Free (Kindle KDP) Beyond the Gate by David Farland/Dave Wolverton [Epic Sci-Fi Quest]

[ATDrake]

Well, I think that's finally it for all the official publisher KDP slushpile freebies for Monday although I might have lost a few in the browser crash. There's some other non-KDP official author/small press stuff I'll post later when I have time, but right now I have 15 minutes to do today's time-limited KDP Select exclusive-or-else for who knows how long backlist sf/fantasy treat.

Beyond the Gate by Dave Wolverton writing as David Farland (and whose ISFDB and Wikipedia entries you can look up yourself today, because I still need to shower and eat before I leave) is 2nd in his Golden Queen epic sci-fi quest trilogy, originally out from Tor in 1995. We received the eponymous 1st in series a couple of months ago.

Free with DRM for who knows how long @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT

Description
When Gallen O’Day is hired to as a bodyguard to escort a young woman through the woods to the forbidden ruins at Geata Na Chruinn, it seems like an ordinary job—but all too soon, he finds himself fleeing for his life from creatures that seem like escapees from a nightmare—the alien dronon, led by their golden queen. With his best friend, a genetically engineered talking bear named Orick, and his girlfriend Maggie, Gallen soon finds himself tangled in an interstellar war that he never knew existed, racing across a host of worlds, confronted by a future unlike any that he had ever imagined.

The following is the probably-new stuff which makes the now 10 minute cutoff:

Australian writer Ian Moffit returns with his 1983 Collins-published Australia-set psychological suspense/crime thriller: The Colour Man

Australian small-pressed history writer Hugh V. Clarke returns with: Break-Out! - The Japanese POW Break-Out at Cowra, 1944

Hodder Headline-published Australian-resident British-Canadian writer David Crookes offers an historical adventure/drama set during the Elizabethan pirate/Spanish conquistador era with a search for Australia: Children of the Sun

Harlequin-published presumably-not-Australian writer Sandra Marton returns with a contemporary romance: Love Scenes

Small Australian press Big Sky Publishing has a few non-fiction military/cultural memoirs free today as well.

Time's up. Happy reading, if you manage to spot something you think you might like, or you really enjoy books set in Australia written by actual Australians.

[ATDrake]

Feature still free, and we have a number of rather nifty things today, including some extensive backlist offerings/published work tie-ins and a fair number of sf/fantasy/horror shorts.

Previously title-featured ISFBDeb Baen-published Janet Morris returns with a short story in the popular Thieves' World shared universe fantasy setting in a newly revised and expanded edition: Wake of the Riddler

Clifford Thurlow is a professional ghost-writer whose name officially appears as a co-author credit on several memoirs. He offers two works, a literary fiction novel, and a Salvador Dali acquaintance memoir was apparently published in 2000 (there's a Spanish-language paperback appearing a year later) and which quotes blurb praise from a writer for the UK newspaper The Guardian's Observer supplement: Linkage for them both

Tom Phelan's 1993 small pressed historical IRA literary suspense drama quotes a lot of newspaper praise, especially from Ireland, and its prominent mention of being a "Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection" seems especially ironic in the light of this very likely being a KDP Select exclusive-or-else edition: In the Season of the Daisies

British fantasy writer C.L. Holland (ISFDB entry) has had a number of short stories published in small press anthologies and offers a mini-collection of them here: A World in Clockwork and Other Stories

William Meikle (ISFDB entry) who has had an Honorable Mention in one of those Windling/Datlow-edited Year's Best Fantasy/Horror anthologies, offers a collection of his previously-published short stories and a writing advice book: Linkage for the lot

Canadian-expat Greek-resident Irish citizen Robert Maclean returns with a conspiracy-esque murder mystery originally published under the title Home from the Party in 1995 by small press Ronsdale and which quotes newspaper praise from both Canadian and Greek outlets: Greek Island Murder

Sourcebooks-published Abigail Reynolds, who happens to write Jane Austen derivatives for them, offers some Austen-derivative shorts for your further Austen-derivative enjoyment: A Pemberley Medley (A Pride & Prejudice Variation)

Award-winning Chinese sci-fi writer Liu Cixin returns with another translated short: The Micro-Age

Dutton-published Jeff Shelby returns with another installment continuing his formerly Dutton-published mystery series: Drift Away (Noah Braddock Mysteries)

Under the aegis of Ten Talents Press, a number of well-established authors are offering some of their backlist and new works, including Sourcebooks-published romance writers Leigh Greenwood & Leanna Ellis & Connie Mason, Tyndale & Baker & Thordike-published Christian fiction writers Robin Lee Hatcher and Jane Peart and Siri L. Mitchell, and a nifty-looking historical society murder mystery by Mary Nealy, whose credentials I looked up once and don't feel like digging up again: Linkage for the lot

Xcite Books returns with some new erotic romance/erotica for your collection: Linkage for the lot. You'll have to dig a bit, since the old expired freebies are still lumped in with the $0.00 ones, thanks to how Amazon not!filters the Prime "free" lending stuff. I suggest resorting by Popularity to help drive the ones that people haven't already all gotten to the top.

