Read an Ebook Week speculative fiction thread (freebies & bargains)

[ATDrake]

Since romance and mystery have their own dedicated threads, here's sf/fantasy/horror/historical (I don't imagine we'll get enough of that last to make up its own thread).

NB: If someone has at least one thing free/on sale, I'm not going to bother to direct-link all of their special offers separately (unless it's the only thing in a 2-page listing), and just link to their author page instead to save time, especially since Smashwords doesn't auto-show if something's on sale when you do a keyword search or look at the listings in the profiles.

@ Smashwords

Stephen Ames Berry (ISFDB entry) offers his 1984 Ace-published MilSF space opera for free: The Biofab War

Elaine Corvidae (ISFDB entry) who is published by Mundania Press offers all her Smashwords stuff for free, some to download, others using provided coupon. Linkage to her author listing.

Lazette Gifford (ISFDB entry) offers a number of short stories for free download or free-with-coupon, and her longer works are set to 50% off. Linkage to her author page.

Sylvia Kelso (ISFDB entry) has her entire Smashwords catalogue on sale @ 50% off using the coupon code provided ($2.99 regularly). 3 epic fantasy novels published by Five Star & a collection of sfnal essays. Read some sample stories and essays over at her Book View Cafe page.

Moyra Caldecott (ISFDB entry) writes historical novels (some with fantasy element) set in assorted ancient times, some of which are at YA level. Much of her catalogue is 25% off using coupon and it seems likely that other stuff from her re-publisher "Mushroom Publishing" will also be discounted, but frankly you can get these a lot cheaper via Fictionwise using their discount coupons.

Kathleen Guler, whom I noticed last year, is either very small press or glorified self-pub (ISFDB entry; her publisher imprint seems to only carry her books, as far as I can tell). But her books are or were distributed as far as two of my local library systems, and were interesting enough that I was thinking of getting the 1st volume in her 5th century British historical Arthurian-related fantasy-ish adventures when it was offered at a 75% discount to $1.99 (and in retrospect, probably should have, since the library turfed their copy some months later). This time around, she is only offering a 25% discount on her $7.99 books so I think I'll pass considering that and $6 is about what I'd pay for a Baen-backed author with a good reputation in the field and way too pricey for a probably self-pub unknown. But here's her catalogue if you've read her before and want e-copies with a minor discount.

[ATDrake]

More @ Smashwords

Nebula Award-winner Linda Nagata (ISFDB entry) offers a free sf novella: In the Tide

Robert Stanek (ISFDB) offers two free shorts. Apparently this author is a total self-pub review faker who makes up grossly exaggerated if not outright fictional credentials for himself. See this site for details (hat tip to MR moderator Dr. Drib for pointing it out). That, incidentally, is a significantly more awesome and entertaining read than Stanek's overtly fictional stories are likely to be.

Baen & Harlequin-published Doranna Durgin (ISFDB) still has one of her novels free, has another short free with coupon, and offers 25-50% off selected short stories and other novels. Several of her shorts are included in her sale collection Heart of a Dog, so check before buying the individual ones since the collecton works out cheaper than picking them up separately.

Annie Bellet (ISFDB) has a novella still free and offers 25-50% off selected collections of her short stories.

Fellow MR member author Stephen Goldin (ISFDB entry) has a short story free and offers 25-75% off selected novels.

Nebula and Spectrum award-nominee M.C.A. Hogarth (ISFDB) has several short stories free and offers 25% off selected longer works.

Carina Press-published Canadian writer Marcelle Dubé offers several fantasy & mystery shorts free with coupon, and 50% off her novel (which she has raised the price of from $4.99 last month to $6.99 now, I notice).

Fellow MR member author & editor Keith Brooke (ISFDB), who ran the Infinity Plus webmagazine, offers discounts on several of his own works and those of the writers he re-publishes via his imprint. Here is the main page for the imprint where you can check if new titles have been added (there's also a free sampler of the authors' works), and here are some of the authors with selected longer works available at 25% off (regularly $2.99) with coupon: Eric Brown (ISFDB), Stephen Palmer (ISFDB), John Grant (ISFDB), Garry Kilworth (ISFDB)

[ATDrake]

Even more @ Smashwords

David Wind (ISFDB) offers 50% off history/speculative novels and 75% off mystery/thrillers. One of his history/speculatives is Queen of Knights, published by Pocket in 1985 under the pseudonym Monica Barrie, for which he quotes praise from Andre Norton in the blurb.

Allan Cole (ISFDB) offers 50% off volumes in his Del Rey/Ballantine-published Locus/British Fantasy Award-nominated Far Kingdoms series, and also some historicals.

Jan Morrill says she has been published in those Chicken Soup for the Soul books and nominated for a Pushcart Prize for one of the historical short stories she offers free with coupon.

