FREE/BARGAIN — DRM-Free

[ATDrake]

StoryBundle has a new offering, good through the next 3 weeks:

The Story Collection Bundle curated by Lisa Mason (ISFDB, Wikipedia), containing single-author short story collections by acclaimed sfnal authors, including Elizabeth Hand (ISFDB; Tiptree, Mythopoeic & World Fantasy Award winner), Walter Jon Williams (ISFDB; Nebula & Sidewise Award winner), Kathe Koja (ISFDB; Bram Stoker & Locus Award winner), Karen Joy Fowler (ISFDB; Nebula & Shirley Jackson Award winner), Pat Murphy (ISFDB; Nebula, Sturgeon, & Philip K. Dick Award winner), etc., containing many of the actual short stories which netted them assorted nominations and wins for said awards.

This is an auto-buy for me, as I actually like sfnal literature more in the short form than at novel length in most cases, because I'm a sucker for the exploration of interesting ideas, some of which just can't be stretched out to novel length or stuffed into a subplot of a long-running series.

$5 minimum gets you 3 collections.

$12 top tier gets you 5 additional collections, for a total of 8 (unlike Humble Bundle, there doesn't seem to be a way to top up your pledge, so please be sure of which tier you want before purchasing).

Their Nerd History and Boss Fight bundles, covering computer and video game history, respectively, are still available for the next two weeks.

Humble Bundle's new Humble Comics Bundle Garth Ennis presented by Dynamite offers a free daily comic book issue as a sampler, details in the Comics megathread.

If you happen to be interested in computer programming or learning it and/or free background music, I'll also give a plug to the game Human Resource Machine in the current Humble Eye Candy Bundle which is a delightful and educational problem-solving puzzle game which teaches you how to code, and tests your optimization skills as well (apparently some of the extra problems are a challenge for experienced programmers as well, according to the reviews I've read). The creator offers the soundtrack for HRM completely free in MP3 and FLAC formats at their website here (also gives away the soundtracks for their two other games).

And the game itself in the HB is DRM-free, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms in at least 12 different localized languages so far, at the $1 minimum lowest tier. I've been playing it for the past week and it's lots of fun and surprisingly addictive to try and figure out how to solve the tasks using X # of commands or fewer, and has this storyline about corporate replacement of your job by robots, if you happen to like really cynical bureaucracy jokes. (I like how it explains the concept of the subtraction command by framing it as a workplace theft incident.)

For the nostalgic RPG tabletop gamers in the audience, Bundle of Holding has a new offering: Castle Falkenstein, a 90s-era old school steampunk science/magic game.

[ATDrake]

New Humble Bundle is up, and it's for:

Humble Book Bundle Murder & Mystery Novels presented by Open Road Media, with offerings including backlist crime & adventure tales from the late Michael Crichton and Sweden's Camilla Läckberg, as well as sfnal hybrid technothriller novels from Greg Bear and William Shatner, and many more authors in assorted mystery/thriller subgenres. This seems to be more tilted towards thriller than mystery from the looks of it, though there does seem to be a decent amount of variety, and it's likely very good value for money, considering that ORM usually doesn't drop its titles below $1.99 on sale anyway.

Price is fluctuating a lot this early in, but it's currently under $8 for the better-than-average tier (no extra books added next week), and $15 for the top-tier. There's a total of 16 titles, which works out to less than a buck each, even for the top-tier.

This is probably an auto-buy for me. I already have the Läckberg and Bear books from previous sales, but I want to encourage ORM to keep offering DRM-free bundles (hopefully they'll do another SFnal one someday soon), and I don't mind getting a bunch of backlist thriller novels from reasonably prominent authors in their subgenre to do so.

The Humble Book Bundle: Murder and Mystery Novels presented by Open Road Media

Hit the Open Road. How can you get loads of ebooks from Open Road Media at a pay-what-you-want price? No mystery there: just get this bundle!

Pay $1 or more for Sex and Violence in Hollywood, The 7th Victim, Gray Matter, The Ninja, and Deception.

Pay more than the average price to also receive Tek War, Florida Firefight, Die Easy, Pandora’s Temple, Pandora’s Clock, No Lesser Plea, and Easy Go.

Pay $15 or more for all of that plus A Swollen Red Sun, Quantico, The First Deadly Sin, and The Stranger.

