Free (Kindle KDP) A Bad Spell in Yurt by C. Dale Brittain [Magic Adventure Fantasy]

[ATDrake]

So, it seems that the KDP Select exclusive-or-else yanking I Can't Believe I Can't Re-Download My Paid-For Purchased Book! problem that affects B&N also extends to Smashwords as well.

I must say, this is profoundly discouraging me from ever spending actual money on a book by an author who's made a point of yanking their stuff to KDP Select exclusivize, just in case.

Not that I was particularly inclined to pick up their Select books in the first place, but now I'll probably avoid picking up their other books elsewhere if they've shown a habit of pulling established works from other stores.

(And it argues for getting stuff directly from Smashwords, because if one has to re-buy the book after it reappears under a new listing, at least the author can issue discount coupons sufficient to make the replaced version free for original purchasers, if they are not so inclined as to insist on said re-purchase.)

Anyway, the following sf/fantasy backlist slushpile treat is one which as far as I can tell, has not been yanked from anywhere, as the author has yet to put her works in any stores besides Amazon that I know of.

A Bad Spell in Yurt by C. Dale Brittain is apparently the 1st in her The Royal Wizard of Yurt light magical adventure fantasy series (may be comedic).

This was originally published by Baen in 1991 and the author offers a 20th anniversary special e-book edition of what she blurbs as a "cult classic", which may well be true, considering that it seems to have gone on for a few more volumes and people love comedic fantasy.

Anyway, free for who knows how long (probably a couple of days, as her previous book was free for a few) with unguessable DRM @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT Additional surcharges may apply in particular regions.

Description
The ebook version of "A Bad Spell in Yurt" is the special twentieth-anniversary edition of this cult classic.

The tiny kingdom of Yurt is the perfect place--or so it seems--for someone who barely managed to graduate from the wizards' school, especially after all that embarrassment with the frogs. But Daimbert, newly hired Royal Wizard of Yurt, senses an evil spell at work.

But who could be responsible? The beautiful young queen? Her flighty aunt? The dour chaplain? The old, retired Royal Wizard, who seems to know more than he's saying? Or someone from out of the castle's past?

Daimbert quickly realizes that finding out and saving his kingdom may take all the magic he never learned properly in the first place, with his life the price of failure--good thing he knows how to improvise!

The rest of the slushpile which I bothered to look at, which does have a few non-repeat things from previously-included authors you may have been following, and some nifty historical-ish backlist works from new people as well, including a non-fic about the giant panda.

L.T. Fawkes returns with a 2004-Signet published mystery in her series with the working class amateur sleuth (I think he was supposed to be some kind of construction guy, from the last offering she made): EARLY EIGHT (TERRY SALTZ MYSTERIES)

Minor ISFDBed Matt R. Jones offers a few more tales in his Hollywood Vampires series if you've been picking it up: Linkage for the lot

Previously-included small-pressed fellow MR member author Linda S. Prather offers a mini-collection of short stories and recipes with a reality show TV chef vs serial killer thriller for the lead feature: Food To Die Smiling For

Much-published romance author Lori Brighton returns with a historical romance which appears to be backlist (not linked to a paperback, but quotes an official outlet review; may be a repeat, these things tend to look alike to me): To Seduce an Earl (The Seduction Series)

Stoker/Edgar-nominee Billie Sue Mosiman returns with a 3-item collection of previously-freebied works: SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set

ISFDBed horror writer Aaron Polson returns with two more works: Linkage to them both along with the Prime "free" stuff Amazon refuses to filter out

Ella Vines has written a few things for erotic romance specialty small imprint Siren Publishing. Here's her self-pub BDSM erotic romance: Lashed

Mildred Colvin offers an inspirational historical romance, which she says is revised from the original 2003 Christian publisher Barbour-printed version which was #543 in their Heartsongs line: Cora's Deception (Brides of Cedar Creek)

Minor ISFDBed Amber Sistla returns with another short: Fortune Smiles (Break Bites)