This looks like a fun design history artbook, and I don't often see fun-looking design history artbooks in the KDP slushpile (more often I see artbooks purporting to contain erotic nudes, so to speak), so I hereby include this book by Klaus Leschel who says he has worked on some visual design-related stuff: swissness

Happy reading, if you manage to spot something you think you might like.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Dutton-published Jeff Shelby returns with another installment continuing his formerly Dutton-published mystery series: Drift Away (Noah Braddock Mysteries)

Correct link is: http://www.amazon.com/Drift-Away-Bra.../dp/B008CAZA82

[ATDrake]

Fixed, thanks.

[Fbone]

I'll add Foxy Statehood Hens and Murder Most Fowl (The Foxy Hens) to your list, if I may. This is 3 romantic mystery stories by 3 authors published in 2007 by Deadly Niche Press.

http://www.amazon.com/Foxy-Statehood...foxy+statehood

And another Foxy Hen title:
http://www.amazon.com/Foxy-Hens-Bump...ords=foxy+hens

[piperclassique]

Thanks all. The Foxy Hens are also free on Amazon UK but I cant see how to do a neat little link, I just get the whole huge URL

[ATDrake]

Feature still free; thanks to posters who also contributed.

A late dip into the slushpile as I've had a very busy and tiring day and haven't even been able to look until just now (the only reason I'm still awake to type this is because I'm sufficiently food-deprived that I'm doing the trawl while eating ginger chicken to stave off impending starvation instead of heading straight for the land of blissful unconsciousness).

We have a few nifty new things from well-established writers offering some self-pubs continuing series they've offered previously, and we also have two genuine backlist treats, one of which I'd class as quite important as far as history/world events go.

If you pick up only one book from the slushpile today, it should probably be this one:

Acclaimed British journalist Robert J. Cox' (Wikipedia entry) first-hand experiences of the Argentinian "Dirty War" under the oppressive government regime form the basis of his son's book about those troubling times, originally published in 2008 by the Evening Post Publishing Company: Dirty Secrets, Dirty War

UK historical fiction writer Harriet Smart returns with a 1995 Hodder Headline-published WWI-set drama which looks like it may be in the same series as one offered earlier: The Lark Ascending

Avon-published David Kessler offers a legal mystery/thriller which apparently continues his Avon-published series: Marked Man (an Alex Sedaka thriller)

Simon & Schuster-published Peter Michael Rosenberg returns with a semi-sfnal literary fiction about some guy who apparently has some kind of possibly hallucinatory break with reality, which he imagines to run upon microscopic principles: The Uncertainty Principle

Penguin-published UK writer John Matthews returns with a YA urban fantasy adventure/thriller which he says started life as a film script: Blind School

Adams Media/Tyrus-published Seth Harwood returns with another in his Hollywood action film star turned sleuth mystery/thriller series: Jack Palms in Triad Death Match (Jack Palms Crime)

ISFDBed Phoebe Matthews returns with a mini-collection of shorts in her urban fantasy setting: Guard Dog? (Mudflat Magic)

I have this soft spot for the Legion of Super-Heroes, who are kind of incredibly out of sync with the rest of the DC Comics Universe despite repeated attempts to reboot and retrofit them again and again (also, I like how rejected Legion members who inevitably get publicly humiliated at the tryouts by the actual Legion members who mostly really shouldn't be throwing stones when it comes to their own brittle glass houses of "stupidest-sounding superpower ever" end up being their generally ubercompetent future nemeses; they ought to learn to treat applicants less crappily and maybe those won't be out for revenge, REVENNNNGE!!!!! later on — you'd think those umpty dozen anti-Legion squads or whatever made up of the rejects would teach them eventually). So I hereby include the self-explanatory: Teenagers from the Future: Essays on the Legion of Super-Heroes This has a foreword by Matt Fraction, who writes for Marvel Comics, IIRC.

I also have this soft spot for "Wicked Traveler" type phrasebooks, so I hereby include some linkage for this "Cheeky Bastard Phrasebooks" series (I will not vouch for the accuracy or usability of the language contained within): Just the two of them thus far Bonus linkage to the classic Zompist phrasebook online, which will teach you to say some really essential stuff for internet participation in the eternal rolling Heinlein flamewar in no fewer than 8 languages.

Small presses which have some new offerings amidst their repeats include: Xcite Books (more erotic romance & erotica), Books We Love/BWLPP (assorted genre fiction), MuseItUp (probably an imprint of BWLPP, more assorted genre fiction).

