FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[bgalbrecht]

I wonder why there are so few James Blish novels available as ebooks in the US. As far as I can tell, they're all out of print here, and Orion's already published them as ebooks in the UK. Maybe the estate is asking for too large an advance for the presumably larger US market. However, the nostalgia value for an author from the 50's-70's only decreases every year.

[LJJohnson]

Well, the nostalgia value may decrease, but the story value doesn't necessarily do so in synch. I know there are a few technology and/or scientific details that kinda take you out of the story in Cities in Flight, but the story is so darn good that I just kinda clear my throat and go on...

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by LJJohnson

Well, the nostalgia value may decrease, but the story value doesn't necessarily do so in synch. I know there are a few technology and/or scientific details that kinda take you out of the story in Cities in Flight, but the story is so darn good that I just kinda clear my throat and go on...

I suspect that for most authors who died over 40 years ago, the primary ebook sales are going to people who read them when they were young, and they are either buying to replace lost or paper copies, or buying unread stuff of authors they read back then and enjoyed. Since most of Blish's work has been out of print for decades, younger readers are unlikely to buy any of his works except for award winners, or Cities in Flight. So when I say nostalgia value, I mean the readership who will buy any of his ebooks out of nostalgia, and those readers are probably in their 50s or older, and the longer his works stay out of print, fewer nostalgia buyers will be around to buy them if they do get ebook editions, and the less likely there will be a resurgence of interest by the younger generations.

[Avice]

"On the Edge of Gone" by Corinne Duyvis is $1.29 at Kindle & Kobo: young adult scifi of the "looming meteor collision" variety, with good reviews from pro outlets.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01BOUC7B4/
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/on-the-edge-of-gone

Spoiler:

A thrilling, thought-provoking novel from one of young-adult literature’s boldest new talents. January 29, 2035. That’s the day the comet is scheduled to hit—the big one. Denise and her mother and sister, Iris, have been assigned to a temporary shelter outside their hometown of Amsterdam to wait out the blast, but Iris is nowhere to be found, and at the rate Denise’s drug-addicted mother is going, they’ll never reach the shelter in time. A last-minute meeting leads them to something better than a temporary shelter—a generation ship, scheduled to leave Earth behind to colonize new worlds after the comet hits. But everyone on the ship has been chosen because of their usefulness. Denise is autistic and fears that she’ll never be allowed to stay. Can she obtain a spot before the ship takes flight? What about her mother and sister? When the future of the human race is at stake, whose lives matter most?

[Avice]

Robert R. McCammon — Swan Song
Only 23¢ on Kindle. A pricing mistake?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005T54IAY/

[LJJohnson]

I suspect that for most authors who died over 40 years ago, the primary ebook sales are going to people who read them when they were young, and they are either buying to replace lost or paper copies, or buying unread stuff of authors they read back then and enjoyed. Since most of Blish's work has been out of print for decades, younger readers are unlikely to buy any of his works except for award winners, or Cities in Flight. So when I say nostalgia value, I mean the readership who will buy any of his ebooks out of nostalgia, and those readers are probably in their 50s or older, and the longer his works stay out of print, fewer nostalgia buyers will be around to buy them if they do get ebook editions, and the less likely there will be a resurgence of interest by the younger generations.

Point taken. Someday, I might get older than 50.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by LJJohnson

I suspect that for most authors who died over 40 years ago, the primary ebook sales are going to people who read them when they were young, and they are either buying to replace lost or paper copies, or buying unread stuff of authors they read back then and enjoyed. Since most of Blish's work has been out of print for decades, younger readers are unlikely to buy any of his works except for award winners, or Cities in Flight. So when I say nostalgia value, I mean the readership who will buy any of his ebooks out of nostalgia, and those readers are probably in their 50s or older, and the longer his works stay out of print, fewer nostalgia buyers will be around to buy them if they do get ebook editions, and the less likely there will be a resurgence of interest by the younger generations.

Point taken. Someday, I might get older than 50.

Just a reminder, only the smart and the lucky actually get old. Any fool can die young!

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Kaysclie

Weaveworld is also at Amazon USA for the same amazing price of $.99 and I just grabbed it up! Thanks for this one!!

Thanks
Grabbed one

[lkmiller]

Twelve Kings in Sharakhai (Song of Shattered Sands, book 1) by Bradley P. Beaulieu for $2.99

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SI0B80A/
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/twe...s-in-sharakhai

[Keslynn]

The Native Star by M.K. Hobson is only $0.99 on Amazon US. It's a steampunk book set in the 1800s US. I read it a few years ago and enjoyed the unique magic system.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003F3PKFY/

[maddz]

The Amazon.co.uk February Kindle Monthly Deals include:

Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games (bk1) £2.69
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hunger-Game...930851&sr=1-10

Garth Nix:
Lirael (The Old Kingdom bk2) £1.99
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lirael-Old-...930773&sr=1-55
Abhorsen (The Old Kingdom bk3) £1.99
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Abhorsen-Ol...5932206&sr=1-1

Patricia Briggs: Moon Called (Mercy Thompson bk1) £1.49 (repeat deal)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moon-Called...930904&sr=1-73

Mercedes Lackey: Closer to the Chest (Herald Spy)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Closer-Ches...931192&sr=1-91

Jeff Wheeler: Legends of Muirwood at 99p each
Bk1: The Wretched of Muirwood
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wretched-Mu...931192&sr=1-93
Bk2: The Blight of Muirwood
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blight-Muir...931284&sr=1-98
Bk3: The Scourge of Muirwood
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scourge-Mui...932359&sr=1-10

Evan Currie: Odyssey One Series at 99p each
Bk1: Into the Black (Remastered edition)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Into-Black-...31400&sr=1-173
Bk2: The Heart of Matter
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heart-Matte...31400&sr=1-167
Bk3: Homeworld
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Homeworld-O...31377&sr=1-160
Bk4: Out of the Black
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Black-O...31377&sr=1-158

[pdurrant]

Ted Chiang's 2002 collection of his shorter works Stories of Your Life and Others is currently only £1.29 at Amazon UK.

