FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[salty-horse]

Making History by K. J. Parker is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
New novella.

In K. J. Parker's new whip-smart dark fantasy, a group of scholars must do the impossible for a ruthless king. The cost of refusal, of course, is death.

History isn't truth, it's propaganda.

Seeking war with his neighbor, the tyrannical ruler of Aelia convenes several of his kingdom's professors for a chat. First Citizen Gyges only just invaded Aelia a few years back and, naturally, his public image can’t take the hit of another unjustified assault.

His totally sane solution? Simple, really. These scholars must construct a fake ancient city from scratch to verify Gyges’s apocryphal claims.

Now these academics must put their heads together to make history. Because if they don't, they'll lose their heads altogether.

[elaysee]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Making History by K. J. Parker is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
New novella.

Ha! I made a note last week to pick this up (for regular price) the next time I had other books I wanted. Good things come to those who wait, and who pay attention to salty-horse.

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by elaysee

Ha! I made a note last week to pick this up (for regular price) the next time I had other books I wanted. Good things come to those who wait, and who pay attention to salty-horse.

BTW, Making History is dealing with a similar theme of history of propaganda as The Isle in the Silver Sea, which is still on sale, and Alix E. Harrow's The Everlasting, which is due for a discount soon

[WashWest]

A graduate student of anthropology haunted by disturbing visions of the future is called upon to save an alien species from extinction? Take my money!!

The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

Save one world. Doom her own.

Maya Hoshimoto was once the best art thief in the galaxy. For ten years, she returned stolen artifacts to alien civilizations—until a disastrous job forced her into hiding. Now she just wants to enjoy a quiet life as a graduate student of anthropology, but she’s haunted by persistent and disturbing visions of the future.

Then an old friend comes to her with a job she can’t refuse: find a powerful object that could save an alien species from extinction. Except no one has seen it in living memory, and they aren’t the only ones hunting for it.

Maya sets out on a breakneck quest through a universe teeming with strange life and ancient ruins. But the farther she goes, the more her visions cast a dark shadow over her team of friends new and old. Someone will betray her along the way. Worse yet, in choosing to save one species, she may condemn humanity and Earth itself.

[salty-horse]

Non-fiction.

Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Morris is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

A magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work.

As the first Black woman to consistently write and publish in the field of science fiction, Octavia Butler was a trailblazer. With her deft pen, she created stories speculating the devolution of the American empire, using it as an apt metaphor for the best and worst of humanity—our innovation and ingenuity, our naked greed and ambition, our propensity for violence and hierarchy. Her fiction charts the rise and fall of the American project—the nation’s transformation from a provincial backwater to a capitalist juggernaut—made possible by chattel slavery—to a bloated imperialist superpower on the verge of implosion.

In this outstanding work, Susana M. Morris places Butler’s story firmly within the cultural, social, and historical context that shaped her life: the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, women’s liberation, queer rights, Reaganomics. Morris reveals how these influences profoundly impacted Butler’s personal and intellectual trajectory and shaped the ideas central to her writing. Her cautionary tales warn us about succumbing to fascism, gender-based violence, and climate chaos while offering alternate paradigms to religion, family, and understanding our relationships to ourselves. Butler envisioned futures with Black women at the center, raising our awareness of how those who are often dismissed have the knowledge to shift the landscape of our world. But her characters are no magical martyrs, they are tough, flawed, intelligent, and complicated, a reflection of Butler’s stories.

Morris explains what drove Butler: She wrote because she felt she must. “Who was I anyway? Why should anyone pay attention to what I had to say? Did I have anything to say? I was writing science fiction and fantasy, for God’s sake. At that time nearly all professional science-fiction writers were white men. As much as I loved science fiction and fantasy, what was I doing? Well, whatever it was, I couldn’t stop. Positive obsession is about not being able to stop just because you’re afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It’s about not being able to stop at all.”