FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I enjoy a decent book cover but I can't remember when last purchased a book based on the cover over the contents.

Two things:

1. Nobody said they were refusing to purchase the books because of the lousy new covers. But there's no harm pointing out the current batch of covers are less appealing than previous covers on those same books.
2. I call BS on your claim. In the days of paper books, when scanning the shelves at B. Dalton, what would cause you to pick up a book by an author that was new to you? Did you close your eyes and randomly grab books? No. A cover would catch your eye and you would pick it up to read what it was about.

[DNSB]

Actually, I never visited B. Dalton. As for purchasing a book by an author new to me? For the most part I got recommendations from meeting authors at cons, the SFFandom group on FidoNet and prior to that, from other local SF fen. Since most of the bookstores I was in stored the books with the spine out, the title was what would catch my eye not the cover since that was not really visible until I had already pulled the book out.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

[*]I call BS on your claim. In the days of paper books, when scanning the shelves at B. Dalton, what would cause you to pick up a book by an author that was new to you? Did you close your eyes and randomly grab books? No. A cover would catch your eye and you would pick it up to read what it was about.

I used to work at a Lauriat's. We would always face covers out for new titles and books we wanted to push because covers are marketing first and foremost.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Actually, I never visited B. Dalton. As for purchasing a book by an author new to me? For the most part I got recommendations from meeting authors at cons, the SFFandom group on FidoNet and prior to that, from other local SF fen. Since most of the bookstores I was in stored the books with the spine out, the title was what would catch my eye not the cover since that was not really visible until I had already pulled the book out.

I'm sure that you are the only person on Earth who never saw a book cover prior to having the book recommended to you by someone, or, if in desperation, perhaps at an airport bookstore, only picked up books that were shelved spine out and when a title (and a title alone) intrigued you, you would pull the book in such a way as to scan the back first. You probably didn't even know books had illustrated covers!

[DNSB]

Sadly, I didn't fly that often and when I did, I brought books with me. About 50% of my luggage was books. And yes, I did know that books had illustrated covers. I still have a collection of prints of Chesley Bonestell's work in a box along with quite a few other SF &F prints picked up at various cons. I admired cover art by Richard Powers, Bruce Pennington, Darrell K. Sweet, Frank Frazetta, Michael Whelan, Jack Gaugan and a whole shopping list of other artists.

What I don't remember is buying a book because of the cover illustration. Mostly since all too many cover illustrations lacked any connection to the story between the covers. Most of the covers made me suspect that artist had never read the story.

Also, many of the covers begged the question as to why the male character was wearing protective gear and the female character were wearing as little as the editors would allow. Another example of lack of connection was the male character on the cover of Witch World who was wearing an outfit that didn't belong anywhere in the story (the Falconers wore winged helms with a mask if I remember correctly).

[GlennD]

I've bought books simply because they had a Whelan painting on the cover. I've always figured that a book company isn't spending the bucks for a Whelan cover unless it is a book they're very confident in. I know not to judge a book that way, of course. But I might not have bought the Elric books if I'd first encountered the Robert Gould cover art. (I've never been a fan of his, I know many people are.) As it is, the Whelan Elric paintings are among my favorites.

[salty-horse]

The All-Consuming World by Cassandra Khaw is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

**“A visionary, foul-mouthed, gory sci-fi adventure, dripping viscera, violence, and beauty in equal measure. . . . The All-Consuming World will consume your attention and linger in your thoughts, a very good ride and a remarkable what-if.”—NPR

“What a @#*% ride!—P. Djèlí Clark, award-winning author of Ring Shout

In Locus and British Fantasy Award nominee Cassandra Khaw’s first novel, a crew of diminished former criminals get back together to solve the mystery of their last, disastrous mission. But the universe’s highly-evolved AI has its own opposing agenda... and will do whatever it takes to keep humans from ever controlling them again.**

In space, everything hungers.

Maya has died and been resurrected into countless cyborg bodies during her dangerous career with the Dirty Dozen, the most storied crew of criminals in the galaxy before their untimely and gruesome demise. Decades later, she and her team of broken, diminished outlaws must get back together to solve the mystery of their last, disastrous mission and to rescue a missing and much-changed comrade . . . but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of the secret at the heart of the planet Dimmuborgir.