[ATDrake]

New Wildside Press freebie for this Tuesday is up, and it's for:

Discover A New Author: Allan Cole & Chris Bunch, containing an apparently newly-written short story in the Sten science fiction series by the eponymous Allan Cole (ISFDB, Wikipedia) and the late Chris Bunch (ISFDB, Wikipedia), as well as sample chapters from the first novel.

A promotional ebook featuring the first 3 chapters of Sten, by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch, plus the complete short story, "Sten and the Star Wanderers," by Allan Cole.

The publisher says:

"I have enjoyed space opera as long as I have been reading science fiction, and one of the best series in recent memory is the 8-volume "Sten" series, by Chris Bunch and Allan Cole. I know there are a lot of different books fighting for readers' attention these days, which is why I started the "Discover a New Author!" program: to try to persuade readers to sample worthy writers they might otherwise have missed...in this case, Allan Cole and Chris Bunch. Together they coauthored an astounding 40+ novels and 150+ screenplays, and separately they have published scores of popular science fiction and fantasy novels.

"Chris Bunch passed away in 2005, but Allan Cole is still writing, and he recently returned to the Sten universe -- one of their most popular creations -- with a few short stories. He has graciously allowed me to include one, "Sten and the Star Wanderers," in this volume, along with the first three chapters of Sten (book 1 in the series). Read them. Together, they will give you an idea of the quality and feel of the Sten series. And, should you like them, check out Sten and the other 7 volumes of the series (and everything else these fine authors have published.)"

Bundle of Holding has several new RPG gamebook offerings: Blue Planet (sci-fi), Malhavoc Arena (fantasy), and are repeating their previous Ptolus & Malhavoc bundle in the same series, for those who missed it earlier.

Just a reminder that expiring in the next couple of days are the following e-book bundles from StoryBundle: The Boss Fight Bundle (video gaming and game design history) & Nerd History (computer industry personalities and old school tech history). Their Story Collection bundle chock-full of high-quality sfnal short fiction from award-winning authors is still good for another week, as is the Humble Book Bundle Murder & Mystery Novels presented by Open Road, chock-full of well-known crime/thriller novelists.

And the following comics bundles also expiring soon: Humble Comics Bundle Garth Ennis presented by Dynamite which added another volume of his WWII series Battlefields, and one of The Red Team, a contemporary NYPD crime drama, to the middle tier. Groupees' Bundle of Independents, featuring many titles from well-known authors, has been extended a few more days and had its stretch goals lowered, as has their Dynamite Fantasy Bundle, which now allows you to purchase previous Dynamite bundles you might have missed out upon as additional tiers.

[ATDrake]

New Humble Bundle is up, and it's for:

Humble Book Bundle Extraordinary Fiction presented by Small Beer Press, chock-full of mostly sfnal and speculative literary titles from the eponymous publisher, whom I will remind you has a Creative Commons section with free ebooks in it.

This is an auto-buy for me, as they've published works by some of my favourite authors over the years, as well as having been generous with the freebies.

Quite aside from that, they have some excellent offerings in this bundle, including works by Shirley Jackson Award-winning Elizabeth Hand and Campbell Best New Writer finalist Sofia Samatar, Argentina's Angélica Gorodischer translated by Ursula K. Le Guin, also Shirley Jackson Award-winning Maureen F. McHugh (one of my personal favourite sf/f authors; I already own her short story collection in this from an old Fictionwise sale), Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning George Ryman, and Science Fiction & Fantasy Hall of Fame inductee Kate Wilhelm's non-fiction writing advice/memoir of the Clarion Workshop which has produced a number of very well-known sfnal authors. I own this latter as a hardcover, and it's very good and straightforward, with both interesting reminisces, and solid creative tips, IMHO.

Current average is fluctuating, but under $9 at the moment, top-tier is $15, no extra books added next week. This is excellent value for money if you like sfnal stuff with a literary bent, IMHO.

Take one down, pass it around. With this bundle from Small Beer Press, there are plenty of ebooks to go around. In fact, there are 21 included when you add them all up! So grab a 21-pack, crack a Small Beer ebook open, and head to your comfiest chair — good times await.

Pay $1 or more for Meet Me in the Moon Room, Trash Sex Magic, The Fires Beneath the Sea, Fire Logic, The Liminal People, Generation Loss, Tyrannia, The Monkey’s Wedding and Other Stories, and Stranger Things Happen.

