FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[salty-horse]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Books 1 and 2 in the Virga series by Karl Schroeder are $3 each in the US (Kobo US, Kobo WW, Amazon)

Book 3 is on sale now.

The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
First in the Library Trilogy - book 2 is already out.
Was on my wishlist - people seem to love it. No previous knowledge with Lawrence's work is required. It's also much less grimdarky than his usual fare.

Two strangers find themselves connected by a vast and mysterious library containing many wonders and still more secrets.

The boy has lived his whole life trapped within a book-choked chamber older than empires and larger than cities.

The girl has been plucked from the outskirts of civilization to be trained as a librarian, studying the mysteries of the great library at the heart of her kingdom.

They were never supposed to meet. But in the library, they did.

Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned.

[salty-horse]

The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
First of a 3 volume set. Most (if not all) of these stories are in the public domain.
Wikipedia page about this collection

[salty-horse]

The Death of Sir Martin Malprelate by Adam Roberts is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
His latest novel. On the surface, not an SF novel like his usual work, but takes inspiration from fiction of the period.

A gothic tale of murder and corruption set in 1840s Victorian London, taking inspiration from our most famous 19th century writers.

The 1840s.

Railway Baron Sir Martin Malprelate has been laying waste to the warren of Camden; buying up houses and clearing streets for his new railway line linking King’s Cross with the prosperous town of Middlemarch. He stands to make his fortune ever more vast and to earn the loathing of all who attempt to stand up to him. Little wonder, then, that he meets a violent end on a foggy street after walking out of a particularly bitter meeting with outraged residents facing eviction. But the cause of his death causes more wonder. How could he have possibly fallen beneath the wells of a speeding spectral train running on tracks not yet even built?

Sir Martin’s death is investigated by the police, but the company employ one of its senior engineers, Mr Bryde, to pursue his own investigation. Bryde uncovers a network of resentment and conspiracy, popular opposition to the expansion of the railways, agitating workers, scheming shareholders, corrupt politicians and a gallery of varied and grotesque characters, all of whom had some stake in the old man’s death.

Lacing it’s realism with both social commentary and the gothic imaginations of the time The Murder of Sir Martin Malprelate is a vivid recreation of a London stalked by poverty and haunted by visions of demons and ghosts; a world of slums, lavish wealth and opium dens. The narrative is coloured by exotic characters all too ready to believe in the supernatural but the plot is driven by rationality and the all too real motivations of greed and revenge.

Twelve Kings in Sharakhai (Song of Shattered Sands #1) by Bradley P. Beaulieu is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
First in a completed series.

A desert pit fighter plots to overthrow the immortal kings who terrorize her homeland in this first thrilling adventure in a blood- and sand-fueled epic fantasy series.

Sharakhai, the great city of the desert, center of commerce and culture, has been ruled from time immemorial by twelve kings—cruel, ruthless, powerful, and immortal. With their army of Silver Spears, their elite company of Blade Maidens and their holy defenders, the terrifying asirim, the Kings uphold their positions as undisputed, invincible lords of the desert. There is no hope of freedom for any under their rule.

Or so it seems, until Çeda, a brave young woman from the west end slums, defies the Kings’ laws by going outside on the holy night of Beht Zha’ir. What she learns that night sets her on a path that winds through both the terrible truths of the Kings’ mysterious history and the hidden riddles of her own heritage. Together, these secrets could finally break the iron grip of the Kings’ power . . . if the nigh-omnipotent Kings don’t find her first.

[ZodWallop]

Cross-posted from the mysteries thread because of the golden age of sci-fi angle.

Rocket to the Morgue by Anthony Boucher is $1 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US.

What a great title.

Legendary science fiction author Fowler Foulkes may be dead, but his creation, the iconic Dr. Derringer, lives on in popular culture. Or, at least, the character would live on if not for Foulkes’s predatory and greedy heir Hilary, who, during his time as the inflexible guardian of the estate, has created countless enemies in the relatively small community of writers of the genre. So when he is stabbed nearly to death in a room with only one door, which nobody was seen entering or exiting, Foulkes suspects a writer. Fearing that the assailant will return, he asks for police protection, and when more potentially-fatal encounters follow, it becomes clear to Detective Terry Marshall and his assistant, the inquisitive nun, Sister Ursula, that death awaits Mr. Foulkes around every corner. Now, they’ll have to work overtime to thwart the would-be murderer―a task that requires a deep dive into the strange, idiosyncratic world of science fiction in its early days.

With characters based heavily on Anthony Boucher’s friends at the Manana Literary Society, including Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and Jack Parsons, Rocket to the Morgue is both a classic locked room mystery and an enduring portrait of a real-life writing community. Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, the book is a must-read for fans of mysteries and science fiction alike.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The Death of Sir Martin Malprelate by Adam Roberts is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
His latest novel. On the surface, not an SF novel like his usual work, but takes inspiration from fiction of the period.