The highly evolved AI of the galaxy will do whatever it takes to keep humanity from regaining control. As Maya and her comrades spiral closer to uncovering the AIs’ vast conspiracy, this band of violent women—half-clone and half-machine—must battle both sapient ageships and their own traumas, in order to settle their affairs once and for all.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Sadly, I didn't fly that often and when I did, I brought books with me. About 50% of my luggage was books. And yes, I did know that books had illustrated covers. I still have a collection of prints of Chesley Bonestell's work in a box along with quite a few other SF &F prints picked up at various cons. I admired cover art by Richard Powers, Bruce Pennington, Darrell K. Sweet, Frank Frazetta, Michael Whelan, Jack Gaugan and a whole shopping list of other artists.

What I don't remember is buying a book because of the cover illustration. Mostly since all too many cover illustrations lacked any connection to the story between the covers. Most of the covers made me suspect that artist had never read the story.

Also, many of the covers begged the question as to why the male character was wearing protective gear and the female character were wearing as little as the editors would allow. Another example of lack of connection was the male character on the cover of Witch World who was wearing an outfit that didn't belong anywhere in the story (the Falconers wore winged helms with a mask if I remember correctly).

Add me to this list. It was a good thing that they did not weigh luggage when I was traveling.
Apache

[salty-horse]

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor is $3 in the US (Kobo US, Kobo WW, Amazon)
Recent release. Was on my wishlist.

In this exhilarating tale by New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor, a disabled Nigerian American woman pens a wildly successful Sci-Fi novel, but as her fame rises, she loses control of the narrative—a surprisingly cutting, yet heartfelt drama about art and love, identity and connection, and, ultimately, what makes us human. This is a story unlike anything you’ve read before.

The future of storytelling is here.

Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots.

When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey—one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be. From Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, Zelu’s novel will change the future not only for humanity, but for the robots who come next.

A book-within-a-book that blends the line between writing and being written, Death of the Author is a masterpiece of metafiction that manages to combine the razor-sharp commentary of Yellowface with the heartfelt humanity of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable, this is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard and a testament to the power of storytelling to shape the world as we know it.

[Hollow Man]

Leviathan Wakes, the first book of The Expanse series, is on sale for $2.99.

Amazon USA
Kobo USA

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor is $3 in the US (Kobo US, Kobo WW, Amazon)
Recent release. Was on my wishlist.

Meta-fictional cross-breeding between Literary and Sci-Fi.

Looks exciting to me, so I bought it.

Thank you!

[salty-horse]

Here's Raf Blutaxt on Death of the Author. First part is spoiler-free: https://youtu.be/fJn_3PmAzbE

The Wall Of The Sky, The Wall Of The Eye by Jonathan Lethem is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

A dead man is brought back to life so he can support his family in "The Happy Man"; occasionally he slips into a zombielike state while his soul is tortured in Hell. In "Vanilla Dunk," future basketball players are given the skills of old-time stars like Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. And in "Forever, Said the Duck," stored computer personalities scheme to break free of their owners.

In these and other stories in this striking collection, Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, draws the reader ever more deeply into his strange, unforgettable world—a trip from which there may be no easy return.

[salty-horse]

Moonbound by Robin Sloan is $4 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Arthurian SF. This was on the Ancillary Review of Books' list of 2024 notable releases.

Robin Sloan expands the Penumbraverse to new reaches of time and space in a rollicking far-future adventure.
It is eleven thousand years from now. A lot has happened, and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in a remote village under a wizard’s rule. Like many adventurers before him, Ariel is called to explore a world full of eye-popping discoveries and challenges: unknown enemies, a mission to rescue the world, a girl. Here, as they say, be dragons. But none of this happens before Ariel encounters an entity from an earlier civilization, a sentient, sensitive artificial intelligence with a special perspective on all of human history—who becomes both Ariel’s greatest ally . . . and our narrator.

Moonbound is an adventure into the richest depths of Story itself from the creator of the Penumbraverse, Robin Sloan. It is a deeply satisfying epic of ancient scale, blasted through the imaginative prism of one of our most forward-thinking writers. And this is only the beginning.