Pay more than the average price to also receive A Stranger in Olondria, Couch, Travel Light, The Entropy of Bones, Kalpa Imperial, Solitaire, and North American Lake Monsters.

Pay $15 or more for all of that plus Carmen Dog, The Child Garden, Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, After the Apocalypse, and Archivist Wasp.

ETA: Small Beer Press are also holding a Kickstarter which ends in a week's time, for what seems to be the first English-language publication of a vintage 400 year old science fiction novel, translated and redone in an illustrated edition by Mythopoeic & World Fantasy award-winner John Crowley (ISFDB, Wikipedia; of Little, Big and Ægypt series fame). It's a bit pricey at $10 for the e-book, but if you happen to want to subscribe to the Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet magazine, there's a $20 tier which gives you the e-book and a 8-issue subscription at effectively half off: The Chemical Wedding.

The Kickstarter project page has links to Guardian and Publishers Weekly articles about it all, and there are also options for signed versions of Crowley's paper books as well, as well as signed copies of other Small Beer Press titles, if you happen to wish to collect them.

StoryBundle is offering a new bundle, good for the next three weeks:

Write Stuff 2016 curated by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, a former editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, consisting of DIY creative & career advice from backlist authors including Rusch herself, Dean Wesley Smith, her co-editor at the Fiction River online magazine, SFWA's Cat Rambo, mystery author Lawrence Block, romance author Mindy Klasky, and more.

$5 minimum gets you 5 books.

$15 top tier gets you an additional 5 books.

There does not seem to be any overlap between this, the 2015 Write Stuff bundle offered last year, or the NaNoWriMo bundles offered, either, so these look to be all new-to-you titles.

[Dr. Drib]

Highly recommended selection of titles, and all 15 titles for only a minimum of $15.

Now purchased.

--- Many of these are literary-minded titles with fantastical content, and not merely SF genre titles.

[Abtacha]

Crosspost to my post in the SciFi/Fantasy thread. The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone is on sale in the U.S for $4.99 per book. Provided DRM free since they are published by Tor.

[ATDrake]

New Wildside Press freebie for this Tuesday is up, and it's for:

Wildside Press Presents Discover A New Author!: Lester Del Rey containing 2 vintage science fiction short stories by the late author (ISFDB, Wikipedia) and co-founder of the eponymous Del Rey science fiction imprint from Ballantine, originally published in the Unknown Worlds and Science Fiction Quarterly magazines in 1941 & 1951, respectively, plus some sample chapter excerpts from his novels, some of which are slated to be reprinted by Wildside.

Lester del Rey (1915-1993) was an American science fiction author and editor. He was wrote many books in the juvenile Winston Science Fiction series, and served as editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of Ballantine Books, along with his fourth wife Judy-Lynn del Rey.

Wildside Press was fortunate enough to purchase Lester's literary estate from his family a few years ago, and we have been working hard to get his works digitized and available again to the public. 8 titles have already been published by Wildside Press. His juvenile science fiction books have been reprinted by Thunderchild Publishing. And there are more reprints in the works, both from Wildside Press and other publishers.

This volume contains two complete stories, "Absolutely No Paradox," and "Hereafter, Inc." plus sample chapters from three of Lester del Rey's novels.

Bundle of Holding has a new Pulp Adventure RPG gaming bundle with steampunk and slipstream elements, and their Blue Planet sci-fi colonization game bundle is still good for the next few days.

Just a reminder that expiring in the next couple of days are: Humble Book Bundle Murder & Mystery Novels presented by Open Road Media, containing assorted backlist mystery/thrillers by some well-known authors, and StoryBundle's The Story Collection Bundle, containing high quality single award-winning genre author sfnal collections of their short stories, many of which were the ones which netted them said awards.

And there's still another week to go on the Humble Book Bundle Intoxicating, Extraordinary Fiction presented by Small Beer Press, chock-full of excellent sfnal fiction with a literary flavour, or literary fiction with an sfnal bent, depending on how you look at it. Either way, great value for money at only 72 cents per book for the 21 books in the $15 top tier if you think it might be your kind of thing. And Small Beer Press' Kickstarter for The Chemical Wedding, a vintage proto-sf novel adapted by World Fantasy Award-winner John Crowley, is expiring soon as well.

