Free/Bargain Science Fiction/Fantasy February 2013

[NightBird]

$1.99 each: Nexus by Ramez Naam from Angry Robot.

Mankind gets an upgrade

In the near future, the experimental nano-drug Nexus can link humans together, mind to mind. There are some who want to improve it. There are some who want to eradicate it. And there are others who just want to exploit it.

When a young scientist is caught improving Nexus, he's thrust over his head into a world of danger and international espionage - for there is far more at stake than anyone realizes.

From the halls of academe to the halls of power, from the headquarters of an elite US agency in Washington DC to a secret lab beneath a top university in Shanghai, from the underground parties of San Francisco to the illegal biotech markets of Bangkok, from an international neuroscience conference to a remote monastery in the mountains of Thailand - Nexus is a thrill ride through a future on the brink of explosion.

Farside by Ben Bova from Macmillan.

Six-time Hugo-Award winner Ben Bova presents Farside.

Farside, the side of the Moon that never faces Earth, is the ideal location for an astronomical observatory. It is also the setting for a tangled web of politics, personal ambition, love, jealousy, and murder.

Telescopes on Earth have detected an Earth-sized planet circling a star some thirty light-years away. Now the race is on to get pictures of that distant world, photographs and spectra that will show whether or not the planet is truly like Earth, and if it bears life.

Farside will include the largest optical telescope in the solar system as well as a vast array of radio antennas, the most sensitive radio telescope possible, insulated from the interference of Earth’s radio chatter by a thousand kilometers of the Moon’s solid body.

Building the Farside observatory is a complex, often dangerous task. On the airless surface of the Moon, under constant bombardment of hard radiation and infalling micrometeoroids, builders must work in cumbersome spacesuits and use robotic machines as much as possible. Breakdowns—mechanical and emotional—are commonplace. Accidents happen, some of them fatal.

What they find stuns everyone, and the human race will never be the same.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

All of Vicki Pettersson's Sign of the Zodiac series are 0.99 each today, starting with The Scent of Shadows at amazon.com.

Same price over at Kobo. Thanks for the heads-up; I just bought all six to "convert" my hardcopies to pixels. Once I hit the used-book store, that conversion will be a net profit for me!

(Well, as long as I treat the original purchases as a sunk cost, anyway...)

ETA: Who doesn't like mad scientists? Amazon US has The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination for $1.99 right now. No idea how long the sale's good for.

[elaysee]

James P. Blaylock's new (Jan. 2013) Langdon St. Ives novel, The Aylesford Skull is $1.99 at BN right now. Regular price at Amazon & Kobo as of this moment.

It is the summer of 1883 and Professor Langdon St. Ives - brilliant but eccentric scientist and explorer - is at home in Aylesford with his family. However, a few miles to the north a steam launch has been taken by pirates above Egypt Bay; the crew murdered and pitched overboard. In Aylesford itself a grave is opened and possibly robbed of the skull. The suspected grave robber, the infamous Dr. Ignacio Narbondo, is an old nemesis of Langdon St. Ives.

When Dr. Narbondo returns to kidnap his four-year-old son Eddie and then vanishes into the night, St. Ives and his factotum Hasbro race to London in pursuit...

The first new steampunk novel in over twenty years from one of the genre's founding fathers!

The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination is also $1.99 at BN right now - Amazon US link from Rev. Bob in previous post.

From Victor Frankenstein to Lex Luthor, from Dr. Moreau to Dr. Doom, readers have long been fascinated by insane plans for world domination and the madmen who devise them. Typically, we see these villains through the eyes of good guys. This anthology, however, explores the world of mad scientists and evil geniuses—from their own wonderfully twisted point of view.

An all-star roster of bestselling authors—including Diana Gabaldon, Daniel Wilson, Austin Grossman, Naomi Novik, and Seanan McGuire…twenty-two great storytellers all told—have produced a fabulous assortment of stories guaranteed to provide readers with hour after hour of high-octane entertainment born of the most megalomaniacal mayhem imaginable.

Everybody loves villains. They’re bad; they always stir the pot; they’re much more fun than the good guys, even if we want to see the good guys win. Their fiendish schemes, maniacal laughter, and limitless ambition are legendary, but what lies behind those crazy eyes and wicked grins? How—and why—do they commit these nefarious deeds? And why are they so set on taking over the world?

If you’ve ever asked yourself any of these questions, you’re in luck: It’s finally time for the madmen’s side of the story.

At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

[hwlester]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

All of Vicki Pettersson's Sign of the Zodiac series are 0.99 each today, starting with The Scent of Shadows at amazon.com.

Also at Sony and Google Play. I have the first one I picked up for free a few years ago, but have never read. Debating grabbing the others at this price. I'll have to pay tax at Sony, but they'd all be together... decisions, decisions.

[NightBird]

Free The Taken: Celestial Blues by Vicki Pettersson from HarperCollins.

Vicki Pettersson, author of the New York Times bestselling Signs of the Zodiac urban fantasy novels, breaks out with The Taken. The first book in her sexy, supernatural noir mystery series, Celestial Blues, The Taken features a former p.i.-turned-fallen angel and a beautiful, tough Las Vegas reporter—the most unorthodox pair of avengers since Jeaniene Frost’s Cat and Bones—joining forces to confront a terror that threatens to wreak murderous havoc in both the mortal and the immortal worlds. A dark and delicious mix of noir mystery, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance...

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by NightBird

Free The Taken: Celestial Blues by Vicki Pettersson from HarperCollins.

Already dead, at least in the US, it's $8.89 now.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

Same price over at Kobo. Thanks for the heads-up; I just bought all six to "convert" my hardcopies to pixels. Once I hit the used-book store, that conversion will be a net profit for me!

(Well, as long as I treat the original purchases as a sunk cost, anyway...)

ETA: Who doesn't like mad scientists? Amazon US has The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination for $1.99 right now. No idea how long the sale's good for.

Maybe I'll finally try the Petterson ones. I keep seeing them (and made fun of a couple of her covers when they came out because the poses to shoot are plain silly). You've read them and liked them?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Already dead, at least in the US, it's $8.89 now.

Well, crap. There went that idea.

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

ETA: Who doesn't like mad scientists? Amazon US has The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination for $1.99 right now. No idea how long the sale's good for.

Thanks Rev. Bob and elaysee! Wasn't available at amazon for me but got it at B&N. I wanted this for the Diana Gabaldon story but Seanan McGuire has one in there too so it should be good.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

Thanks Rev. Bob and elaysee! Wasn't available at amazon for me but got it at B&N. I wanted this for the Diana Gabaldon story but Seanan McGuire has one in there too so it should be good.

Can someone say whether the Diana Gabaldon story is related to the Outlander series?

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Can someone say whether the Diana Gabaldon story is related to the Outlander series?

Yes.

Spoiler:

It is supposed to be about Jamie's nephew and step-daughter when she leaves to be a nun.

[badgoodDeb]

Oh my word. I saw your spoiler in its entirity in email -- me thinks I'd better get around to finishing up book 7 - An Echo in the Bone. I got stalled 1/3 of the way in, and haven't gotten back to it. I think I missed that part!

[treadlightly]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Oh my word. I saw your spoiler in its entirity in email -- me thinks I'd better get around to finishing up book 7 - An Echo in the Bone. I got stalled 1/3 of the way in, and haven't gotten back to it. I think I missed that part!

Remember there are two of them! I added the spoiler tag after I realized not everyone may have read EITB.

[NightBird]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Already dead, at least in the US, it's $8.89 now.

Yikes - that was quick.

[NightBird]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Already dead, at least in the US, it's $8.89 now.

And: