Amazing Book Deals

[Lord of Rhinos]

You are a modern Sherlock Holmes, Tarant. My wallet offers its thanks.

Happy to share :cool4:

[Lord of Rhinos]

Horror master Robert McCammon's book Mystery Walk is 1.99 today at Amazon. One of his lesser known works. I've never read McCammon but rumor is he's very good.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Someone here mentioned that Baen books has a great e-book selection. There are a bunch of free e-books, especially for 80- 90's era sci fi and fantasy. Their e-book prices are really good. I got the Heris Serrano Trilogy for $6.00. Night Shade books are sold here as well.

Here is the link: http://www.baenebooks.com/

[RedEyedGhost]

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Tales of the Jazz Age

Is free on kindle right now in the US (I tried to check amazon UK, but they have it block so as to not even give prices to people outside of the UK), but its normal price is $0.99 so it's not a crazy discount.

[RedEyedGhost]

Bright of the Sky by Kay Kenyon is free for kindle in the US right now.

[Sci-2]

Free Kindle Books:

Alice in Wonderland

From there you'll see a ton of other free classics in the suggestions.

[RedEyedGhost]

Jonathan Wood's No Hero and Yesterday's Hero can be downloaded free as either ePub or .mobi and it doesn't look like there's any geographical restrictions.

Here's the synopsis for the first book:

"What would Kurt Russell do?" Oxford police detective Arthur Wallace asks himself that question a lot. Because Arthur is no hero. He's a good cop, but prefers that action and heroics remain on the screen, safely performed by professionals. But then, secretive government agency MI12 comes calling, hoping to recruit Arthur in their struggle against the tentacled horrors from another dimension known as the Progeny. But Arthur is NO HERO! Can an everyman stand against sanity-ripping cosmic horrors?

[Gillio]

discount vouchers for kobo here

http://www.retailmenot.com/view/kobobooks.com

[Lord of Rhinos]

Subterranean Press's catalog is all priced at 2.99 or lower currently at Amazon (probably other places to). Keep in mind a lot of these titles are novellas.

I would strongly encourage everyone to pick up The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox. It's an omnibus of the three novels by Barry Hughart. The first novel, Bridge of Birds, won the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award. These three books are excellent. Beautiful, poetic, funny stories about a China that never was. For a buck a piece they are great value for the money.

I also picked up some of the short story collections which are fairly lengthy. Michael Swanwick is an absolutely fantastic short story writer and by all accounts Lucius Shepard is also a great writer. Ted Chiang and Peter S. Beagle have a few novellas as well, and while at 2.99 they are pricey, we're talking about two of the best SF writers of all time.

[RedEyedGhost]

Of Blood and Honey by Stana Leicht is $1.99 on kindle, as is Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel.

[mashiara]

Of Blood and Honey by Stana Leicht is $1.99 on kindle, as is Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel.

It gives me "Pricing information not available" and "book not currently available" on the first, and something like $4.59 on the second. Boo!

[RedEyedGhost]

It gives me "Pricing information not available" and "book not currently available" on the first, and something like $4.59 on the second. Boo!

USA! USA!

Maybe if you set amazon.com as your default? :dunno: Or have your in-laws gift it to you :P

[mashiara]

Maybe if you set amazon.com as your default? :dunno: Or have your in-laws gift it to you :P

I tried to get it through the kindle app on our ipad which is conveniently tied to a US credit card and address, but no dice. I guess Amazon is smarter than iTunes and knows where everyone is. My MiL just sent me a bunch of books I wanted, I don't think it's worth bugging her about this one. It sucks though, seeing all those great deals now and then just for US people. It SUCKS, I TELL YOU! :P

[Procrastimancer]

Subterranean Press's catalog is all priced at 2.99 or lower currently at Amazon (probably other places to). Keep in mind a lot of these titles are novellas.

I would strongly encourage everyone to pick up The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox. It's an omnibus of the three novels by Barry Hughart. The first novel, Bridge of Birds, won the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award. These three books are excellent. Beautiful, poetic, funny stories about a China that never was. For a buck a piece they are great value for the money.

I also picked up some of the short story collections which are fairly lengthy. Michael Swanwick is an absolutely fantastic short story writer and by all accounts Lucius Shepard is also a great writer. Ted Chiang and Peter S. Beagle have a few novellas as well, and while at 2.99 they are pricey, we're talking about two of the best SF writers of all time.

This is the best time to get Thomas Ligotti's collections, Grimscribe and Noctuary, both of which tend to be horrifically overpriced otherwise. Granted, it seems SubPress hasn't completely sold through their trade run of Noctuary.

[Horselover Fat]

What? When you can get a hardcover copy of Grimscribe for a mere $150?

Thanks for pointing this out. I LOVE Ligotti and haven't been able to afford anything of his other than Teatro Grottesco.

[RedEyedGhost]

The Whitefire Crossing by Courtney Schafer is available in the US on kindle for $3.99

The Child Thief by Brom... US... kindle, blah, blah, blah $1.99

I tried to get it through the kindle app on our ipad which is conveniently tied to a US credit card and address, but no dice. I guess Amazon is smarter than iTunes and knows where everyone is. My MiL just sent me a bunch of books I wanted, I don't think it's worth bugging her about this one. It sucks though, seeing all those great deals now and then just for US people. It SUCKS, I TELL YOU! :P

Using a proxy server from the US should work. I'm not sure how trustworthy they are, but if you only use that US credit card very sparingly, it should be easy to track fraudulent activity.

[SkynJay]

The Whitefire Crossing by Courtney Schafer is available in the US on kindle for $3.99

The Child Thief by Brom... US... kindle, blah, blah, blah $1.99

Using a proxy server from the US should work. I'm not sure how trustworthy they are, but if you only use that US credit card very sparingly, it should be easy to track fraudulent activity.

