Burning Fictionwise balance recommendations?

[Kralik]

So I'm wary of FW not working out, but unfortunately for me (and many others), I spent a good deal of $$$ on books and have a fairly large micropay balance ($60). At the beginning of the year I had a large list of "books I'd like to read when I have time so I'll buy them later" but now most of them are gone.

Any good recommendations of books they still have that are worth buying? I typically go for SF/Fantasy, have NO interest in Romance/Erotica. I was thinking of buying the Foundation Series by Asimov (anyone read it?). But other than my particular interests, it thought it would be fun/useful to start a thread just giving "cream of the crop" recommendations for their remaining ebook "stock."

So here's my contribution: Robin Hobb for Fantasy. I love her character development and highly recommend her Liveship Traders series. The Farseer Trilogy is good as well, but it is limited to 1st person vs. the Liveship Traders which gives her more freedom in 3rd person. I originally bought her books on blind faith given the high reviews on FW... and I'm sure glad I did!

[ATDrake]

Some good MultiFormat sf/fantasy they've still got:

Greg Bear's Blood Music. Novel based upon his award-winning short story. Frankly, I thought the original story was better as-is, but the novel does expand interestingly on the ideas introduced. Other works available. May be cheaper via Baen Webscriptions, which last I checked was discounting some of the E-Reads published books.

Fritz Leiber, Conjure Wife. Haven't read this myself, but apparently it's considered some sort of groundbreaking classic.

Mike Resnick. Several novels, many short stories. Ivory is another one of those award nominees I haven't read. I did read Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future and its semi-sequel The Dark Lady, and quite liked both. Don't buy the DRMed collection of his mostly excellent Kirinyaga short stories, or even the individual stories themselves. The lot can be had much cheaper via Baen's Webscriptions.

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Spirit Ring. An early fantasy, and not her best work, but decent solid reading and to the best of my knowledge, not available via Baen's Webscriptions yet.

James Patrick Kelly. Think Like a Dinosaur. Sadly, this is only the short story, and not the collection which goes by the same name. But this is an excellent, Hugo Award winning story which was also adapted into an Outer Limits episode. Many other short stories available from Kelly.

Nancy Kress also has a number of short stories up. Bundle savings link doesn't work, but if you like Tudor England (or at least Anne Boleyn) and time travel, I highly recommend And Wild For To Hold, which was a Hugo nominee. The Flowers of Aulit Prison is also very good (Nebula winner), and the basis of Kress' "Probability" trilogy, which imho failed to live up to the potential of the initial premise.

If you like genetic engineering and its social consequences, and are willing to dip into some gothic decadence on the side, Brian Stableford's got several collections of his essays on sf/fantasy, as well as his generally excellent short fiction (also some novels, but I prefer him at shorter lengths).

You can't go wrong trying Beyond the Colours of Darkness and Other Exotica for only 99 cents for 11 full stories (gothic decadence) or The Great Chain of Being and Other Tales of the Biotech Revolution, just slightly pricier at 2.99 for 7 stories, some of which have been featured in those Dozois Year's Best Science Fiction volumes.

More good MultiFormat older sf/fantasy can be found via clicking on E-Reads, Wildside Press as the publisher. There's Harry Harrison, Frederick Pohl, Robert Scheckley, Richard Matheson, Andre Norton, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, Cordwainer Smith, Leigh Brackett, Randall Garrett, George Alec Effinger, Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethshar series (not the best, but quite enjoyable) and many more.

However, most of the E-reads stuff is cheaper via Baen, which offers bundles and is currently discounting a lot of those titles down to $6 (and at this point, looks like it'll be in the business longer than Fictionwise might). But if you're burning up your Micropay and can apply discount coupons, then possibly the overall cost will be better via FW.

Also, if you don't mind the DRM, they've still got a bunch of Connie Willis' better books available (especially recommend Firewatch and To Say Nothing of the Dog, if you haven't read it already), and decent stuff from Elizabeth Moon, and much of Alan Dean Foster's popular Flinx series.

There's some recent Harry Turtledove if you like alt-history (usually US civil war/WWII-based). For a "limited time" apparently you can get the first two WorldWar books bundled for the price of one. 7.99 seems a fairly good deal for In the Balance/Tilting the Balance, considering that the individual volumes for the series normally cost 7.99 each.

[wallcraft]

Fritz Leiber: Fafhrd and Grey Mouser Series

Allan Cole & Chris Bunch: Sten Series

Alastair J. Archibald: Chronicles of Grimm Dragonblaster Series

[Clancy_s]

Webscription uses micropay too and of course specialises in SF and fantasy. I have the impression that micropay is a seperate entity, in which case you may be able to transfer your micropay residuum to webscription.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Clancy_s

Webscription uses micropay too and of course specialises in SF and fantasy. I have the impression that micropay is a seperate entity, in which case you may be able to transfer your micropay residuum to webscription.

