FREE/BARGAIN - Science Fiction, Fantasy - 2016

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I've read his Well of Souls, Three Kings and Quintara Marathon books (they were published by Baen).

There are some interesting ideas, and are rather action orientated. A very good buy at $20 for three series.

Looks it. That comes to.$1.33 per book which isn't bad really.

[ATDrake]

X-link to the DRM-free megathread for this Tuesday's Wildside Press freebie:

The Fritz Leiber Minipack containing 3 short stories by the Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser author and founder of the sword & sorcery subgenre.

Also, there's a Humble Weekly Bundle including Rifftrax's MSTK3-style parodies of bad sfnal films like Plan 9 From Outer Space and Sharknado, among others.

[curtw]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Also, there's a Humble Weekly Bundle including Rifftrax's MSTK3-style parodies of bad sfnal films like Plan 9 From Outer Space and Sharknado, among others.

Thanks! I saw "Sharknado" live but it'll be great to have continued access. With "Manos" and "Plan 9," this bundle is a must-have!

(Also, they're out at theaters next week with a replay of "Starship Troopers;" I'm getting my tickets ASAP.)

[specficwriter]

Soldier of Sidon by Gene Wolfe $2.99 US

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000V7704Q/

[Dngrsone]

The Autobiography of James T. Kirk Kindle version on sale for $0.99 at Amazon.

[ATDrake]

There's some pretty good quality backlist sf/fantasy in Kobo's current Buy 1 Get 1 Free sale in Canada & the US which expires today (Jan 11th), from Diversion Books (all eligible for the extra VIP discount), buried in the Page Turning Fiction listing, many of which follow up on freebies we've previously received from them.

At around the $3 USD mark (before discount; most of the books are at the exact same price so it works out to 50% off if you pair them off favourably, so roughly $2 CAD per after taxes), you can get the 2nd & 3rd of Deborah Chester's (former writing mentor of popular urban fantasy novelist Jim Butcher) Ruby Throne Trilogy, for which we've previously received the 1st in series free. You can also pick up some vintage classic Henry Kuttner (ISFDB, Wikipedia; technically public domain in Life+50 countries, but some obscure stuff handily collected into low-cost packages legally available outside), and the 3rd in Geoffrey Huntington's Ravenscliff YA gothic fantasy trilogy for which we've previously received the 1st & 2nd free.

And if you're willing to spring for a little extra, there's Ursula K. Le Guin's classic The Lathe of Heaven (Wikipedia) and Patricia C. Wrede & Pamela Dean's Points of Departure which collects newly-written short stories in the Liavek shared fantasy universe (Wikipedia), which I'll be picking up myself.

They've also some pretty good backlist mystery if you need cart filler to pair off everything you want, as noted by sufue in the Mystery megathread. We've previously received 1st-in-series Diversion freebies from Candace Robb's Owen Archer historical Welsh & Margaret Kerr historical Scottish and Grant Blackwood's Briggs Tanner novels, as well as standalones from David Dodge & Newton Thornburg, in case you wanted to try their writing first (or you already did and wanted to pick up more and were hoping for the good coupons during the next round of contests).

[Mort1997]

The latest Storybundle e-mail arrived and looks interesting

https://storybundle.com/indie?utm_so...=immerseordie2

minimum spend $3 dollars for 5 books or $12 for 9 books

Spoiler:

''Curated by Jefferson Smith

So here we are with the second annual ImmerseOrDie StoryBundle collection. Indie writing gets a bad rap for being full of poorly executed dreck, but hidden in that firehose of sludge, there are occasional gems. ImmerseOrDie's mission is to hunt those down so you don't have to.

If you don't already know how it works, the premise is simple. Every morning, I get on my treadmill, open a new indie fantasy or science fiction ebook, and start my morning walk. Every time I read something that breaks my immersion in the story—bad grammar, inconsistent worldbuilding, illogical character behaviors, etc.—the book earns a red flag, called a WTF. If I find three WTFs before I finish my 40-minute walk, the clock stops, the book closes, and I go off to write up a report about what went wrong, for the benefit of both readers and authors alike. (Check out the archived reports at immerseordie.com.)

But this StoryBundle is not just the few books that were clean enough to squeak past my 40-minute guard dogs. After that first round, survivors were then run through a second gauntlet in which they had to do more than simply avoid WTF triggers. This time they had to grab my attention, hold it, and deliver a complete and satisfying story. Not just clean production, but an entertaining read. And not just for 40 minutes, but for the entire book.

The result? Seven glorious books plucked from the indie firehose of suck, plus two of my own so you can judge the judge for yourself. These are not high schoolers trying to score cash for their rambling first drafts, nor are they trunk novels written by established writers padding their revenue streams with weaker work. These are great stories from truly unknown writers who have all kinds of game and are now hunting the savannah in search of you, their audience. If I've done my job right, this StoryBundle will be just the break you've both been waiting for. – Jefferson Smith

The initial titles in the 2016 Immerse or Die Bundle (minimum $3 to purchase) are:

Strange Places by Jefferson Smith
Rust: Season One by Christopher Ruz
The Vampire of Northanger by Bryce Anderson
Dark Matter by Brett Adams
Colt Coltrane and the Lotus Killer by Allison M. Dickson

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $12, you get all five of the regular titles, plus four more:

Oath Keeper by Jefferson Smith
Pilgrim of the Storm by Russ Linton
The Girl at the End of the World by Richard Levesque
Catskinner's Book Vol 1: The Book of Lost Doors by Misha Burnett

The bundle is available for a very limited time only, via http://www.storybundle.com. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub and .mobi) for all books!"