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

New Wildside Press freebie for this Tuesday is up, and it's for:

Wildside Press Presents Discover A New Author!: Lester Del Rey containing 2 vintage science fiction short stories by the late author (ISFDB, Wikipedia) and co-founder of the eponymous Del Rey science fiction imprint from Ballantine, originally published in the Unknown Worlds and Science Fiction Quarterly magazines in 1941 & 1951, respectively, plus some sample chapter excerpts from his novels, some of which are slated to be reprinted by Wildside.

Just an FYI to anyone who missed last week's Wildside Press freebie of the Sten science fiction series by Allan Cole & Chris Bunch: After adding this week's to my cart, it had suggested purchases along the bottom, one of which was last week's freebie. So you can get it as well.

[ATDrake]

New Wildside Press freebie for this Tuesday is up, and it's for:

Wildside Press Presents: Discover a New Author: Lawrence Watt-Evans, containing two short stories by the eponymous author (ISFDB, Wikipedia) of the popular Ethshar fantasy series: a fantasy short originally printed in Baen's Chicks in Chainmail humour anthologies, and another story which ISFDB tells me was printed in a couple of anthropomorphic furry fiction anthologies, plus a few sample chapters from his novels, many of which are backlist reprinted by Wildside Press at the moment (including almost all of his Ethshar titles, IIRC, which I recommend as enjoyable light fantasy).

Incidentally, these are apparently intended to be permafreebie introductory samplers, so you can still get the past few weeks' worth of them (and some of the older Minipacks) if you happened to miss any earlier.

This series of free ebooks is designed to promote authors you may not have tried before. In this case, Lawrence Watt Evans.

Lawrence won a Hugo Award for his short story, “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers” (Best Short Story, 1988) and has authored the Ethshar fantasy series, the Annals of the Chosen fantasy series, the War Surplus science fiction series, and many other novels and short stories. You don’t publish that much and win awards if you don’t have talent. If you aren’t already reading him, why not? You should be!

So here's your chance to discover exactly what you’ve been missing. This book contains two complete stories and sample chapters from several of his best novels. Lawrence is a great writer—trust us, you want to be reading his work...you just don't know it yet!

A reminder that the excellent and highly recommended if you like this sort of thing Humble Book Bundle Intoxicating, Extraordinary Fiction presented by Small Beer Press, full of literary-flavoured sf/fantasy, or sfnal-flavoured literary fiction, depending on how you look at it, with many works by award-nominated authors, ends tomorrow on Wednesday at 11 AM Pacific Time. It's 21 books for just $15 at the top tier, which works out to just 72 cents per title (and they normally go for around $10 each, even if they are technically couponable). Even if you only get the $1 minimum tier, that's still 9 books for less than 12 cents each, including one award-winning title, one award-finalist title, and two Best Book of the Year listees.

Bundle of Holding are offering two new bundles of assorted RPG gamebooks from White Wolf's Exalted mythic fantasy setting: Exalted 1E Glorious Core Bundle & Exalted 1E Irresistible Setting Bundle. Their older Pulp Adventure bundle is still available for the next few days.

[ATDrake]

New Humble Bundle is up, and it's for:

Humble Book Bundle LGBTQ exploring Pride Month, chock-full of LGBTQ-related titles, including contributions from Lonely Planet for travel, National Public Radio and Open Road for memoirs, Archie Comics featuring their Kevin Keller character, Lightspeed Magazine for their Queers Destroy Science Fiction special issue, and other assorted fiction and non-, comics, manga, and audiobooks, ranging from YA-friendly to decidedly adult.

This early in, it's fluctuating a lot, but people thus far seem to be buying the $15 top-tier, since the average is already at $10+ (no extra books next week).

This is a good eclectic mix of quality works across many subjects and genres, with assorted Lambda and Eisner award-nominated things in it, plus a World Fantasy Award winning story collection by Nalo Hopkinson (ISFDB, Wikipedia) and a National Book Award winning memoir by the late Paul Monette (Wikipedia), though TBH would be an auto-buy for me even without those.

Reading rainbows. LGBTQ literature? Take a look. It's in a book bundle! Support Pride Month by getting up to $342 of ebooks, digital comics, and audiobooks while supporting the It Gets Better Project.

Pay $1 or more for Lonely Planet's Guide To Pride: 20 Cities And Their Celebrations, Falling In Love With Hominids, StoryCorps: OutLoud: Voices of the LGBTQ Community from Across America, Kevin Keller: Welcome to Riverdale, Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story, Starve Vol. 1, and The Mirror of Love.

