Although horror’s not my thing, so this particular bundle is not for me, I still find it exciting that Fanatical is doing book bundles now! How long has this been going on? Anyway, they make amazing game bundles, so I’m very intrigued as to what will follow this particular book bundle.
You’ve got until Oct 8th to claim Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune from Tor’s eBook of the Month club:
I also noticed in my daily Amazon email that the unpublished conclusion to T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, titled The Book of Merlyn, is available for $2.99. Tempted by that one, I don’t think I knew this even existed:
I also saw 1 and 2 of Once and Future King are on sale for $.99. I know this is a classic series but I’ve never read it. It looks like time to remedy that.
Also I saw the Brian Evenson book Windeye:Stories was on sale for $2.99. I know I have a few from him but I’m not sure that I’ve read any yet. Weird horror from what I gather.
The Book of Merlyn was published back in 1977, after being unknown for a long time.
Well worth reading.
Another eBook that may not interest anyone but me - I’ve had the Doom books on my wishlist forever, always heard they were big dumb fun. Looks like today the first in the series, Knee Deep in the Dead, is available for $1.99:
That looks like a reprint of the book I read in the 90s. It wasn’t very good then. Can’t imagine it’s aged well.
Qt3 seems kind of mixed on the topic of the Doom Books. Especially the first one.
I really cannot stress how gloriously insane and unexpectedly and kind of uncomfortably pro-Mormon the Doom series is. The first book is definitely a joyless slog to get through due to the reasons mentioned above, but if you can actually power through all the way to the end of the fourth, you will be irrevocably changed forever more. Not necessarily for the better, but changed nonetheless.
This sounds like something I would have read in Sunless Sea
If the first one’s so bad I don’t want to read it. Unfortunately the second one is $10.
At some point, the villainous focus shifts from the standard Demons of Hell to a new threat called, if I recall correctly, the “Noobies,” a highly expansionist species whose evolutionary rate is many orders of magnitude faster than any other species in the galaxy – and humans were already regarded as terrifyingly adaptable compared to most of the galactic milieu. Anyway, they get defeated by basically dumping some kind of hivemind consciousness of theirs into an AI supercomputer effectively just running the DOOM videogame at superspeed so that they evolve themselves out of corporeal existence entirely before their invasion force can reach the Earth.
Also, the entire conflict between Heaven and Hell turns out to be two different large philosophical factions of galactic society having a textual dispute about the interpretation of some ancient books, which, IIRC, the characters learn while staying at the resort+spa that the “Heaven” faction gins up to represent themselves to humans with, in much the same way that the Demons were just normal aliens who gene-engineered themselves to look like Demons for the specific purpose of scaring humanity after researching our deepest terrors back in the Middle Ages (they didn’t expect our society to advance fast enough to have nuclear arms within a few hundred years of being scared of a red dude with horns in our quaint little religions.
The books are mercifully short and pulpy, so, the best thing I can say for the first is that you’ll be done with it before the suffering has become unbearable, lol.
For those interested, Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code is on sale for $2. If you like pulp adventure, its actually a good read.
Not sure if I posted this, but Cory Doctorow has his excellent Little Brother ebook available for free (creative commons) from his website:
https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/
From the reviews:
Little Brother is a scarily realistic adventure about how homeland security technology could be abused to wrongfully imprison innocent Americans. A teenage hacker-turned-hero pits himself against the government to fight for his basic freedoms. This book is action-packed with tales of courage, technology, and demonstrations of digital disobedience as the technophile’s civil protest.
Marcus is a wonderfully developed character: hyperaware of his surroundings, trying to redress past wrongs, and rebelling against authority. Teen espionage fans will appreciate the numerous gadgets made from everyday materials. One afterword by a noted cryptologist and another from an infamous hacker further reflect Doctorow’s principles, and a bibliography has resources for teens interested in intellectual freedom, information access, and technology enhancements.
Doesn’t he do that with all his books? Not that it’s not a bargain.
I don’t think it’s all, or if it is, it’s after X amount of time. Example - Homeland (sequel to Little Brother) is also a free download, but Attack Surface (book 2.5/3 in the series) isn’t, nor is Radicalized, etc.
But here’s Homeland as well:
It has been an effective strategy for me at least. I read a free version of Little Brother, loved it, and bought a hard copy for my eldest kid when she was old enough to appreciate it, because apart from it being a good story, I thought it had some important stuff in there. Recommended!
I actually bought the 2x ebook of Little Bother/ Homeland, as well as Attack Surface.
I post then here and to friends to get them interested, they are great books, and I loathe the surveillance state, so…
If you like different takes on the superhero genre this may be for you. Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson is the 1st in a trilogy about a world where super “heroes” exist but absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely so most are really bad people. Amazon has it for $2
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ARHAAZ6?_bbid=93322273&tag=bookbubdaemail-20
It’s actually not just “people with superpowers tend to abuse them because power corrupts”. That’s more The Boys. There’s something actively corrupting about the powers in The Reckoners. But yeah, good trilogy.
That is why I didn’t like the Steelheart series. Power corrupts due to human nature is a powerful theme. By making superpowers actively and directly turn people evil I felt the book wasted an opportunity for good character driven drama. I couldn’t stop thinking “this would be so much better if the corruption were the seduction of power and the tendency of the powerful to see others as pawns instead of this direct almost-Sauronian style corruption.” I get what Sanderson was doing but it didn’t work for me.