Marina Oliver (Wikipedia entry) is offering 75% off at least one of her many books, an historical Masquerade for the King which is set during the Restoration of Charles II of England. This may also be an historical romance, as she's got a lot of those as well, but it is not tagged as a romance in the listing.

Night Shade author Kameron Hurley (ISFDB) has a few free short stories.

Formerly Night Shade until-they-stopped-paying-her Liz Williams (ISFDB) has a free short in her popular Inspector Chen series.

[birdbrainbb]

Yay for Liz Williams! And, oooo, her Diary of a Witchcraft Shop is only $1.99, too.

[ATDrake]

Yet more @ Smashwords. And henceforth I'm just linking the authors' profiles to their names. Also, several publishers who are doing time-limited 1-day rotating freebies may include sf/fantasy/horror/historical content, so it wouldn't hurt to check their sites which are listed in the general RAEBW thread.

Canadian Nebula & Aurora Award nominee Douglas Smith (ISFDB) offers selected short stories free with coupon. He's got a lot of them listed overall, so you'll have to do some serious digging.

Carol Hightshoe (ISFDB) has a great many short stories free with coupon, and 50% off longer works/collections.

M.H. Bonham (ISFDB) offers 50% off two anthologies. She seems to be in charge of Wolfsinger Publications, and a random check of a couple of their listed items seems to indicate that many things are 50% off as well.

Wolfsinger's promo includes 50% off a short novel by Laura J. Underwood (ISFDB) which is in a series which follows a character of hers which originally had adventures in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. I remember liking some of her Sword & Sorceress shorts in the old paperbacks anthologies I got from the used bookshop, so I'll probably pick this up if the sample reads well.

Shirley Rousseau Murphy (ISFDB) who's been published by Harper & Avon offers 50% off selected novels (not the ones I'm interested in, unfortunately, but there's a backlist YA omnibus if you want it).

Karen McCullough (ISFDB) has been published by Ellora, Imajinn, and others for urban fantasy/paranormal romance. She offers a short and a longer work free with coupon, and offers 75% off a novel.

MeiLin Miranda (ISFDB entry looks self-pub) has been anthologized by sf/fantasy/steampunk-themed erotic romance imprint Circlet Press. She offers several multi-genre stories including a western fantasy serial free with coupon, and a longer collection for 50% off.

Frances Pauli (ISFDB) is a newbie writer who's had some stuff out from Mundania Press. She offers her humorous space opera free with coupon.

Ann Herendeen has had two HarperCollins-published Regency not-quite-ménage novels exploring historical views of sexuality (one of them a fairly cracktastic Jane Austen derivative). I've read them both from the library and her writing is interesting enough. She offers the first two sf-based novellas in a series free with coupon, and others in the series at 25% off.

Sylvia Engdahl (ISFDB) who has been published by Atheneum and Gollancz and is also apparently a Newbery Medal nominee offers a collection of shorts and a novel free with coupon, and 50% off selected other novels.

Gary K. Wolf (ISFDB), author of the novels that Disney's Who Framed Roger Rabbit? movie was based upon, offers those particular titles and a 1975 Doubleday-published SF novel free with coupon.

[ATDrake]

I don't read horror so I probably wouldn't recognize most of the names. But here are the people at Smashwords who've had official freebies from their publishers or been mentioned by other posters or put their credentials straight in the blurb.

Bram Stoker award-winner John Everson (ISFDB) offers a holiday-themed short story collection free with coupon and 75% off a collection of "magic, horror, dark fantasy, and the macabre" including an Honorable Mention story listed in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology series.

Bram Stoker finalist W.D. Gagliani (ISFDB) offers several shorts and a collection free to download or free with coupon.

Carole Gill (ISFDB) offers a novel at 50% off. Her publisher VampLit also seems to offer 50% off some other authors' works, and there's also a free-to-download novella in there as well.

Dragonlance tie-in novel writer Stephen D. Sullivan (ISFDB) offers selected works at 25% off.

Buffy and other tie-in novel writer Jeff Mariotte (ISFDB) offers a short free with coupon and other works at 50% off.

Imajinn-published Canadian Cheryl Kaye Tardif (ISFDB) offers 25% off a short story collection.

David Bain (ISFDB) has a permafreebie short story and offers 50% off his Grindhouse collection.

Aaron Polson (ISFDB entry) offers several free to download stories and 50% off his Loathsome, Dark, and Deep collection.

Melissa L. Webb (ISFDB) offers several short stories free to download and several more free with coupon.

[Britomart]

Magic in Suburbia, a short story collection by Elisabeth Waters, is free at Amazon US DE right now. It was so for a very short period in February. If you missed it then, you will have to be really quick now, as I expect this offer will only last for the rest of today.

[xg4bx]

Ty Johnston, a great indie dark fantasy/sword&sorcery author has his Sword of Bayne omnibus for 50% off (with coupon) at Smashwords.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/88728

[mikaelalind]

Thank you for this thread, ATDrake. I can recommend the Lazette Gifford novels, especially the Silky triology and Kat among pigeons.