Decadent Publishing LLC do seem to be branching out from the romances and offer Graylin Fox's paranormal/urban fantasy caught-up-in-the-middle-of-a-faerie-war thing: Coming Home

PS Publishing, who've given us some very nice sf/fantasy collections in recent months, returns with a work by Robert Edric (ISFDB entry) involving: The Mermaids

Stephen Melling, who has exactly one printed short story in his ISFDB entry offers said short story here: Falling From Grace

Minor Canadian SF-magazine contributor Edward W. Robertson returns with a fantasy/maybe-dark-to-horror-ish novella: Lightless

Sometime ago, Shahzad Rivzi had a book out from minor small press Dorrance, who are participating in Read an Ebook Week. This is not it, but an historical romance+murder mystery novel: The Last Resident: The Love Story of a British Official and an Indian Princess

Imajin/n participated in RAEBW last year. They published Susan J. McLeod's Egyptian archaeology-based: Soul and Shadow (A Lily Evans Mystery)

The late Don Pendleton of Mack Bolan Executioner fame has an offering from another series of his, presumably made by his widow Linda: Time to Time: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (Ashton Ford Series)

Harlequin-etc. published Patricia Watters returns with a contemporary romance: Adversaries and Lovers

Sourcebooks-published Lisa Renee Jones returns with a full-sized "sexy romantic suspense" novel which was previously released under another title and helpfully advises you in the blurb that Sourcebooks has marked down a particular novel in one of her series to $1.99 and encourages you to pick it up at that price while you still can (cheapest at Kobo using the coupons, btw): Secrets Exposed (Prelude to the sexy romance suspense series Tall, Dark, and Deadly) I must say that her marketing tie-in sale instincts are pretty good, even if they do clutter up the blurb (but with more useful info than the usual variety of quoted general-author praise that most writers put into theirs).

Former Scotland on Sunday article writer and Zen monk Barry Graham returns with his 1995 small-pressed literary/gritty "postpunk" urban fiction novel, which has praise from the included Booklist review and Details magazine, and which the blurb claims was "chosen by the American Library Association as one of the best books of 1995": The Book of Man

Five Star-published Julie Hyzy writing under her pen name N.C. Hyzy offers the 1st volume of her collected short stories (we previously received the 2nd or so free, IIRC) which includes one which won a Derringer Award: Mystery Short Stories: Volume 1

Tim Vicary offers a 1992 Simon & Schuster printed historical drama set in 1919 Ireland which involves doomed love and has lots of quoted praise from Irish newspapers: The Blood Upon the Rose

Previously-included video game artist Stephen Beam returns with another sf short: Galaxy Riff (there is trouble brewing in the southern end of the homeland universe)

S.V. Peddle is the pseudonym for a bookshop-owning UK couple who've had a travel guide published by UK publisher Robert Hale. This is their historical adventure novel set in Minoan Crete: The Moon Maiden (The Cnossos Trilogy)

Michael Kiefer's 2002-small pressed non-fiction book has a review from the Publisher's Weekly which praises his semi-biography of the two hunters who helped a wealthy socialite bring the first live panda to the US in the 1930s: Chasing the Panda: How an Unlikely Pair of Adventurers Won the Race to Capture the Mythical "White Bear"

Currently-praised-in-the-Reading-Recs forum Hugh Howey, author of Wool, has another work free (this one looks kind of litfic instead of sfnal): The Plagiarist

You know what, I don't really care what's inside this story besides the obvious, which sounds cracktastically entertaining: Giant Killer Eels This is set in England, by the way. I hope they get into a fight with the swans.

I have no idea how good this person's advice or techniques are. But this seems like a useful life skill to acquire: Sergeant Shenk's Book on Knife Throwing

Happy reading, if you happen to spot something you think you might like, as long as you don't get too happy trying out the stuff in that last work if you pick it up.

[Dr. Drib]

Picked up some very interesting titles.

Thank you.




Don

[Stormchild]

Thanks. there are one or two that did not appear in my daily hunt. The Hugh Howey (rightly praised by the way) is not free in US or UK. However I will probably buy it anyway.
I could not resist the Giant Killer Eels either, after all any book with that corny a title has got to be good.

