The Best of Charles de Lint is free today for Kindle. He’s one of the better writers out there.
These look like a tasty deal for horror fans (especially if you like short stories), two bundles of books from Crystal Lake: http://www.crystallakepub.com/promos-and-specials.php
[EDIT] The deal ends on February 3rd.
Singularity & Co. is doing another Kickstarter to save and republish out-of-print science fiction classics! If you like reading classic sci-fi, it’s a worthy cause and you get a heck of a bargain on a subscription that nets you a new classic book every month.
And if you missed their first Kickstarter, you can pledge at a level that will give you access to the previous library as well. 36+ classic out-of-print ebooks for less than the price of two hardbacks!
I’d never even heard of most of the books in their existing library, and given that I love me some classic and pulp sci-fi, I went in for the subscription+back library level.
It does look interesting, but I worry about the quality of the writing. I have a couple of vintage SF pulp mags and most of the stories are drek. There’s a certain charm in humor in them from a historical perspective, but they didn’t make for a good reading experience.
These aren’t randomly selected, they’re chosen from stories that considered good but for one reason or another went out of print. And they’re not from pulp mags (which often were filled with hastily written crap), they’re novels, so it’s a different kind/standard of writing.
There’s a certain quaintness to any vintage SF, but if you have read stuff like 50’s Pohl/Kornbluth collaborations or vintage Asimov/Clarke/etc. you know that there are fantastic stories out there, even when the tech/vision is dated. You certainly can’t write the books off just because of their publication period. These obviously aren’t the classics, but they’re well-regarded novels of their day.
At $50 for 36 books, it’s a no-brainer for me. If I find 5-10 I enjoy and finish I’ve gotten a great deal. And compared to grabbing random old paperbacks at the used bookstore (which I do as well :), these have been vetted as being good reads and/or milestone books that inspiring what followed.
I wish they had samples I could read. For example, how do they create these ebooks? Do they OCR them? That often creates text with numerous errors. Beyond that I’d like to vet them with my own sense of taste. The Kindle samples are usually more than adequate for me to do this, but there are no Kindle samples of these it appears.
I agree that the price is good but I already have a substantial backlog of ebooks and I have a Scribd subscription too which lets me borrow a gazillion ebooks. I also have library ebooks I can check out. I don’t lack for cheap reading options.
Okay, I think we’ve determined Mark’s not a big enough fan of classic science fiction to justify spending the money. Hopefully someone will find my post helpful.
Hey, you post something and someone responds to it in a way that invites you to respond back. I think we’ve determined that means something. I hope someone will find this exchange helpful.
See, the problem there is that you took the time to read 25-30 books you didn’t like to find those 5-10 books. IMHO, that’s a poor time investment.
Well, you can always spend 3 minutes on the web looking at info on the individual books before deciding to read them. I wasn’t implying reading 35 books to find the ones you like. :)
I like it that they are pulling SF books out of the dustbin of oblivion, but I wish they actually had samples to check out. It’s not that hard to take the complete book and make a new file that’s a partial of the whole. The books sell individually for $4.99. I’d be happy to pay that if I could read a sample before buying.
Just a heads up that, starting today, The Uno Affair is on a five-day free book promotion at Amazon. Jump in and grab a copy before they run out ;)
Awesome. Congrats on getting your novel out there! Ill give it a read.
New Humble Book Bundle is live.
$1 gets you Bryan’s Gold by Peter V. Brett, Top of the Volcano by Harlan Ellison, The Ape’s Wife And other Stories by Caitlin Keirnan, Jacaranda: A Novella of the Clockwork Century by Cherie Priest, Must of Fire by Dan Simmons, Inside Job by Connie Willis, and The Jack Vance Treasury. Several items in there worth it by themselves.
$12 gets you Amityville Horrible by Kelley Armstrong, Tortured Souls: The Legend of Primordium by Clive Barker, The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate by Ted Chiang, The End of the Sentence by Maria Dahvana Headley and Kat Howard, The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart, Nobody’s Home: An Anubis Gates Story by Tim Powers, and the Mallet of Loving Correction by John Scalzi.
$15 gets you Black Hat Jack by Joe R. Lansdale, The Hunter from the Woods by Robert McCammon, and Academic Exercises by K.J. Parker.
Note a couple of items aren’t novels, but 80-ish page novellas: the Clive Barker and Tim Powers stories.
I decided to get the whole bundle. The $1 bundle is ridiculous - I would have gotten it for the Vance collection alone. Of the pricier items, I wanted the new Tim Powers story, I only have 2 of the 3 Master Li / Number Ten Ox novels, and Academic Exercises is a very large (500+) page collection. I don’t know Parker at all, but the Amazon description sounded decent. I figure if I like anything else it’s gravy.
I got the $1 bundle but didn’t see the Tim Powers story. That’s a must-have, though it’s $5.99 at Amazon and $7 is still cheaper than $12. I will probably upgrade and get the $12 deal. It’s a great bundle.
It’s worth it for Barry Hughart alone. Those books are amazing (and way too little known) and you get the whole set. But pretty much everyone else on that list I’m familiar with is also well worth it. K.J. Parker in particular. And Caitlin Kiernan’s short stories have been pretty hard to come by, so that’s a good pick as well. (Though I guess that particular collection is $5 on Amazon.)
One of my favourite books (well, yeah, I haven’t actually read past the title and blurb yet) is free again.
The Hedonistic Castrators of Sex Nexus Nine
When the giant vagina appears in the sky, Jack Sumpthin climbs it, falls in and is transported to the planet of extraordinary sex. On Herenou, he discovers the Herbies are having their sexual organs systematically harvested by the dominant race of Castrators. Sex Nexus Nine, the intergalactic womb-hole fueled from energy created from massive sexual orgies, is their plea for help. Jack’s quest brings him in contact with sex trees, the Blowbirds of Happiness, sperm races, telekinetic strip clubs, living thinking sex toys, masturbation propulsion and the terrifying castration machines. And who is the other Earthling that has already been on Herenou for centuries?
Amazon has the first six of Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Tales available for $1.99 each.
Books highlighted by Jon Stewart’s guests are on a special sale today only:
Picked up the Davy Crockett book.
— Alan