 10% anymore.

Sadly, most of the books I price match were short term sales on Amazon or elsewhere so waiting doesn't do me any good. I agree that very often if there is a long term sale, everyone tends to match that sale price but that takes more than a day or two.

[salty-horse]

The Repeat Room by Jesse Ball is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

In a speculative future, Abel, a menial worker, is called to serve in a secretive and fabled jury system. At the heart of this system is the repeat room, where a single juror, selected from hundreds of candidates, is able to inhabit the defendant’s lived experience, to see as if through their eyes.

The case to which Abel is assigned is revealed in the novel’s shocking second act. We receive a record of a boy's broken and constrained life, a tale that reveals an illicit and passionate psycho-sexual relationship, its end as tragic as the circumstances of its conception.

Artful in its suspense, and sharp in its evocation of a byzantine and cruel bureaucracy, The Repeat Room is an exciting and pointed critique of the nature of knowledge and judgment, and a vivid framing of Ball's absurd and nihilistic philosophy of love.

End of the World House by Adrienne Celt is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

Bertie and Kate have been best friends since high school. Bertie is a semi-failed cartoonist, working for a prominent Silicon Valley tech firm. Her job depresses her, but not as much as the fact that Kate has recently decided to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

When Bertie’s attempts to make Kate stay fail, she suggests the next best thing: a trip to Paris that will hopefully distract the duo from their upcoming separation. The vacation is also a sort of last hurrah, coming during the ceasefire in a series of escalating world conflicts.

One night in Paris, they meet a strange man in a bar who offers them a private tour of the Louvre. The women find themselves alone in the museum, where nothing is quite as it seems. Caught up in a day that keeps repeating itself, Bertie and Kate are eventually separated, and Bertie is faced with a mystery that threatens to derail everything. In order to make her way back to Kate, Bertie has to figure out how much control she has over her future—and her past—and how to survive in an apocalypse when the world keeps refusing to end.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

If you know the book will go on sale again, and you don't consider it an urgent purchase, another strategy is to just wait a day or so. Kobo doesn't always mirror Amazon's sales, but it seems that when lots of price matching requests come in, Kobo will eventually lower the price so as to not need to pay the extra 10% anymore.

A book I was watching went on sale yesterday at Amazon, and I believe this had an effect on the sales rank at Kobo, which probably meant Kobo was doing a lot of price matching. The book is now on sale today at Kobo, so I can just buy it without having to jump through any hoops.

This is true, although if you're early and do the price match, you get an extra 10% off the price.

[pdurrant]

Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton is just £0.99 at Kobo. £0.89 for VIP members.

This is the book that's now a film, Mickey 17.

I haven't seen the film nor read the book. And now I face the dilemma - book first or film first?

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton is just £0.99 at Kobo. £0.89 for VIP members.

This is the book that's now a film, Mickey 17.

I haven't seen the film nor read the book. And now I face the dilemma - book first or film first?

I've read both books, and really enjoyed them. Can't wait for the film.

Thing about the book is that if you enjoy it, there's a second book just waiting!

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton is just £0.99 at Kobo. £0.89 for VIP members.

This is the book that's now a film, Mickey 17.

I haven't seen the film nor read the book. And now I face the dilemma - book first or film first?

Always the film first. Then you can enjoy the movie, and I've never heard anyone be disappointed in a book because it wasn't like the movie.

[salty-horse]

Glass Houses by Madeline Ashby is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

A group of employees and their CEO, celebrating the sale of their remarkable emotion-mapping-AI-algorithm, crash onto a not-quite-deserted tropical island.

Luckily, those who survived have found a beautiful, fully-stocked private palace, with all the latest technological updates (though one without connection to the outside world). The house, however, has more secrets than anyone might have guessed, and a much darker reason for having been built and left behind.

Kristen, the hyper-competent "chief emotional manager" (a position created by her eccentric, boyish billionaire boss, Sumter) is trying to keep her colleagues stable throughout this new challenge, but staying sane seems to be as much of a challenge as staying alive.

Being a woman in tech has always meant having to be smarter than anyone expects--and Kristen's knack for out-of-the-box problem-solving and quick thinking has gotten her to the top of her field. But will a killer instinct be enough to survive the island?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton is just £0.99 at Kobo. £0.89 for VIP members.

This is the book that's now a film, Mickey 17.

I haven't seen the film nor read the book. And now I face the dilemma - book first or film first?

I've read Mickey7 and it's very good. Go for the book first.