"Includes 'Story of Your Life' the basis for the major motion picture Arrival, starring Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker, Jeremy Renner, and directed by Denis Villeneuve.

With his masterful first collection, multiple-award-winning author Ted Chiang deftly blends human emotion and scientific rationalism in eight remarkably diverse stories, all told in his trademark precise and evocative prose.
From a soaring Babylonian tower that connects a flat Earth with the firmament above, to a world where angelic visitations are a wondrous and terrifying part of everyday life; from a neural modification that eliminates the appeal of physical beauty, to an alien language that challenges our very perception of time and reality. . . Chiang's rigorously imagined fantasia invites us to question our understanding of the universe and our place in it."

I rated this 5/5 when I read it back in November 2010.

[maddz]

Some Kindle Countdown Deals:

Juanita Coulson Space Trap at 99p (repeat)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Space-Trap-...33632&sr=1-346

Michaela Roessner Vanishing Point at 99p (repeat)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vanishing-P...33580&sr=1-305

Jeff Wheeler The Lost Abbey (The Covenant of Muirwood bk4/Banished of Muirwood prequel) at 99p
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Abbey-...933067&sr=1-27

[worktolive]

The entire Amoveo shapeshifter PNR series by Sara Humphreys is free today. I think this is a one-day only deal from Sourcebooks. It should be available at all retailers. I haven't read this series, but I've read her vampire series and really liked it. Here are the Amazon links:

Unbound

Unleashed

Untouched

Untamed

Undone

Unclaimed

[AnemicOak]

The Frontlines series by Marko Kloos is on sale for $1.00 per book right now. I assume this is because book five comes out at the end of the month...

Terms of Enlistment (Frontlines Book 1)

The year is 2108, and the North American Commonwealth is bursting at the seams. For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements, where you're restricted to two thousand calories of badly flavored soy every day:

You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world, or you can join the service.

With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth. But as he starts a career of supposed privilege, he soon learns that the good food and decent health care come at a steep price…and that the settled galaxy holds far greater dangers than military bureaucrats or the gangs that rule the slums.

Lines of Departure (Frontlines Book 2)

Vicious interstellar conflict with an indestructible alien species. Bloody civil war over the last habitable zones of the cosmos. Political unrest, militaristic police forces, dire threats to the Solar System…

Humanity is on the ropes, and after years of fighting a two-front war with losing odds, so is North American Defense Corps officer Andrew Grayson. He dreams of dropping out of the service one day, alongside his pilot girlfriend, but as warfare consumes entire planets and conditions on Earth deteriorate, he wonders if there will be anywhere left for them to go.

After surviving a disastrous space-borne assault, Grayson is reassigned to a ship bound for a distant colony—and packed with malcontents and troublemakers. His most dangerous battle has just begun.

In this sequel to the bestselling Terms of Enlistment, a weary soldier must fight to prevent the downfall of his species…or bear witness to humanity’s last, fleeting breaths.

Angles of Attack (Frontlines Book 3)

The alien forces known as the Lankies are gathering on the solar system’s edge, consolidating their conquest of Mars and setting their sights on Earth. The far-off colony of New Svalbard, cut off from the rest of the galaxy by the Lanky blockade, teeters on the verge of starvation and collapse. The forces of the two Earth alliances have won minor skirmishes but are in danger of losing the war. For battle-weary staff sergeant Andrew Grayson and the ragged forces of the North American Commonwealth, the fight for survival is entering a catastrophic new phase.

Forging an uneasy alliance with their Sino-Russian enemies, the NAC launches a hybrid task force on a long shot: a stealth mission to breach the Lanky blockade and reestablish supply lines with Earth. Plunging into combat against a merciless alien species that outguns, outmaneuvers, and outfights them at every turn, Andrew and his fellow troopers could end up cornered on their home turf, with no way out and no hope for reinforcement. And this time, the struggle for humanity’s future can only end in either victory or annihilation.

Chains of Command (Frontlines Book 4)

The assault on Earth was thwarted by the destruction of the aliens’ seed ship, but with Mars still under Lanky control, survivors work frantically to rebuild fighting capacity and shore up planetary defenses. Platoon sergeant Andrew Grayson must crash-course train new volunteers—all while dulling his searing memories of battle with alcohol and meds.

Knowing Earth’s uneasy respite won’t last, the North American Commonwealth and its Sino-Russian allies hurtle toward two dangerous options: hit the Lanky forces on Mars or go after deserters who stole a fleet of invaluable warships critical to winning the war. Assigned to a small special ops recon mission to scout out the renegades’ stronghold on a distant moon, Grayson and his wife, dropship pilot Halley, again find themselves headed for the crucible of combat—and a shattering new campaign in the war for humanity’s future.