I have heard great things about The Child Thief, but not from anyone around here. Anyone read it? Like it?

[RedEyedGhost]

I have heard great things about The Child Thief, but not from anyone around here. Anyone read it? Like it?

From the best of 2011 thread

The Child Thief - Brom - another one I was pleasantly surprised by.

From May 2011

I need to take a look at Brom's other books. The Child Thief was great and definitely one of my favorite books the year it was released. It came as a bit of a surprise considering I had never heard of him before.

I am disappointed that the book is down in Florida. Wouldn't mind giving it a reread.

A not-so-awesome reading from May 09

I started The Child Thief by Brom but could not get into it after close to a hundred pages and flying through even worse in security NYC this week and next and I'm not going to try and shove it into an already full of books bag. Instead I'm taking Jay Lake's Green which I had set aside last week after it not engaging and seeing if plane confinement adds a little necessary charm

I know there were other flattering reviews here, but these are all a quick search pulled up.

[Procrastimancer]

I have heard great things about The Child Thief, but not from anyone around here. Anyone read it? Like it?

It was one of my earlier reviews, so this is probably of worse quality than usual:

As I sit here and stare into space, it dons on me that this is going to be a very difficult review to write. The release seemed to have come out of nowhere--a book written by an artist that I had scarcely heard of before. There was interest though, despite reading a short excerpt that left me rather uncertain of the whole thing. After reading the first chapter I felt the prose was workmanlike, a factor that can push me to put down a novel faster than anything else, but the story was interesting. Then there was the art. Just seeing the samples that Brom had up on his sight was more than enough to make me want the book. So I took a chance and ordered it, knowing full well that I might just end up with a rather expensive and very slight art book. I am glad I took a chance.

It is highly like that you have watched Disney's version of Peter Pan at some point, either as a child, with a child, as a fan of Disney cartoons, or just bored out of your mind on a rainy day. At some point you may have watched another version of it released in the nineties, Hook. The Child Thief has nothing to do with those. Instead it is based off the original--and darker works--by J.M. Barrie, but Brom has not created a simple dark retelling of the tale. Brom blends Celtic myth with the concept of Barrie's child thief and from this combination springs a setting that is brimming with imagination, wonder, and foreboding. This is a setting where not everything is as it seems, where the line between good guy and bad is blurred, and where old gods frolic and die.

Though I did have my reservations going into the novel because of the prose, they were quickly dissolved. Instead of the workmanlike prose I encountered in the first chapter, I was instead faced by a prose that was near-lyrical and filled with just the sort of imagery I would expect from an artist-turned-writer. The Child Thief is extremely readable, not because the prose is simple, but because it--and the story--grabbed me and refused to let go. I almost expected the novel to be bogged down with description, but thankfully that turned out to be a biased assumption and little more. Brom manages a balanced description that paints just enough of a picture--spiced with vibrant colors--to let the imagination run with it. As such, the novel is never bogged down by excessive description, nor does it skim over details.

The best part of the novel though, what I feel deserves the most praise, are the characters. Like all books you have primary characters and you have secondary characters and, like most books, the secondary characters here are not given any extraordinary amount of focus. This is so common these days that I do not bother to mark it as a negative--it has become par for the course. Still, there are secondary characters throughout the novel that are focused on, if only briefly, and when this happens... well, it managed to change my perspective of the novel completely. The main characters seem to be Peter, the iconic wild boy that just so happens to be an obsessed sociopath, and Nick, a recent addition to Peter's Devils. Nick is a skeptic and a doubt-bringer, in constant struggle with himself and the world around him. On the other hand, Peter is cocksure, a trickster, who will do anything for Avalon and the Lady of the Lake he promised to always serve. The two work extremely well off of each other, with Nick serving as the conscience that Peter lacks and Peter standing in as the wild boy Nick might become.

Nothing is ever certain or as expected in this novel. The Flesh-Eaters, a group of English immigrants and the crews of the ships they sailed on, and their war against the Faery of Avalon provides a stark realization of this truth, as do characters on both sides of the fight. This was a pleasant surprise and one that certainly elevated my estimation of the novel, but I am afraid I cannot go any further into it as it would be a definite spoiler.

Another high point of the novel was the art. Each chapter is preceded by a sketch that illustrates some scene from the chapter and each is of high quality and take up an entire page. There are also several full-color glossy illustrations tucked into the middle of the book that detail a handful of the characters found within the novel. The novel is almost worth buying for the art alone, but that this novel is very near to fantastic is a definite reason to pick it up as well.

I found this review hard to write because I have a lot of praise of the novel, but not much in the way of complaints. My major complaint was the use of CAPS when a character yelled and the characters yelled more than enough to make it annoying. It is not something I see a lot of these days, thankfully, which probably makes it stand out all the more when it does appear. Do not like it at all. My second complaint has to do with the cursing, but it is not really my complaint. I have nothing against cursing in novels and it did not bother me at all, but I can see others being bothered by the abundance of four letter words.

The Child Thief is a dark tale that still manages to be chock full of wonder and imagination, while including more than its share of violence, foul mouths, and unbalanced minds. The main characters as well as some of the more prominent secondary characters are undeniably human with faults, doubt, and real emotions. Near-lyrical prose and an interesting story do a lot to lure the reader into the pages and the trap that waits among them, forced to continue on and on until finally there is only the last page to turn. And of course, the art is a wonderful supplement to the novel. If I was forced to chose a book at this moment to name the best I've read this year, I do believe this would be that book. I am serious when I say this: Do yourself a favor and buy this book.

[RedEyedGhost]

Today only Mark Helprin's amazing Winter's Tale is $1.99 on US Kindle. It's been seven years since I read it and the imagery is still fresh in my mind.