FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy

[salty-horse]

The Mars House by Natasha Pulley is £1 in the UK (Kobo, Amazon)
Pulley usually mixes historical fiction and fantasy for non-genre readers. This her first foray into an SF setting, which is an immigration story on Mars.
Lukewarm review by Niall Harrison on Locus

January Stirling was one of the principal dancers of London's Royal Ballet. Now he's a climate refugee bound for Tharsis, the notorious terraformed colony on Mars. It's a utopia for the naturalised population. For January, as a dangerous Earthstronger whose body is unadjusted to the weaker Martian gravity, it's a life sentence to hard labour and ferocious discrimination.

But he will live.

Aubrey Gale, energy trillionaire and hereditary senator, is running for election on a hardline platform to protect the native population from dangerous immigrants. The path to equality is simple, requiring all Earthstrongers who choose to come to Mars to undergo the disabling and sometimes fatal process of surgical naturalisation.

Which is no life at all.

When a disastrous media encounter plunges Aubrey and January's lives into chaos, the solution is a five-year made-for-reality-TV marriage that could secure January's future and ensure Aubrey's political success . . . but it soon becomes clear that thousands of lives hang in the balance, and nothing is as it seems.

The Mars House is an exceptional genre-blending story about privilege, strength, life, and love across class divisions

[pdurrant]

The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle is now £0.99 at Amazon UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09VKP5FH4

[salty-horse]

Company Town by Madeline Ashby is $3 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

New Arcadia is a city-sized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd.

Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bio-engineered enhancements. As such, she's the last truly organic person left on the rig—making her doubly an outsider, as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire. Still, her expertise in the arts of self-defense and her record as a fighter mean that her services are yet in high demand. When the youngest Lynch needs training and protection, the family turns to Hwa. But can even she protect against increasingly intense death threats seemingly coming from another timeline?

Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city's stability and heightens the unease of a rig turning over. All signs point to a nearly invisible serial killer, but all of the murders seem to lead right back to Hwa's front door. Company Town has never been the safest place to be—but now, the danger is personal.

[salty-horse]

Mortal Engines (Predator Cities #1) by Philip Reeve is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

London is hunting again. Emerging from its hiding place in the hills, the great Traction City is chasing a terrified little town across the wastelands. Soon London will feed.In the attack, Tom Natsworthy is flung from the speeding city with a murderous scar-faced girl. They must run for their lives through the wreckage -- and face a terrifying new weapon that threatens the future of the world.

[svenlind]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle is now £0.99 at Amazon UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09VKP5FH4

Also avaiable at Amazon US for 1 $.

[salty-horse]

That edition isn't available in the US, and the US edition isn't on sale.

[svenlind]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

That edition isn't available in the US, and the US edition isn't on sale.

I bought il today for appr. 1$. So it was available. I now have it in Calibre. I haven’t yet read it. But it certainly seems ok.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by svenlind

I bought il today for appr. 1$. So it was available. I now have it in Calibre. I haven’t yet read it. But it certainly seems ok.

Fine if you're not in the US. But if you are, it's as salty-horse said. Only the Gollancz edition is currently on sale. The Ace edition available from the US isn't.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

Fine if you're not in the US. But if you are, it's as salty-horse said. Only the Gollancz edition is currently on sale. The Ace edition available from the US isn't.

That's why with shops such as Kobo and eBooks.com, you travel to get the eBooks on sale if need be.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That's why with shops such as Kobo and eBooks.com, you travel to get the eBooks on sale if need be.

Yes, sure, but I don't bother. I got the Ace edition when it was on sale. Don't think it was this low, but definitely worth it to me.

[salty-horse]

Svenlind, what's your region set to on Amazon.com?

The link to Amazon.com had the same ASIN as the Amazon UK link. How was that edition available on the other website?

[salty-horse]

Star Eater by Kerstin Hall is $3 in the US. (Kobo, Amazon)
Cannibal nuns in space.
Review by Liz Bourke in Locus

All martyrdoms are difficult.

Elfreda Raughn will avoid pregnancy if it kills her, and one way or another, it will kill her. Though she’s able to stomach her gruesome day-to-day duties, the reality of preserving the Sisterhood of Aytrium’s magical bloodline horrifies her. She wants out, whatever the cost.

So when a shadowy faction approaches Elfreda with an offer of escape, she leaps at the opportunity. As their spy, she gains access to the highest reaches of the Sisterhood, and enters a glittering world of opulent parties, subtle deceptions, and unexpected bloodshed.

A phantasmagorical indictment of hereditary power, Star Eater takes readers deep into a perilous and uncanny world where even the most powerful women are forced to choose what sacrifices they will make, so that they might have any choice at all.

[svenlind]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

Svenlind, what's your region set to on Amazon.com?

The link to Amazon.com had the same ASIN as the Amazon UK link. How was that edition available on the other website?

I am from Denmark. The link still gives access to the cheap offer.
On the other hand many offers here are not avaiable to me because of my location. So this is a reverse case.
The ways of copyright are certainly mysterious.

[DrLimu]

Originally Posted by salty-horse

The link to Amazon.com had the same ASIN as the Amazon UK link. How was that edition available on the other website?

Amazon.com is not exclusive to the US; other countries, e.g. Sweden & Denmark, also use the .com domain for ebooks, so we get the appropriate editions and are charged the sales tax of our countries. Amazon is quite good at putting things on sale so I often find deals on that are not available on other stores.

[salty-horse]

The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy by Ursula K. Le Guin is $2 in the US (Kobo, Amazon)

Featuring a new introduction by Ken Liu, this revised edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s first full-length collection of essays covers her background as a writer and educator, on fantasy and science fiction, on writing, and on the future of literary science fiction.

“We like to think we live in daylight, but half the world is always dark; and fantasy, like poetry, speaks the language of the night.” —Ursula K. Le Guin

Le Guin’s sharp and witty voice is on full display in this collection of twenty-four essays, revised by the author a decade after its initial publication in 1979. The collection covers a wide range of topics and Le Guin’s origins as a writer, her advocacy for science fiction and fantasy as mediums for true literary exploration, the writing of her own major works such as A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness, and her role as a public intellectual and educator. The book and each thematic section are brilliantly introduced and contextualized by Susan Wood, a professor at the University of British Columbia and a literary editor and feminist activist during the 1960s and ’70s.

A fascinating, intimate look into the exceptional mind of Le Guin whose insights remain as relevant and resonant today as when they were first published.