Ebook Bargains

Oh god they’ve got the Gor books!

What, you mean someone printed other books? Why?

Went with some Effinger, some Sterling, a Poul Anderson, and something called “The Timeline Wars” by someone I’ve never heard of, because, what the heck.

Never heard of them. Should I have? Should I buy?

There are a lot more on the following pages if you didn’t click through.

Holy crap at all the stuff, I didn’t even notice there were multiple pages. Still, picked up a few things - Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, Lot and Lot’s Daughter, and a couple Harlan Ellison compilations.

Oh yes, of course. Right guys? ::wink, wink::

Lots of sf/fantasy and other things on Humble. Not sure what’s worth trying here. Opinions welcomed.

Nina Kiriki Hoffman is amazing (I’m reading a different novel of hers than is in this bundle right now), Ursula LeGuin is amazing, Jane Yolen is amazing, the two serials from Serial Box I’ve read (Witch and Bookburners) are both very good and the earlier books by Ellen Kushner in the series followed by the Tremontaine serial are also great…I mean, I can’t vouch for everything because I’ve never read e.g. Simak or Delany but they are reputedly excellent as well. Honestly there’s probably not a bad read in the whole bundle with the possible exception of the one Piers Anthony novel. (He can be fun but a lot of his work has some…weird… sexual content.)

I would absolutely recommend the first set–I’ve read every book in that set except the Scarborough and there is excellent work there. Even the Piers Anthony is old-school Anthony, before he went nuts and started writing derivative crap.

The second set may even be better–Tea With the Black Dragon alone is worth the price, plus Brunner, Swanwick, Butler–all excellent works. Maureen McHugh, if you haven’t discovered her yet, is wonderful.

The final set is the weakest, imo. Butler, old-school Delany, Morrow again, all excellent. Nightwings is a relatively short novel by Silverberg. I think it might have been in the Tor Double Novel collections from the 80s/90s as well. I know Sailing to Byzantium was in that series. Anyway, some excellent stuff here, but just not as top-heavy to my eye. All three sets are well worth having, though. I’d be buying them if I didn’t already own 90% of what is listed here.

There are four tiers, not three.

Incidentally, my biggest beef with the bundle is that they have book 2 of Yolen’s Great Alta series at the second tier and book 1 at the third. WTF, people?

Good lord, I completely missed the 4th tier. Well, Dhalgren is considered to be Delany’s masterpiece, so there’s that. The Female Man is considered Russ’s masterpiece (though frankly I find it offputting, especially the final third of the novel). Jerzy Kosinski is a lot of fun. More Morrow, plus Greg Bear, almost always worth a read. I consider Powers to be one of LeGuin’s weaker works, but even a weaker work from her is better than most writers ever produce. Plus another good Silverberg. Another very nice set of works.

image

I kinda want to buy them all. I don’t actually own any of these books, though I own others by the same authors - really like Ellison, Butler and the rest. Seems like a good buy for $20.

Yeah, yeah, when the walls fell.

Zinda, his face black, his eyes red. His lips a delightful shade of coral, matching his nails and shoes.

I want them all too. My main problem with that is when I get a whole bundle with so many books, I’m kind of overwhelmed. if I get one book at a time, it works out much better.

This month’'s free ebook at TOR:
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi.

Awesome, after reading comments here from people about this I almost bought it last week but just kind of forgot.

I enjoyed it and the follow ups, but it’s really disorienting when you start it (or at least it was for me). The world it drops you into is very foreign, and it takes a while to get up to speed.

My strong advice is not to just immerse yourself in the novel and expect to eventually learn terminology as you go, but instead to keep http://www.karangill.com/glossary-quantum-thief-fractal-prince-jean-le-flambeur/ bookmarked and look up any unfamiliar term you come across. That way you can appreciate the story and the worldbuilding instead of pounding your head against the impenetrable prose. (Speaking as someone who did the latter.)