Backlist

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by crossi

I've thought about it, but I really would prefer to have the books in Amazon's ecosystem. Currently I'm rereading a bunch of my old favorites and have a dozen or so new books bought but not read to keep me busy. As well as working on a rather large Skyrim mod that will keep me occupied for a few months. But I will think about it.

One can virtual shop with Amazon as well. I'm fortunate in that I have a friend in Wales who acts as my agent, but for the most part, you can set up an Amazon UK account without a lot of difficulty.

I had the same issue with the Forgotten Beast of Ed that you did. Pre-ordered, got the order cancelled, but noticed a couple of weeks ago that it was supposed to be available again, it got delayed a week, then came out.

There are a number of SF Gateway books that I would like.

[GeoffR]

Roger Zelazny's Courts of Chaos is out*. It's the fifth book of ten in the Chronicles of Amber, but it completes the first story arc, so maybe I will start reading them soon.

(* Edit: But outside the USA only at Kobo and Amazon, it seems. I get the impression this publisher doesn't really know what they are doing.)

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Roger Zelazny's Courts of Chaos is out*. It's the fifth book of ten in the Chronicles of Amber, but it completes the first story arc, so maybe I will start reading them soon.

(* Edit: But outside the USA only at Kobo and Amazon, it seems. I get the impression this publisher doesn't really know what they are doing.)

Thanks for the pointer.

The Nine Princes in Amber came out Aug 11th, 2015
The Guns of Avalon came out Oct 1st, 2015
Sign of the Unicorn came out Nov 27th, 2015
The Hand of Oberon came out Sept. 12th, 2016
The Courts of Chaos is now out on Nov. 15th, 2017

Courts of Chaos is the last of the Corwin arc of the Amber series. The last five are the Merlin arc.

The publisher, Amber Ltd is the holding company for the Zelazny estate. My understanding is that the person calling the shots is Zelazny's widow. Yea, the books that she has put out in ebook format and the timing of the releases are rather strange. I get the impression that if it was up to Zelazny's kids, they would all be out now.

[GeoffR]

HarperCollins released these as ebooks in the UK and Commonwealth last year, I just noticed them now:

Neverness (1988)

A Requiem for Homo Sapiens:
1. The Broken God (1992)
2. The Wild (1995)
3. War in Heaven (1998)

Ea Cycle:
1. The Lightstone (vol. 1): The Ninth Kingdom (2001)
1. The Lightstone (vol. 2): The Silver Sword (2002)
2. Lord of Lies (2003)
3. Black Jade (2005)
4. The Diamond Warriors (2007)

[HarryT]

Not an author I'm familiar with, Geoff - would you recommend him? Who would you say he's similar to that I'm likely to have heard of?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Not an author I'm familiar with, Geoff - would you recommend him? Who would you say he's similar to that I'm likely to have heard of?

Have a look at the following map.

http://www.literature-map.com/david+zindell.html

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Have a look at the following map.

http://www.literature-map.com/david+zindell.html

That's a pretty weird tool. How can Peter Ackroyd - a writer of biography - be compared to an SF writer? Thanks for posting the link, but I'm honestly none the wiser from looking at it.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's a pretty weird tool. How can Peter Ackroyd - a writer of biography - be compared to an SF writer? Thanks for posting the link, but I'm honestly none the wiser from looking at it.

I've found that tool to be somewhat odd as well. Certainly I ran across a number of authors that were listed as close, but I didn't think were even remotely similar.

I think I have a copy of The Lightstone sitting around here somewhere, certainly the cover looks very familiar. Can't say that it made a big impression or that I read any of his other books. It doesn't seem to have made it to the US Kindle store yet. I might give it another try if it does.

[GeoffR]

The only book of his I read was Neverness, and that a long time ago, but I liked it and I plan to reread it soon, and also read the sequel trilogy now that they're out as ebooks.

This review is for The Broken God but I think the sentiments also apply to Neverness from what I remember of it.

He is American but I gather he was better received in Britain than at home, which might be why the ebooks have not been released in the US.

[GeoffR]

HarperCollins are releasing ebook editions of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy for the UK/Commonwealth markets in May 2018:

1. Foundation
2. Foundation and Empire
3. Second Foundation

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

Roger Zelazny's Courts of Chaos is out*. It's the fifth book of ten in the Chronicles of Amber, but it completes the first story arc, so maybe I will start reading them soon.

(* Edit: But outside the USA only at Kobo and Amazon, it seems. I get the impression this publisher doesn't really know what they are doing.)

The first four books are no longer available at Amazon UK. Weird.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's a pretty weird tool. How can Peter Ackroyd - a writer of biography - be compared to an SF writer? Thanks for posting the link, but I'm honestly none the wiser from looking at it.

From the about page

The more people like an author and another author, the closer together these two authors will move on the Literature-Map.

Seems a very dubious assumption. Popular authors are going to end up "close" to a lot of other authors by virtue of being liked by a lot of people.

Ha! And as if to prove it, here's Stephen King's map. His "closest" author is J.K. Rowling!

(I swear I didn't try that before I wrote the previous paragraph)

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The first four books are no longer available at Amazon UK. Weird.

Sometimes I wonder a bit if the fact that Zelazny and his widow were estranged at the time of his death comes into play. Or it simply could be that like a lot of estates, the person calling the shots isn't proactively managing the various book contracts. She is getting up there in years.

It's interesting that several of his books are available in an ebook format in other languages, but not in English.

[pwalker8]

I ran across Brian Daley's Black Hole Travel Agency series in the Kindle store this morning. No idea how long it's been available, but this is a series that I've been looking for for a long time.

I also managed to finish up my Darkover collection (just the books originally written by MZB) recently. Once again, I suspect the last hold outs have been available for a while, but it's a case of remembering to check to see if they have become available.

Most of my backlist wish list has made it to ebooks. Right now, my wish list is down to the remainder of the Rodger Zelazny books and a group of authors who were either mid-tier or even more obscure Some might make it out, but I suspect most of the rest have either become orphaned or the copyright holder has no apparent interest in releasing it.

[crossi]

Finally The Changeover by Margaret Mahy was just released for kindle. It was a Carnegie Medal winner so I was surprised it took so long.


Still waiting for Brother Jonathan by Crawford Kilian, Fool's Run by Patricia Mckillip, the Time's Master and Chaos Gate series by Louise Cooper, Fuzzy Bones and Golden Dream (not by Piper but continuing the Little Fuzzy series), and the Elenium and Tamuli series by Eddings. Those are the ones I most want an ebook version of. Oh, and A Night in the Lonesome October and Changeling by Zelazny ( it kills me that he wrote 2/3 of a trilogy and left it at a cliffhanger)

There are also quite a few that I'm waiting for price drops, mostly because I already have the paper version or I read them but didn't like them enough to keep a copy but I might rebuy for the right price.