Pay more than the average price to also receive If You Could Be Mine, Tipping the Velvet, The Infinite Loop, Artifice, Wandering Son Vol. 1, Queers Destroy Science Fiction, and Wuvable Oaf.

Pay $15 or more Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It, No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, Julio's Day, Heart of Thomas, Smut Peddler 2014: A Superior Pornucopia For Classy Dames (And the Forward-Thinking Gentleman), and Wet Moon Vol. 1.

Speaking of Pride and DRM-free, Dreamspinner Press is offering 30% of their entire store through June 8th, which is today, automatic discount, no coupon code required. No sign of their Harmony Ink YA or DSP Publications for non-romance imprints joining in, but there's still a month to go.

Last week's Humble Comics Bundle Ghostbusters presented by IDW seems to have added at least one more 4-issue story arc and a one-shot to the better-than-average tier.

[ATDrake]

New Wildside Press freebie for this Tuesday is up, and it's for:

Wildside Press Presents Discover A New Author: Josh Pachter with four mystery short stories by the eponymous author and editor (ISFDB, Science Fiction Encyclopedia), who happens to have a collection of 10 of his shorts from Ellery Queen & Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine going dirt cheap for just 99 cents in a value-priced megapack if it turns out you like his writing: The Mahboob Chaudri Mystery Megapack: The Complete Series (also available at your favourite retailers as well, very likely).

This series of free ebooks is designed to promote authors you may not have tried before. In this case, Josh Pachter.

Josh broke into the mystery field in 1965 with "E.Q. Griffen Earns His Name." Since that time he has regularly produced mystery stories for magazines and anthologies, including the critically acclaimed "Mahboob Chaudri" series (collected by Wildside Press in paperback as "The Tree of Life: The Mahboob Chaudri Mystery Stories" and in ebook form as "The Mahboob Chaudri Mystery MEGAPACK®").

He is also well known as a translator of fiction and nonfiction from Dutch to English. His translation of Janwillem van de Wetering's "There Goes Ravelaar" (EQMM, January 1985) was nominated for the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Short Story of its year, and, since EQMM inaugurated its regular "Passport to Crime" feature in 2002, more than a dozen Dutch and Belgian authors have been introduced to American readers via his translations.

If you’re not already familiar with his work, here’s your chance to discover what you’ve been missing. This book contains four complete stories, one co-authored with Rebecca K. Jones (who also happens to be Josh’s daughter). So read on...and be prepared: you’re going to want to hunt down more of Josh Pachter’s work when you’re done!

Bundle of Holding has a new superheroes RPG gamebook offering: Icons, and their Exalted fantasy RPG bundles are still good for the next few days.

Just a reminder that expiring soon are StoryBundle's The Write Stuff 2016 Bundle full of creative/career advice guides curated by former Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Humble Bundle's Humble Comics Ghostbusters presented by IDW which will get replaced tomorrow on Wednesday at 11 AM Pacific Time. The Humble Book Bundle LGBTQ supporting Pride Month is still good for the next week, and contains a nice selection of fiction, non-fiction, audiobooks, and graphic novels, many of them award-nominated.

[ATDrake]

New Humble Bundle is up, and it's for:

Humble Book Bundle Electronics presented by Make: full of DIY hobbyist how-tos for the more technically-inclined among us, or those who wish to self-educate into becoming so. All sorts of stuff is covered, from making toys and interactive garments and board games and synthesizers, as well as basics like safety and several volumes of an encyclopaedia of electronic components, and a special 3D-glasses compatible issue of fun projects for the kiddies.

ETA: not gonna lie, the DIY cookie cutters and the "EZ Make Oven" (Wikipedia) project in the blurb for one of the top tier books sound kind of awesome.

Current average is ~$10 (extra books added next week), but I've only ever seen these things go up, since they're highly popular and must be some of HB's best sellers; top-tier is the standard $15.

The power is in your hands. Are you longing to get on the grid? Let these Make: Eelectronics books be your guide -- they’ll energize beginners and seasoned makers alike!

Pay $1 or more for Maker Projects Guide; Make: School’s Out Summer Fun Guide; Make: Electronics, 2nd Edition; The Encyclopedia of Electronic Components: Power Sources & Conversion, Vol. 1; Making Things Talk: Using Sensors, Networks, and Arduino to See, Hear, and Feel Your World; and Making Things See: 3D Vision with Kinect, Processing, Arduino, and MakerBot.

