Free (Kindle DRM-free) Survivors by Marion Zimmer Bradley [Vintage Sci-Fi Adventure]

[ATDrake]

A double-feature in the slushpile. We rarely get two things worthy of having their own thread on the same day, but today we do.

The Survivors by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Paul Edwin Zimmer is one of those old-school science fiction adventure on a weird planet things, and the sequel to Hunters of the Red Moon which was free in December and repeated yesterday.

This isn't linked up to the paperback, but IIRC it would have been published sometime between the mid 60s to the late 70s by Ace or DAW books.

Free without DRM (previous works offered by the MZB Literary Works Trust have been DRM-free, so this one likely is) @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT

(ETA: You can pick up some of MZB's backlist novels quite cheaply without DRM over at Fictionwise using the 60% off coupon this week which should be good for the rest of the day and possibly early tomorrow. They also have some Paul di Filippo shorts including a Hugo nominee, if you're looking to use up lingering Micropay.)

Description
After surviving the Hunt on the Red Moon, Dane should have been happy to return to civilization, and, for a while, he was. But then he got bored. So when their proto-saurian friend Aratak asked Dane and Rianna to accompany him on a mission to a primitive world, where their fighting skills would be needed for the party's survival, Dane jumped at the chance. He should have remembered the old saying: Be careful what you wish for....

If the MZB book hadn't shown up, I'd be giving main feature status to this Paul Di Filippo (ISFDB entry, Wikipedia) work:

A Princess of the Linear Jungle by Paul Di Filippo looks like a literary-type speculative urban fantasy/magical surrealism adventure quest story, originally printed as a chapbook by PS Publishing in 2010.

Free (likely without DRM, since PSP's other freebies generally were) for who knows how long @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT

Description
Life is traditionally arduous, constrained and tedious for the average university graduate student, even in the exotic Linear City: that fathomless construction—natural or artificial,who can tell?—which stretches infinitely in a narrow ribbon of buildings and street, bounded on one side by an enigmatic Heaven beyond a wide River, and on the other by an equally nebulous Hell beyond the Tracks of a common train. So it is no surprise that the smart and ambitious young woman named Merritt Abraham, lacking a steady boyfriend, stuck laboring in the bowels of a dusty museum, frustrated in her profession and short on cash, yearns for some excitement in her studious, mundane life.

But she little reckons what fate has in store for her: a sweaty descent into the dangerous wilderness of the savage Jungle Blocks, where weird natives worship a little-seen barbaric queen!

But first Merritt must satisfy her mentor at the museum, navigate the pitfalls of romance, and narrowly escape a fatal encounter with two collegiate ghouls. Only then will she find her talents appreciated by an Indiana-Jones-style professor named Arturo Scoria. Forced by politics to link up with his rival, Professor Durian Vinnagar, Scoria soon assembles an expedition’s worth of queer characters, including Merritt, and our young female adventurer eagerly leaves behind the humdrum collegiate Borough of Wharton for the walled enclave of rampant, furious greenery that might well be the very Omphalos of the Linear City. There, she will meet a Burroughsian destiny that is simultaneously frightening, glorious and astonishing.

That's basically it for the sf/fantasy backlist content of the slushpile, though there's some horror-ish stuff I'll check against the ISFDB later. Preliminary finds for the non-spammers whom I recognized immediately below. I'm going to get something to eat and work on my lab report before I do any further trawling.

Harlequin-published Patricia Watters offers another historical western romance: Wicked Temptations

Previously-included Ken McClure offers a political medical thriller whch he says was printed by Collins/Fontana in 1988 under the pen name Ken Begg: The Trojan Boy

John Matthews returns with a 1999-Penguin psychological detective vs killer thriller: Past Imperfect

Sharon Ihle returns with another historical romance: Spellbound

Dave Zeltserman returns with a 2007-Five Star psychological crime thriller: Bad Thoughts

Warren Murphy returns with a 1990-Pinnacle political terrorism adventure thriller: Scorpion's Dance

Ellora's Cave-published Jade Buchanan returns with another in the multi-author collaborative western romance setting, this one involving an f/m/m menage: Hard Candy (Bandit Creek)

Julie Smith is an Edgar-winning mystery writer with a long line of Fawcett paperbacks to her credit. She offers advice for aspiring authors with: Writing Your Way

Minor-ISFDB-ed Lee Moan is back with a collection of supernatural/horror stories: The Midnight Men and Other Stories

Elementary school teacher Brad Miller returns with another educational volume of: Weird Science for Kids: Gravity, Magnetism, Electricity, and More! I had a look inside the previous one and it seemed pretty decent, with explanations of why stuff worked as well as How To.

Enjoy, especially if you read the previously freebied Hunters and were wondering What Happened Next.

[Gardenman]

Got Survivors - Thanks

[RDaneel54]

Thanks for The Survivors link!