Thanks, that sounds pretty good.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The Death of Sir Martin Malprelate by Adam Roberts is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
His latest novel. On the surface, not an SF novel like his usual work, but takes inspiration from fiction of the period.

This is now £0.80 at Amazon UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Sir-M.../dp/B0BPWRY7DX

[salty-horse]

Tor has been putting their backlist on sale this past month.
Lockstep by Karl Schroeder is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

When seventeen-year-old Toby McGonigal finds himself lost in space, separated from his family, he expects his next drift into cold sleep to be his last. After all, the planet he's orbiting is frozen and sunless, and the cities are dead. But when Toby wakes again, he's surprised to discover a thriving planet, a strange and prosperous galaxy, and something stranger still—that he's been asleep for 14,000 years.

Welcome to the Lockstep Empire, where civilization is kept alive by careful hibernation. Here cold sleeps can last decades and waking moments mere weeks. Its citizens survive for millennia, traveling asleep on long voyages between worlds. Not only is Lockstep the new center of the galaxy, but Toby is shocked to learn that the Empire is still ruled by its founding family: his own.

Toby's brother Peter has become a terrible tyrant. Suspicious of the return of his long-lost brother, whose rightful inheritance also controls the lockstep hibernation cycles, Peter sees Toby as a threat to his regime. Now, with the help of a lockstep girl named Corva, Toby must survive the forces of this new Empire, outwit his siblings, and save human civilization.
Karl Schroeder's Lockstep is a grand innovation in hard Science Fiction space opera.

[ZodWallop]

The Mocking Program by Alan Dean Foster is $2 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US.

This is a novel. Apparently Foster also wrote short stories about the same character, collected as Montezuma Strip

Located in the Namerican Southwest, the Montezuma Strip is the Western hemisphere’s largest concentration of industry, commerce, assemblage, cutting-edge technology—and trouble. So it’s no surprise to Insp. Angel Cardenas that there’s been yet another murder. What is surprising is the victim: an apparently well-off man with a clean ID. Well, two clean IDs...

Trying to nail down the man’s real identity takes Cardenas and his partner to a good side of town, where a woman—living as his wife —and her daughter reside. But that gets them nowhere, especially when they barely escape the high-tech security system that blows up the house and everything in it.

Relying on his intuit abilities, Cardenas learns that the woman was on the run from Katla’s father, a nasty felon with a long rap sheet. Going rogue, Cardenas follows their tracks from the gritty urban underworld of Quetzal to a lush primate paradise in Costa Rica. Because what twelve-year-old Katla knows—what she is—makes her the target of not just her father, but a host of others willing to kill to possess her...

[maddz]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

This is now £0.80 at Amazon UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Sir-M.../dp/B0BPWRY7DX

99p on Kobo UK: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the...tin-malprelate

It should be discountable.

[salty-horse]

The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Part of the Hainish Cycle, but as the description says: "Le Guin maintained that there is no particular cycle or order for the Ekumen novels"

Sutty, an Observer from Earth for the interstellar Ekumen, has been assigned to a new world—a world in the grips of a stern monolithic state, the Corporation. Embracing the sophisticated technology brought by other worlds and desiring to advance even faster into the future, the Akans recently outlawed the past, the old calligraphy, certain words, all ancient beliefs and ways; every citizen must now be a producer-consumer. Their state, not unlike the China of the Cultural Revolution, is one of secular terrorism.

Traveling from city to small town, from loudspeakers to bleating cattle, Sutty discovers the remnants of a banned religion, a hidden culture. As she moves deeper into the countryside and the desolate mountains, she learns more about the Telling—the old faith of the Akans—and more about herself. With her intricate creation of an alien world, Ursula K. Le Guin compels us to reflect on our own recent history.

[salty-horse]

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)
Young adult. Was on my wishlist.

Everyone knows Bone Gap is full of gaps.

So when young, beautiful Roza went missing, the people of Bone Gap weren’t surprised. But Finn knows what really happened to Roza. He knows she was kidnapped by a dangerous man whose face he cannot remember.

As we follow the stories of Finn, Roza, and the people of Bone Gap, acclaimed author Laura Ruby weaves a tale of the ways in which the face the world sees is never the sum of who we are.

[ZodWallop]

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is $2 at Amazon, B&N and Kobo US.

An orphan’s life is harsh—and often short—in the mysterious island city of Camorr. But young Locke Lamora dodges relentless danger, becoming a thief under the tutelage of a gifted con artist. As leader of the band of light-fingered brothers known as the Gentlemen Bastards, Locke is soon infamous, fooling even the underworld’s most feared ruler. But in the shadows lurks someone still more ambitious and deadly. Faced with a bloody coup that threatens to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the enemy at his own brutal game—or die trying.