Free (Kindle KDP) When We Were Real by William Barton [Science Fiction Award Nominee]

[ATDrake]

So it turns out the KDP Select exclusive-or-else slushpile does in fact yield a new main feature-eligible backlist sf/fantasy title to enjoy today.

Blue Tyson mentioned some weeks ago that William Barton was a noted sf author who'd provided a KDP freebie offering.

Today, he offers another, which happens to be a space-set novel which was nominated for both the Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards when it was published in 1999.

When We Were Real, apparently the start of the "Silvergirl" universe (the timing of this release makes it look like a prequel) by William Barton, looks like an sfnal coming of age of a young man finding his way in a space colony setting. This was originally published by Warner's Aspect line in 1999 and as I mentioned, was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award and a preliminary nominee for the Nebula, as you can see in this book's ISFDB entry.

Speaking of which, here's Barton's own ISFDB and his Wikipedia entry.

This is free with or without DRM (who can tell anymore?) for who knows how long over @ Amazon main UK DE ES FR IT

Description
This is the beginning of the Silvergirl Universe, when mankind is colonizing the drifting planetoids in the dark between the stars. Darius Murphy is a runaway, born of the Mother's Children, fleeing to find a new life for himself out among the far-flung habitats of humanity. What he finds is a cruel universe owned and run by the corporations, worlds run for profit. He goes to work for a comany named Standard ARM, and one day he meets a lovely purple optimod creature, an artificial being named Violet. Love and War. Fire. Death. Destruction. The road to freedom. Darius Murphy sees them all. Now join him on the journey.

I put most of the preliminary slushpile yield for this morning in an update to yesterday's feature thread whose recommended main title is still free, by the way. Most of the good stuff was there, with some award-nominees putting up several of their shorts, but there are a few more nice things in these preliminary secondary updates (I'm taking a break for some lunch and to do some errands before I decide whether or not the rest of the slushpile is likely to have anything vaguely worthwhile in it), including an award-finalist LGBT litfic novel. This does seem to be the day for awards stuff to show up in the slushpile.

Tom Schabarum's novel, published in 2010 by local Washington small press Cascadia, who appear to have a bunch of multicultural spiritual-type stuff and litfic in their listings, was a finalist for the 2011 Lambda Literary Award (their website lists his book) which is a semi-major LGBT writing prize, IIRC. This looks like a litfic with a touch of suspense: The Palisades

Charles Ortleb has had a number of humour-looking books out from St. Martin's Press a couple of decades ago. He says he has also been a journalist for the gay community and he offers a collection of literary/speculative fiction short stories about such which were the basis of an independent film available on DVD: The Last Lovers on Earth: Stories from Dark Times

Samhain-published D.L. Snow offers another in the multi-author collaborative western romance series, this one involving ghosts and time travel: Siren's Song (Bandit Creek)

Chuck Klein who admittedly has a very common name, does have an author page which links up an old Tyndale House non-fiction work. He offers a self-pub non-fiction set of his own experiences as a police officer, for which the blurb quotes praise from local law enforcement officials: The Badge, Stories and Tales from both Sides of the Law

Previously-featured small-press-published Gordon Ryan offers a political thriller about a man discovering a secret cover-up related to one of his ancestors: Love, Honor, & Consequence

Samhain-or-Ellora-I-forgot-am-not-checking-which-published Delle Jacobs offers an historical romance: His Majesty, the Prince of Toads

Angela Hunt who has been previously published by one of the big Christian publishers (Tyndale or Baker, IIRC) offers three assorted works: Linkage for all plus a stubborn Prime "free" one

Matt R. Jones who has one short story listed in his ISFDB entry returns with another offering in his Hollywood Vampires series if you picked up the first one earlier: Love, Red Wine, & Magick

Cole Coonce has apparently got a bit of a name for himself in automotive magazine hot rodding and drag racing circles. Here is his collection of sex, drugs, and rock n' roll stories: Come Down from the Hills and Make My Baby

[ATDrake]

Updates. I think in addition to being award-nominee day, it's also ISFDB-credited horror writers come crawling out of the woodwork day. Some of these authors also have Wikipedia entries, as well.