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by Stormchild

I could not resist the Giant Killer Eels either, after all any book with that corny a title has got to be good.

Old Slippery, what a hoot.

Old Slippery is the legendary giant eel of The Lake District. For years there have been supposed sightings of him, but never quite like this and what’s more Old Slippery is not alone.

[koland]

I just noticed that at Smashwords, myself. It didn't used to do that (you could still download, but the listing was gone; now it's out of your library as well).

This has been an issue with ebooks at EVERY SELLER since day one - only Amazon has publicly committed that once purchased, your books will stay there, FOREVER. Even it it was in response to the 1984 fiasco, at least it's a step in the right direction.

A few have taken steps to try to get your library transferred (ereader, who migrated some of my original purchases from peanut; fictionwise "upgrade" a number of purchases to a different drm when they had to pull books, although they weren't able to get them all; Sony upgraded books from LRF to EPUB, for the most part), but I've had books disappear from a number of sites.

At least the ones I lost at Smashwords were mostly freebies (and I don't get much else at B&N, unless it's the only place I can find a book).

[ATDrake]

I wonder if the change has anything to do with the Paypal issue and SW are mass-purging removed books as a result. I would still encourage mass complaining as apparently SW had a ridiculous T&C clause derided in another thread which was officially interpreted by a CS staffer as forbidding Dropbox backup b/c SW would keep your books safe for you and you were supposed to re-d/l via their website alone.

As for Amazon, sometime last year or so I did read on their discussion board a complaint from a regular poster about how she'd lost archive access to several pulled original indie books and was out that money, IIRC. It shouldn't be too hard to find; I think I bookmarked it somewhere and she was a pretty prolific poster so should be easily Googleable for her handle and keywords if not.

Anyway, I would not place faith in any company whatsoever to keep books around, though Baen and FW have been pretty good about maintaining access to pulled MultiFormat stuff.

[koland]

With any company, there is the potential for a hiccup in their system or for bankruptcy. At least these days, there are a number of choices for alternate backup to supplement onsite copies.

[ATDrake]

Feature title still free, some others may or may not be unexpired, updates go here:

Former Scotland on Sunday article writer and current Zen monk Barry Graham is back with a 1991 Bloomsbury-published urban literary fiction novel about personal tensions surrounding a boxing championship match set in the dystopia that was apparently Scotland in the 80s: The Champion's New Clothes

Dominic Green (ISFDB) offers what looks like a comedic sf about a hidden alien colony: Saucerers and Gondoliers

Jonny Murdoc has had short stories in anthologies from specialty erotic romance publishers Cleis and Ravenous Romance and offers a short erotic tale which he says was included in Best Gay Erotica 2011: Bodies in Motion: A Gay Erotic Story

Previously-title-featured Canadian Governor General Award for Children's Literature winner Arthur Slade's Norse-mythology based YA dark fantasy/horror adventure trilogy is a repeat, but IIRC it expired early last time so here it is again if you missed it: Northern Frights (Omnibus)

Stuff from newbie small Deadly Niche Press has previously been included, so here's another, Carol Shenold's: Privy to Murder (a Tali Cates Paranormal Mystery)

I've previously included stuff from self-pub Lyn Horner, who openly admitted that the award nominations she garnered were for her unpublished manuscripts. I appreciate authors being upfront and honest instead of making vague best-selling award-winner claims and saying that people from top publishing houses have praised their works, but being unable to actually back that up (and if they really thought your work that good, would they not have by now printed you instead of sending what was probably a politely-worded rejection letter?). So here's another in her paranormal historical romance series if you got the last one: Darlin' Druid (Texas Druids)

Previously-included small-pressed Barbara Taylor Sissel offers a literary suspense novel about crime and redemption and the human character: The Ninth Step

ISFDBed horror writer Jeremy C. Shipp offers another collection of his shorts: Attic Clowns, Vol. 4

Canadian writer of economics articles Alex Carrick and Donna Carrick return with more self-pub works for your collection of such: Two Scoops is Just Right: 78 Funny Original Short Stories (Scoops Series) and : The Noon God, some sort of litfic suspense involving an immortal, a murder, and personal enlightenment re: toxic family situations.