Oh, and if you're into studying medicine, some people from the Audio Digest website which apparently does some specialty guides for things is offering a bunch free: Linkage for the lot

Happy reading, if you manage to spot anything you think you might like, or you learn some useful cheeky phrases that will help you in internet disputes.

[Blue Tyson]

Teenagers of the Future is great. What a deal.

I have this one and the Dead Tree version even! I've read a few of the Seqart books, very good stuff.

[ATDrake]

They've another one out on the X-Men films. I thought it was just one of those fanboy self-pub things when I saw it earlier: Mutant Cinema: The X-Men Trilogy from Comics to Screen

[Blue Tyson]

Oh, no. Seqart is serious - they do good stuff. Check the website.

http://www.sequart.org/

There's also one on the recent Batman movies that was excellent. Haven't read the X-Men one yet, picked up the freebie.

All the others I have bought.

Essay anthologies on Planetary and Watchmen are also excellent.

[kg3]

This is also free:

Minutes to Midnight: Twelve Essays on Watchmen

[Blue Tyson]

Yeah, that was one of the ones I mentioned.

Also really good.

[ATDrake]

Well, the insomnia woke me up earlier than usual, so I had a bit more time to slog through the slushpile. We have some really nice things for mystery readers today, and a few interesting historical fiction items as well.

Feature still free, some of the good stuff from previous days as well. Thanks to posters who contributed their own finds.

Previously-included Camel Press returns to offer an apparently minor debut fiction award-winning novel by John Patrick Lowrie for which no description I can give could possibly do justice, so I'll just quote the first two sentences of the blurb: "What would happen if Odysseus met Captain Ahab in the Fortieth Century? Only Captain Ahab is a beautiful woman named Steel who owns her own starship and Odysseus is an unemployed actor named Mohandas who’s stuck on the backside of a backwater moon because he won't pay his taxes." : Dancing with Eternity

Christine Kling returns with the 2005 Ballantine-published 3rd in her Seychelle Sullivan, Sleuthy Sea Captain, mystery/suspense series: Bitter End

Penny Warner, who writes a lot of books for learning Sign Language and such and is apparently also a genre fiction award-nominee offers her 1997 Bantam-published 1st-in-series featuring a hearing-impaired sleuth, which apparently won the award: DEAD BODY LANGUAGE (A Connor Westphal Mystery)

Parnell Hall offers a 1997 Mysterious Press 12th in PI series mystery for which he quotes favourable comments from the New York Times Book Review and Kirkus: Scam (Stanley Hastings Mystery, #12)

Christian fiction writer Robert Elmer returns with 2001 Bethany House-published installment in his Palestine/Israel-set YA thriller series: Refugee Treasure (Promise of Zion)

Jessica James, who at one point wrote investment books for John Wiley & Sons, offers her 2008 Patriot Press historical drama which she says has won a few specified genre/indie newbie awards: Shades of Gray: A Novel of the Civil War in Virginia

Lucinda Brant, who at one time apparently had a book out from New Concepts Publishing, offers an historical mystery with strong romantic elements and a very unfortunate-sounding portmanteau name for the crossover subgenre. A lesson for all the shippers out there: just because you can namesmush doesn't mean you should: Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) The 1st in this series was offered as a Read an Ebook Week coupon freebie a couple of years ago, so you may possibly have it in your account. It's still available via Smashwords, at about a dollar cheaper than she normally sells her books for (pricedrops across the board, it looks like) and amazingly hasn't been yanked for KDP Select exclusive-or-else. Yet.

Overmountain small-pressed suspense writer Ellis Vidler returns with a mini-collection of three southern literary fiction shorts, for which she says one of them won "the South Carolina Writers Conference Literary Award for Short Fiction": Tea in the Afternoon

Harlequin-published Kate Hewitt returns with another maybe women's fiction/maybe contemporary romance: Out in the Country

Happy reading, if you manage to spot something you think you might like, especially if it involves finding out what would happen if Captain Ahab and Odysseus met in the 40th century (together, they fight crime!).

[KentE]

Thanks, ATDrake! (as always!) I picked up a couple of things I probably would have missed without your help.
I can recommend the Parnell Hall/ Stanley Hastings one. Books in this series have been nominated for the Shamus and Edgar awards. The protagonist is kind of an everyman/private detective, more experienced in serving papers than solving crimes (although after 15 novels where he gets dumped in the middle of shenanigans, you'd think his experience level might have moved up a little.) More akin to Cozy mysteries or Kate Wilhelm mysteries (although with more comedic elements) than to hard-boiled mysteries.
This one seems to be to introduce Hall's backlist-- I noticed that a few of the other Stanley Hastings novels are $0.99, and most are $2.99. Defnitely fair pricing for a nice read.

KentE

[Synamon]

Thanks for the mysteries! If anyone is collecting the Jay Leicester series, the 9th book is free today: Akel Dama (Field of Blood).