Pay more than the average price to also receive Make: More Electronics; The Encyclopedia of Electronic Components: Vol. 2: Signal Processing; Wearable Electronics: Design, Prototype, and Wear Your Own Interactive Garments; Getting Started with the Photon: Making Things with the Affordable, Compact, Hackable WiFi Module; Getting Started with Sensors: Measure the World with Electronics, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi; Make: Analog Synthesizers: Make Electronic Sounds the Synth-DIY Way; Make: Volume 36: Board Games: A Field Guide to Microcontrollers; Make: Volume 35: The Danger Issue; and Make: Volume 41: Best Toys for Makers.

Pay $15 or more for all of that plus Make: Fun!: Create Your Own Toys, Games, and Amusements and Encyclopedia of Electronic Components, Vol. 3: Sensors.

And of course the Humble Book Bundle LGBTQ supporting Pride Month is still available until next week.

[ATDrake]

New StoryBundle is up, and it's for:

The Adventure Sci-Fi Bundle curated by Kevin J. Anderson, consisting mainly of titles from his WordFire Press imprint, plus some Baen backlist.

$8 minimum gets you 6 novels + 1 anthology, including titles by Todd J. McCaffrey (son of Anne and co-author of some of the later Pern novels), Sarah J. Hoyt (one of the backlist Baen titles), an anthology of hard SF tales edited by Jody Lynn Nye, and more.

$16 top tier gets you an additional 5 novels + 2 collections, including Tales of Dune containing short stories by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson extending the popular franchise, a novel in Kristine Kathryn Rusch's popular Retrieval Artist series, and an anthology of stories inspired by Canadian rock band Rush (this has stories by Mercedes Lackey and Fritz Leiber, among a wide variety of others).

There appears to be minimal overlap with the two previous WordFire Press Humble Bundles, or previous multi-imprint genre offerings from StoryBundle. ETA: only the Alan Dean Foster novel showed up in the Humble Book Bundle Sci-Fi Specials presented by WordFire Press. The other titles have appeared in neither dedicated HB thus far, though some of them might have shown up in assorted other venues.

Bundle of Holding is offering a fantasy historical adventure RPG based on an older RPG called RuneQuest: Mongoose Legend. Their Icons superhero RPG is still available for a few more days.

The Humble Book Bundle Electronics presented by Make: added two more titles to the middle tier: a Best of Make Volume 2 and another Arduino/Raspberry Pi book.

A free sampler of comic book issues is offered in return for signing up for the newsletter on the page for their new Humble Comics Bundle Sonic the Hedgehog.

[ATDrake]

New Wildside Press freebie is up, and it's for:

Wildside Press Presents: Discover a New Author: Rufus King containing a mystery novella by the late author (Wikipedia). In case you missed it, the earlier The Second Rufus King Mystery Minipack® is still offered free.

This series of free ebooks is designed to promote authors you may not have tried before. In this case, Rufus King.

Rufus King wrote mysteries (and a couple of animal stories early on his career) from the 1930s through the 1960s. He is best know for his Lieutenant Valcour series. Wildside Press has been working to bring his novels and short stories back into print, and quite a few are now available. This volume presents a complete novella, “Let Her Kill Herself,” which will give you a good idea of his style. And there are chapter samples from two of his novels. We hope you will want to read more.

To celebrate the launch of the latest novel in Charles Stross' popular The Laundry Files series of Lovecraftian bureaucracy urban fantasy, Bundle of Holding are repeating last year's Bundle of Laundry, containing the gamebooks for the licensed RPG adaptation.

This is an excellent and highly entertaining supplement to the series, if you're a fan. While it doesn't hint at any secrets for the books, these are very well done and engaging, perfectly fitting in with the style and are very readable in their own right even if you don't play the game portion, especially The Mythos Dossiers sourcebook which you'll enjoy if you like the periodic fake documents which show up in the novels and novellas. I bought this last year, and again, recommend it if it sounds like the sort of thing you might be into.

NB: this is the exact same bundle as last year, with all the same books, and the newer RPG supplements which have been released since then are not included, although there may be a possibility of their getting included as an extra later if BoH surprise-boosts the top-tier in the second week, as they occasionally do.