[binaryhermit]

I'd like to point out that my calculations, which may be wrong, show that "a very limited time" appears to end at 11 PM EST on February 4th, which would be a little less than 22 days 7 hours from now.

EDIT: Not meaning to shoot the messenger or anything, it's just that "3+ weeks" doesn't meet my definition of "a very limited time"

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

I'd like to point out that my calculations, which may be wrong, show that "a very limited time" appears to end at 11 PM EST on February 4th, which would be a little less than 22 days 7 hours from now.

EDIT: Not meaning to shoot the messenger or anything, it's just that "3+ weeks" doesn't meet my definition of "a very limited time"

I agree with you, and this is simply marketing hype.

The selections may be very good, but the hype is always present....

I may get these books.....or I may not.

[Fbone]

Pandora's Genes (The Pandora's Trilogy) (Volume 1) by Kathryn Lance is FREE at Amazon today. Warner 1985. GR 3.73

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B...ies_dp_rw_ca_1

[Mort1997]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

I'd like to point out that my calculations, which may be wrong, show that "a very limited time" appears to end at 11 PM EST on February 4th, which would be a little less than 22 days 7 hours from now.

EDIT: Not meaning to shoot the messenger or anything, it's just that "3+ weeks" doesn't meet my definition of "a very limited time"

I didn't take much notice of this when I pasted in the e-mail, it is fairly standard format for the humble and story bundles. I'll delete that bit in future!

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Mort1997

The latest Storybundle e-mail arrived and looks interesting

https://storybundle.com/indie?utm_so...=immerseordie2

minimum spend $3 dollars for 5 books or $12 for 9 books

Spoiler:

''Curated by Jefferson Smith

So here we are with the second annual ImmerseOrDie StoryBundle collection. Indie writing gets a bad rap for being full of poorly executed dreck, but hidden in that firehose of sludge, there are occasional gems. ImmerseOrDie's mission is to hunt those down so you don't have to.

If you don't already know how it works, the premise is simple. Every morning, I get on my treadmill, open a new indie fantasy or science fiction ebook, and start my morning walk. Every time I read something that breaks my immersion in the story—bad grammar, inconsistent worldbuilding, illogical character behaviors, etc.—the book earns a red flag, called a WTF. If I find three WTFs before I finish my 40-minute walk, the clock stops, the book closes, and I go off to write up a report about what went wrong, for the benefit of both readers and authors alike. (Check out the archived reports at immerseordie.com.)

But this StoryBundle is not just the few books that were clean enough to squeak past my 40-minute guard dogs. After that first round, survivors were then run through a second gauntlet in which they had to do more than simply avoid WTF triggers. This time they had to grab my attention, hold it, and deliver a complete and satisfying story. Not just clean production, but an entertaining read. And not just for 40 minutes, but for the entire book.

The result? Seven glorious books plucked from the indie firehose of suck, plus two of my own so you can judge the judge for yourself. These are not high schoolers trying to score cash for their rambling first drafts, nor are they trunk novels written by established writers padding their revenue streams with weaker work. These are great stories from truly unknown writers who have all kinds of game and are now hunting the savannah in search of you, their audience. If I've done my job right, this StoryBundle will be just the break you've both been waiting for. – Jefferson Smith

The initial titles in the 2016 Immerse or Die Bundle (minimum $3 to purchase) are:

Strange Places by Jefferson Smith
Rust: Season One by Christopher Ruz
The Vampire of Northanger by Bryce Anderson
Dark Matter by Brett Adams
Colt Coltrane and the Lotus Killer by Allison M. Dickson

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $12, you get all five of the regular titles, plus four more:

Oath Keeper by Jefferson Smith
Pilgrim of the Storm by Russ Linton
The Girl at the End of the World by Richard Levesque
Catskinner's Book Vol 1: The Book of Lost Doors by Misha Burnett

The bundle is available for a very limited time only, via http://www.storybundle.com. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get multiple DRM-free formats (.epub and .mobi) for all books!"

"Hey, Joe. Whatdaya know?"

Well, I went ahead and bought this CRITICAL () time-limited set of books.

Maybe they're real stinkers.....but then, again, maybe not....

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Mort1997

I didn't take much notice of this when I pasted in the e-mail, it is fairly standard format for the humble and story bundles. I'll delete that bit in future!

NO! NO! -- WE ALL NEED A GOOD LAUGH FROM MARKETING-TYPE HYPES WITH THEIR FINGERS UP THEIR 'YOU-KNOW-WHAT'!

Please don't delete such marketing tripe. (That's my vote, anyway.)

[Manabi]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

NO! NO! -- WE ALL NEED A GOOD LAUGH FROM MARKETING-TYPE HYPES WITH THEIR FINGERS UP THEIR 'YOU-KNOW-WHAT'!

Please don't delete such marketing tripe. (That's my vote, anyway.)

Leave it in but add poster's notes after it in quotes "The bundle is available for a very limited time only [where limited = a whole month, because time flows differently in marketing departments]"

[curtw]

Originally Posted by Manabi

Leave it in but add poster's notes after it in quotes "The bundle is available for a very limited time only [where limited = a whole month, because time flows differently in marketing departments]"

Well, if a century still meets the US Congress' definition of "limited time," then a month could certainly be called a VERY limited time.