[ATDrake]

Preliminary updates. And I should mention that if you happen to like old-school vintage 60s-70s sf/fantasy from Marion Zimmer Bradley (and even some newer stuff including a fantasy she co-wrote with Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey), you can get some of her older backlist works very cheaply using this week's Fictionwise 60% off discount coupon which should be good through the rest of today and possibly until Thursday morning as well.

FW also have some fairly good backlist sf/fantasy DRM-free in multiple formats from various re-publishers, as well. Linkage for the coupon code, linkage for MZB's backlist works in the FW catalogue.

Jack Remick has co-authored a Dell-published how-to-write-mysteries book and had a poetry collection small-pressed in the 80s. This is his thriller about a mercenary killer who decides to write what he knows: Blood

Bram Stoker Award finalist Wayne Allen Salee (ISFDB entry) offers a collection of zombie stories: For You The Living

Minor ISFDB-ed Phoebe Matthews who also wrote for the big romance publishers returns with a psychic romantic suspense: My Deja Vu Lover

EC Sheedy repeats her short story which was collected in The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance: Overkill

Previously-included James L. Dickerson who wrote print-published celebrity biographies offers a novel: Love on the Rocks: Romance to the Rescue

Sophie Gunn writes for Hachette's Forever imprint and for others as Diana Holquist offers a romance novella: It's a Wonderful Wife: A Christmas Novella

Diana Hunter offers an erotic romance originally published by Ellora's Cave and now revised by the author herself: Learning Curve

Canadian Steve Vernon (ISFDB entry) offers a horror collection: Bad Valentines

Sarah Stonich offers a literary/women's fiction/maybe-romance which starts in Toronto and was originally published by in 2005 by Little Brown & Co.: The Ice Chorus

Previously-included Signet-published Barbara Bartholomew offers a YA fantasy adventure which demonstrates why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover (and also, why plain covers might work better): Becoming Merlin (A Short Story of the Magic Land) (Chronicles of Endymion)

Previously-included Latin American politics/culture author Michael Hogan offers the self-explanatory short: A Writer's Manual: For Inmates in Correctional Institutions

Seattle writer "Winner of the 2007 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction" Midge Raymond returns with a collection of her literary shorts, small-pressed in 2009 with praise from local newspapers: Forgetting English: Stories

Daniel Pyle who has minor ISFDB credits offers a horror thriller: Dismember

Juliet Waldron says she has won two particular specified awards for two of her books, one of which has been picked up by Books We Love/BWLPP. This is her historical novel about: Mozart's Wife BWLPP also has a few other freebies out (some repeats) across multiple genres if you're interested. Frankly, you're better off searching for both their names as keywords since any links I give you will pull up the Prime Lending "free" stuff in the mix as well.

Coffeetown Press is a small Seattle based imprint with a variety of litfic/genre/reader companion works in their listings. Andrew Novo says that he has a doctoral degree from Oxford University in history and a bunch of other academic credits. This is his historical novel, published by Coffeetown in 2010, abut the Turkish invasion of Constantinople in 1453: Queen of Cities

Bram Stoker award-nominee Elizabeth Massie writes Buffy the Vampire Slayer tie-ins and has extensive short fiction ISFDB credits. She contributes to the following anthology: Aberrations: Horror Stories which also has at least one other Stoker-nominee that I recognize.

Previously-included possibly self-pub but with local recognition and newspaper interviews Irish writer T.S. Rourke returns with: Death Call: The London Serial Killer Case (Carroll & Grant Mysteries)

[Venus]

Thank you as always.

[Dr. Drib]

A nice little selection there!

Thank you.



Don

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Preliminary updates. And I should mention that if you happen to like old-school vintage 60s-70s sf/fantasy from Marion Zimmer Bradley (and even some newer stuff including a fantasy she co-wrote with Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey), you can get some of her older backlist works very cheaply using this week's Fictionwise 60% off discount coupon which should be good through the rest of today and possibly until Thursday morning as well.

FW also have some fairly good backlist sf/fantasy DRM-free in multiple formats from various re-publishers, as well. Linkage for the coupon code, linkage for MZB's backlist works in the FW catalogue.

From the MZB trust I'd also recommend Diana L. Paxson's Shanna Sword and Sorcery stories :-

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/t/...?seriesid=2044

[ATDrake]

I'm hoping that eventually Ms. Paxson is moved to entrust her own out-of-print backlist novels to the MZB Literary Works Trust to put up on Fictionwise. I actually like a lot of her stuff (the non-Arthurian Celtic/Germanic-historically-based things, anyway) much more than MZB's, overall.

Anyway, minor updates now that I've finished and turned in my assignment and have some tiny amount of leisure time before the Next Thing Due.