The 2 core books in the Starter Collection are $8.95, and the price to beat to get the extra 5 supplements in the Bonus Collection is currently a little above $24 (regular retail price of the lot is $115).

NB: unlike Humble Bundle, there's no way to upgrade your bundle from the base tier to the top, so please be sure of which tier you want before purchasing. Linkage to the publisher's official page for the RPG, and their page of PDF samples to evaluate, and the blog page category containing news and info and more downloadable samples for the supplements. This freebie mini-supplement gives a good idea of the style of the whole, if you're interested.

Last week's Mongoose Legend fantasy RPG bundle is still on offer, and a reminder that the Humble Book Bundle Electronics presented by Make: full of DIY home hobbyist projects expires tomorrow on Wednesday at 11 AM Pacific Time.

[ATDrake]

New Humble Bundle is up, and it's for:

Humble Magazine Bundle Star Trek presented by Titan Magazines, full of back issues with features and interviews with the actors and creators from all versions of the franchise.

Current average is under $9 (no extra titles added next week), top-tier is $15. ETA: they're all in PDF format, which is understandable, given the contents.

It’s a bundle, not an escalator. Engage! in a little light speed reading with our bundle of Star Trek Magazines presented by Titan. You can pay what you want, which means it won’t cause a warp core breach in your wallet!

First Contact: Pay $1 or more for #24 - Klingons Strike Back!, #28 - The Vulcan Issue, #32 - The Galaxy's Greatest Romances, #33 - The Ultimate Sacrifice, #34 - The Science of Star Trek, #35 - Starships and Space Stations Special, and #51 - Starfleet's Toughest Assignments.

Beam Up: Pay more than the average price to also receive #22 -Star Trek's Top Villains, #23 - Star Trek: The Motion Picture's 30th anniversary, #29 - Patrick Stewart Interview, #36 - Star Trek Ultimate Guide: 1966-1993, #37 - Star Trek Ultimate Guide: 1993 - 2011, #38 - Scott Bakula Interview, #49 - We Need To Talk About Khan, #52 - Star Trek: Voyager's 20th Anniversary, #53 - Myths and Legends, #55 - Anthony Montgomery and John Billingsley talk Star Trek: Enterprise, and 2011 Special Edition - Preparing For the Final Frontier.

The Final Frontier: Pay $15 or more for all of that plus #18 - The Official Star Trek Movie Souvenir Magazine, #19 - Behind the Scenes On The Star Trek Movie, #44 - William Shatner Interview, #45 - Star Trek Into Darkness Special, #48 - Bruce Greenwood Interview, #54 - Leonard Nimoy Special Commemorative Issue, 2014 Special Edition - A Brief History of Star Trek: The Essential Guide.

Last week's Humble Comics Bundle Star Trek presented by IDW has added at least 6 extra titles to the middle tier, including more Archive volumes and the first part of a Doctor Who crossover (the 2nd part was already in the top tier).

Humble Bundle is also offering a freebie DRM-free game, SpaceCom, as part of its Humble PC & Android Bundle 14. Just click on the newsletter subscription box to have it added to your account (does not include soundtrack which is available with the paid version). The bundle also offers some very nice-looking casual games, all DRM-free and available for multiple platforms, and their soundtracks at the super-cheap $3 middle tier (and the game at the top tier where you pretend to be the DM for an RPG group looks like fun.)

StoryBundle also has a new gaming-related offering:

The Giga Game Bundle, full of non-fiction titles about games. Normally these are usually all about video games, but this time around there are books about the histories of simulation and strategy games, namely Dungeons & Dragons and Go.

$5 minimum gets you 4 books, including the D&D history.

$12 top-tier gets you 4 more books, including the Go history.

Their The Adventure Sci-Fi Bundle curated by Kevin J. Anderson is still good for the next week, as is Bundle of Holding's Bundle of Laundry which contains the gamebooks for the officially licensed RPG spin-off of Charles Stross' popular Lovecraftian bureaucracy spy thriller urban fantasy series, until next Monday.

Don't forget to check out the Smashwords July sale, with quite a number of backlist bargains and deals already listed in its dedicated thread. And the BookViewCafé author re-publishing consortium has rotated its monthly sale titles, and has some 99 cent specials including an anthology of sf/fantasy tales by established authors, and a writing advice guide by Deborah J. Ross (ISFDB, Wikipedia).