John F.D. Taff (ISFDB entry) says that a few of his stories have gotten honourable mentions in those Datlow-edited Year's Best Fantasy/Horror anthologies. He offers a short about the monsters of childhood: The Tontine

Richard Parks (really lengthy ISFDB short stories entry) offers some kind of lengthy supernatural high fantasy-looking which is not on the list: A Warrior of Dreams

It turns out Graham Bishop really has authored a couple of French language-learning print textbooks over the past couple of decades. Here's his French-related fiction effort: Achilles' Helmet (Commissaire Pierre Rousseau Mysteries)

Another suspenseful litfic from co-op cookbook author Rosemary Fifield if you've been collecting them: Found Days

Fictionwise-available Canadian writer Jamieson Wolf repeats a volume of his comedic-looking mystery series involving a soap opera cast: Hope Falls Season 2 - Eagle Valley

Hugh B. Cave who has seriously vintage extensive print-publication credits going back even before I think my parents/possibly-grandparents were born (ISFDB entry) offers his 1990-Tor paperbacked dark fantasy/horror: The Lower Deep

Adam P. Lewis has minor short stories in small press horror anthologies (ISFDB entry). He offers one of the printed ones here in this mini-collection: J.P. Gilman and Other Tales

Tony Richards, who also has extensive ISFDB credits and a Wikipedia entry, offers a few shorts: Child of Ice & Misdirection (Strange Tales)

[koland]

Thanks.

[ATDrake]

Feature title still free, and nothing significant thus far which hasn't already itself been featured, so preliminary checking results in here before I go to bed.

The MZB Literary Works Trust repeats Marion Zimmer Bradley & Paul Edwin Zimmer's sf novel: Hunters of the Red Moon

Canadian Cheryl Kaye Tardif is back with another Imajinn-published book, this one an environmentally-attuned YA-looking coming-of-age with blurb praise from The Edmonton Examiner newspaper: Whale Song

Bob Mayer writing as Robert Doherty returns with a 2004 Dell paperbacked apocalyptic thriller which apparently concludes a series: Area 51 Legend

Nebula Award-winner Eric James Stone looks like he's repeating all of his previously-offered short stories at once: Linkage for all 14.

Suzanne Adair offers an apparently 2008-small-pressed (tiny imprint that has like 3 other authors) historical murder mystery set during the American Revolution, which she says in the blurb was nominated for two particular awards, including that Daphne Du Maurier one that the Romance Writers of America gives out: Camp Follower

Another Dybbuk Press book is Michael Hemmingson's speculative/horror-leaning short story collection: This Other Eden

Harlequin MIRA author Maggie Shayne offers a collection of writing advice columns from a newspaper: Shayne On You

Bell Bridge Books author Vicki Hinze offers her own authorial advice, originally small-pressed in 2000: One Way to Write A Novel

Sally Malcolm wrote a bunch of Stargate tie-in novels. This is her historical romance: Beyond the Far Horizon

Debra Webb returns with her 2000 Kensington-published contemporary romance: Keeping Kennedy

Mary Reed McCall offers a 2007 Avon-paperbacked historical romance which is 3rd in series: The Templar's Seduction (Templar Knights)

Scott Nicholson offers yet another omnibus edition: Ghost Box: Six Supernatural Thrillers

I'm pretty sure the following three are playing pricing-catchup with Smashwords, but their site is down so I can't check. So unlike KDP freebies, these may not be free in all regions, caveat 1-clicker:

Cynthia Wright offers a 1978 Ballantine historical romance: Touch the Sun (The Beauvisage Novels, Book 2)

Harlequin/Harper/Avon-published Patricia Hagan offers a historical western interracial romance: Say You Love Me

J.M. Griffin offers a comedic murder mystery. I'd been looking at the latest release in this series at Fictionwise a couple of weeks ago and wondering if I wanted to try it. I'm quite pleased to get this earlier volume free and will be reading it to decide whether I want to pick up the rest in series using the FW 60% discount coupon this week: For Love of Livvy (the Esposito series)

That's basically everyone whom I recognized from previously (and not because they'd been total spammers on the Amazon discussion boards, of which I counted two of them today) or by publisher/reputation, or who had a sufficiently-interesting looking to look at now listing which happened to check out.

ETA: This popped up yesterday but I forgot to include it and it's still free today. Adam Bertocci recently wrote one of those public domain parody mashups for Simon & Schuster. Here is his comedic short about finding love in the romance publishing industry: The Clinch Cover

[theenframed]

Thanks for posting these! I am now up to 1120 since Xmas. Crazy! I do plan to reduce this number quite a bit over time when I buy a Kindle.

[Dr. Drib]

Picked up some updates.

Thank you!



Don

[Venus]

Thank you

[Joykins]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Samhain-or-Ellora-I-forgot-am-not-checking-which-published Delle Jacobs offers an historical romance: His Majesty, the Prince of Toads

I'm pretty sure it's Samhain and I can vouch for this title, which I've read--it's a solid Regency romance, if you like those. There is also some sex in it, but not, IIRC, extremely graphic, since we romance readers like to know stuff like that