Anne Digby has a really messed up listing where the paperback editions claim to be works by Harry Harrison. But in any case, in 1982 St. Martin's Press hardcovered her YA friendship/coming-of-age novel: A Horse Called September

Previously-included Covenant Communications-published Canadian-resident Tom Roulstone offers another probably-inspirational western romance short: Home to Wyoming (Cheyenne Springs)

Minor ISFDBed Robert J. Duperre returns with a contribution to the following horror anthology: The Gate 2: 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair

HarperCollins/Scholastic New Zealand author Linda McNabb offers another YA fantasy, which she says was originally out from HarperCollins NZ (no paperback listing, but Amazon is sketchy about books published only in the antipodes): The Crystal Runners

Ken McClure returns with another "chilling medical thriller", originally out from Simon & Schuster UK in 1992: Requiem

Minor ISFDBed Robert E. Keller returns with another collection of his short: Fantasy Stories -- Volume III

For Read an E-Book Week, Elisabeth Waters and Michael Spence repeat their mini-collection of fantasy stories originally published in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword & Sorceress anthologies: Treasures of Albion II

Avon & Ellora's Cave-published Leda Swann, which turns out to be the awesomely mythological-referencing pseudonym of a New Zealand-based couples' writing team (I'm now imagining that somewhere out there, there's a Callisto Bhaer and an Europa Taurus and maybe even a Danae Goldenschauer), returns with a fairy-creature paranormal erotic romance: Stormtossed

I'm including this one purely for the crack value: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves of the Old Republic

Well, in case you have those post-apocalyptic scenario worries about the rise of the machines, here's something that might help with them. Or not: 18 Vital Things That Will Keep You Smarter Than The Robots

Happy reading, if you can manage it between remembering that "can't sleep, clown will eat me" and "must stay smarter than the robots".

[tamborine]

I look forward to your posts every day. Just wanted to pop in and say "thanks"!

[Blue Tyson]

484!

Thanks!

[DebbyS]

Whenever I see "ATDrake" I know I'm going to be given some good links! Today/above you linked to a book by Jeremy C. Shipp (which I got), and on the page for that book was a list of other similar books and an author I recognized, John Skipp, so I looked for him and his writing partner, Craig Spector. Surprisingly, there is quite a list of Kindle'd horror books by the two, including the scariest book I've ever read, The Bridge. I had a paperback of it around here somewhere, but like a stack of other "must-keep" books, it disappeared somehow (had to be bibliophile aliens or ghosts or...). I pdf'd it years ago but not very well, so I'll probably wind up buying it eventually.

So your links are always good for me

[koland]

Don't know if you saw this (he's a Harper author, this must be an older title of his):

The Worldwide Dessert Contest: Enhanced Multimedia Edition Dan Elish. the multimedia stuff doesn't work all that well (not bad on the cloud reader, as it opens a web page and runs a youtube video).

[VictoriaP]

I have "A Bad Spell in Yurt" and the first sequel in paperback; they're fun light fantasy that I've reread several times. Since they were on my "there's probably no way these will ever show up in ebooks" list, I'm well pleased to find out I was wrong. Getting the first one free is a bonus. Two more dead trees to go to the used book store, and there are even more sequels I was unaware of?

I know these posts are a bit of a nuisance, and I know the KDP setup is less than ideal. But FWIW, you've made my day. . Thank you!

[VaporPunk]

Thanks! Really looking forward to trying "A Bad Spell in Yurt".

[carpetmojo]

"A Bad Spell in Yurt " .........

Hate to bring this up, but a friend (and spouse, two children and dog) went on a fairly expensive, "different", eco-friendly family holiday in Wales which was a disaster, partly due to the weather, and partly due to the fact that their temporary abode was cold, leaked, and was "investigated " by a cow in the small hours..............