Patricia Rockwell has some sort of PhD and teaches Communications at a university. Educational publisher Pearson (who give us those FT Press and New Word City freebies every week) once published a non-fic textbook thing of hers. This is her vaguely related fiction work which seems rather on-topic for the current US political season: Stump Speech Murder (A Pamela Barnes Acoustic Mystery)

Peter Michael Robinson offers some sort of literary suspense 1996-Simon & Schustered, which quotes a lot of praise from UK newspapers in its blurb: Daniel's Dream

Samhain-published T.J. Michaels offers a novel-length paranormal romantic action suspense which she warns has explicit sex, language, and violence: On the Prowl

Brendan P. Myers who has minor (ISFDB credits) for shorts in small-press anthologies offers a probably-horror short: The Intersection

Betty Jo Schuler who wrote a couple of YA things for Bantam offers a BWLPP published probably-romance which she says is suitable for mature young adults: Impossible Dreams

Five Star-published Libby Malin who is an Edgar-nominee under her Libby Sternberg name (she wrote that genderflipped Jane Eyre riff in old Hollywood) offers a romantic comedy with a medieval history professor: Aefle and Gisela

Previously-included LGBT community journalist Charles Ortleb returns with a 1999-Rubicon small-press published satirical novel about early media coverage of the AIDS epidemic. He quotes praise for his career from Rolling Stone and for his novel from the Boston Globe: Iron Peter

Total-E-Bound author Jude Mason offers an m/m erotic romance from BWLPP: I'd Die For You (Slippery When Wet)

Amanda McIntyre offers her specialty-imprint Decadent Publishing paranormal romantic suspense novella: By the Light of the Silvery Moon

Dee Dawning is published by Siren, a small specialty erotic romance imprint I came across when looking up stuff for the All Romance eBooks Xmas countdown giveaway last year. He offers an f/m romantic comedy which may or may not contain erotic content: Sister Laurel & the Atheist

Anne Beidler's somewhat weird and possibly horrific take on the events that apparently inspired Moby Dick is published by the same Coffeetown Press as that historical Constantinople novel above. She says she has a doctorate in educational research and is also a history buff: Eating Owen

Luc Reid has minor ISFDB credits and he offers a supernatural fantasy/horror about a generational curse: Family Skulls

Edward W. Robertson has minor ISFDB credits and offers two novel-length works; an sf apocalytic medical thriller and sf space-hopping immortal: Linkage for both

Radial City is apparently some kind of speculative dystopian litfic-looking online multimedia project which has gotten minor praise from some random person at the University of Swansea. Whatever, it's been a long day and I like their "Bureau for Unstable Urbanism" publisher name and thus I include this for the lulz: A Beginner's Guide to Radial City

To be honest, this guy's Wikipedia entry looks a lot like the sort of thing people enter for themselves to puff up their profile. But apparently he's some kind of controversial podcaster (and award-winning bestselling author and composer and screenwriter and TV show host and keyword spammer, etc.) so in case you're morbidly curious like I am, here's his apocalyptic supernatural thriller: Infinity

This author looks totally self-pub. But the late Tudor period of English history is one of my favourites and her book looks totally cracktastic and I'm a sucker for AU, so I'm downloading her alternate history take on: Catherine the Inquisitor (The Six Lives of Henry the VIII) She's also got a story about "Henry the VIII and the Zombie Army" which I'm kind of hoping will be a slushpile offering one of these days.

That's all, folks! If anything else pops up, it goes into tomorrow's pile if it's still free by then.

[CWatkinsNash]

Wow, today was like a bonus day. After I got the ones I wanted, I looked up "Henry the VIII and the Zombie Army", and in the "Customers who bought this..." there were a few free zombie offerings, which in turn led to a few more...

I've got a Sony T1 on the way, and I've decided that all Kindle Freebies will be going onto the K3 and most other to-reads will go on the Sony. I think these freebies are more likely to get read if I have them all in one place. But then, I change up my system every few months anyway so we'll see how that goes.

[CRussel]

This appears to have been a one-day sale. It's now showing as $2.99 for me, though it is still free to borrow for Prime. Hopefully the Prime lending will last until the new month, and I can get it then. Really annoyed that I missed this yesterday.

[Gudy]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

The Survivors by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Paul Edwin Zimmer is one of those old-school science fiction adventure on a weird planet things, and the sequel to Hunters of the Red Moon which was free in December and repeated yesterday.

[...]

Free without DRM (previous works offered by the MZB Literary Works Trust have been DRM-free, so this one likely is)

Uh, nope. Both The Survivors and Hunters of the Red Moon are DRM-infested, at least on Amazon.de.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by maleaco

It's pretty simple to remove DRm protection....but Its probably aginst the forum rules to talk about it

It's not against the rules to talk about it, in a general way. But it IS against the rules to post specific links or step by step instructions. However, we can say to Google Apprentice Alf.

[Gudy]

Originally Posted by CRussel

However, we can say to Google Apprentice Alf.

Oh, I know all about the Apprentice Alf line of dust removal tools. :-)

I was merely trying to point out that ATDrake's assumption was wrong on at least one Amazon site, with perhaps a chance to find out whether Amazon has different DRM strategies on different sites, and to warn those here who have more problems, be they technical, legal or moral, with dust removal than I do.