FW micropay and Webscription micropay are totally different. It's just a generic name for a micro payment system.

[Critteranne]

I've found a lot of great multiformat stuff recently from established authors. It looks like some small SF/fantasy publishers are getting into multiformat e-books at FW. For that reason, if I find something I'm interested in, I sometimes search to find out what else is offered by that publisher. I lucked out because I found the e-book edition of some recent offerings at Prime Books:
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p1...e-Books/?&si=0

For example, they have the Fedarations anthology in multiformat for under $9.00, which is several dollars less than the trade paperback currently in bookstores. They also have a new Clark Ashton Smith collection and an anthology edited by Ellen Datlow. Oh, and I pounced on the Barbara Roden anthology because I "know" her from on-line (through the All Hallows discussion group) but also because I've heard great things about her ghost stories and supernatural fiction. (She has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award and also won WFA awards for editing.)

SF/fantasy publisher Wildside Press has added some multiformat titles recently, including Harry Harrison (Deathworld and Deathworld II):
https://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p16/Wildside-Press/?

e-Reads is a great source of SF & fantasy by established authors (novels by Greg Bear, etc.):
https://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p3/E-Reads/?&si=0

Despite their name, Wonder Audiobooks, LLC has some e-books by classic SF authors such as Robert Sheckley:
https://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p...oks-LLC/?&si=0
(These may be titles that have fallen into the public domain, so check Project Gutenberg first. )

Belgrave House started out making e-books of out of print Regency romances, but they now have some OOP mysteries and thrillers:
https://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p...e-House/?&si=0

The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust has some Marion Zimmer Bradley stories (naturally) but also short stories by Mercedes Lackey, Deborah Wheeler, and others (some set on Darkover, some original stories):

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/p6...-Works-Trust/?

Oh, and if you have a strong stomach, I thought Brian McNaughton's Throne of Bones was ... something else. It's a World Fantasy Award winner -- an anthology of linked stories. They are definitely not for everyone as they are fantasy/horror stories that often feature graverobbers, not to mention decaying cannibalistic ghouls who have gruesome sex. The stories have been called Lovecraftian, but others have said they're really closer to Clark Ashton Smith in style. It's also amazing the way a minor character in an earlier story can turn up later, and there is a major surprise concerning the identify of one of the characters.

[DaringNovelist]

I get magazine subscriptions, myself. (Of course, if you're worried about Fictionwise going under, I suppose you'd worry about follow through on that - but honestly, the major magazines and B&N are bound to work something out.)

Camille

[rhadin]

I bought and read all of the books written by Richard S. Tuttle at Fictionwise. They are several separate Fantasy series but they all involve the same characters and a continuing storyline. Well worth checking out.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by DaringNovelist

I get magazine subscriptions, myself.

Magazine subscriptions are no longer available at Fictionwise.

I'd suggest the Ethshar Series by Lawrence Watt-Evans

[garygibsonsf]

There's a *lot* of Harlan Ellison in multiformat on Fictionwise. Also check out Fritz Leiber's The Wanderer, which won the Hugo in the mid-Sixties. Also multiformat.

Apart from Federations, John Joseph Adams also has a multiformat anthology 'Seeds of Change' published last year I think, available on FW.

Rich Horton's 'Best Fantasy' and 'Best SF' anthologies of various recent years are all multiformat.

'The Turing Test' by Chris Beckett (multiformat) which won a major literary prize in the UK; very much an up and coming new sf writer of note. He also has 'The Holy Machine' (multiformat) one of my favourite sf novels of the past several years available at FW.

Some of Lucius Shepard's novellas are available on FW in multiformat. Another of my favourite authors.

ATDrake - *thank you* for mentioning that Stableford collection. That's going to nicely wipe out my last remaining $1.17 in micropay.

[starrigger]

The e-reads shop has a number of science fiction novels by some guy named, er, what is his name...Carver, that's right. I hear he's pretty good.

I second many of the recommendations above.

[starrigger]

I see a lot of individual short stories by Robert Sheckley. But they also have some Sheckley collections, just published this month, from Wonder Ebooks (a company I'm not familiar with). I've put a couple in my cart: Meeting of Minds, and The Odor of Thought. I have some micropay to use up, too.

[kdelany]

Blood Music was one of the first things I bought from Fictionwise when I got my reader in 2008, and it had so many errors (had very obviously been run through an OCR and not been checked) that it was unreadable. I don't know if any of those errors would have been fixed since then; I sent the publisher an e-mail offering a list of the errors, but didn't get a reply.

There are various stories by Greg Egan, interesting but often creepy.
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/a245/Greg-Egan/?si=0

[Kralik]

Thanks for the suggestions! I've cleared out my Micropay down to $0.02 (my two cents worth).

[Mrraow]

My thanks for the suggestions also... I'm now down to $1.21 from $258!