[pdarnold]

I'm not sure if this is the proper "Free Ebook week" thread to add this link.
The book is a bit of sci-fi, mystery with some "light" horror (I am not into horror in general, so I consider this somewhat on the light side) and Barbie. I read this a while back and found it amusing. I thought I would share it here since it is free with the RE100 code.

NANO by Bion Smalley - http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/111159

[scrapking]

The Biofab War is now also free on Kobo, as are most (all?) of the other titles that are straight-up free, no coupon required.

[Dr. Drib]

Moderator Notice

A reminder: Authors and/or Publishers may ONLY self-promote in the Self-Promotions Forum. No other forum is allowed for self-promotion.

[ATDrake]

More Smashwords stuff, mostly garnered via trawling the "Free" category listing of "Science Fiction" (some authors very likely to have works in related genres), which may include permafreebie stuff as well as temporarily price-freebied week-long promo items.

Even so, I wouldn't make assumptions and be sure to download and backup everything you want to keep from Smashwords, just in case the authors decide to yank them for KDP Select, in which case you could very well lose re-download access to things you've actually paid for, as well, according to some of our fellow MR members who've experienced this.

I also can't tell if a 99 cent price is a regular introductory special or price-dropped for Read an E-book Week so if you see a deal you really think you might like, at that price you might as well go for it while it's still there.

Fellow MR member author Jeffrey A. Carver (ISFDB) who has been published by Tor, requested that I mention that he has two sale books @ 50% off his Nebula finalist sf novel Eternity's End and his 2-in-1 Star Rigger Omnibus. He's also got a free-to-download novel for you to try.

Fellow MR member author Elissa Malcohn (ISFDB) is also a finalist for the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell one as well. She offers 6 free novels in her Deviations series.

David Bartell (ISFDB) offers a free-to-download short which originally appeared in Analog Magazine and has another Analog novella for 99 cents.

Mary E. Lowd (ISFDB) offers a number of short stories free-to-download, you-set-the-price, and free-with-coupon, including some stuff published in Cosmos and other smaller magazines.

Alastair Mayer (ISFDB) offers a free-to-download short story originally published in Analog, but doesn't seem to have anything particularly on sale.

Paul Comstock may or may not be the same guy as has this very minor ISFDB entry (seems roughly the right age). He offers all his short stories free-to-download.

TTA Press who publish the Hugo-nominated Interzone and Black Static Horror magazines offer a couple of freebie issues and a short story for you to download. You can also pick up their back issues quite cheaply in DRM-free MultiFormat via Fictionwise using the weekend discount coupons.

NewCon Press who've been releasing Liz Williams' new work also have a few more free to download shorts by authors with ISFDB entries. They don't otherwise seem to have anything particularly on sale.

Lee Moan (ISFDB) offers a free-to-download short and 50% off a space opera mystery.

Edward W. Robertson (ISFDB) offers a free zombie story set on Mars and has two sf/fantasy/horror short collections for 99 cents.

Nicky Drayden (ISFDB) offers two free short story mini-collections and sells the others at 99 cents each.

Ruth Nestvold (ISFDB) offers a free Nebula-nominated short which originally appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Richard Lee Byers (ISFDB) offers a free short story which ties into a longer short novel which is priced at 99 cents, along with a best-of fantasy/horror story collection.

Fellow MR member author and Australian sf writer Simon Haynes (ISFDB) has a bunch of shorts and a novel free, but does not appear to have anything particularly on sale.

Fellow MR member author and Australian sf writer Patty Jansen (ISFDB) also has some short stories free, but also does not appear to have anything particularly on sale.

[starrigger]

I'd also like to suggest checking out the specials at Backlist Ebooks.
There are specials in a variety of genres, including SF/F.

[ATDrake]

Last minute additions before I clickthrough on my own intended purchases.

The Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust and Elisabeth Waters have added some more PDF freebies to their respective websites and link some of the Amazon freebies as well. This includes a Darkover short which is not collected in the Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover collection available @ Fictionwise and other outlets.

@ Smashwords

Fellow MR member moderator dreams suggested that I include fellow MR member author Shayne Parkinson, whose self-published historical novels have been highly praised in the Reading Recs forum by other fellow MR member posters and offers a free short and the first novel in her series and 50% off the sequels if you were looking to pick them up.

Girlebooks has a variety of novels by assorted authors, some historical, some romantic, and I think I saw one speculative, which are either free-with-coupon or 25-50% off.

It turns out that Moyra Caldecott mentioned above has two of her titles at 75% off, which I will be getting. They are the Bronze Age YA historical 1st-in-series The Tall Stones and a standalone SF with a touch of romance Child of the Dark Star. This is even cheaper than getting them via Fictionwise with a deep-discount coupon, and if it turns out her writing is not to my taste, I will have saved $1.48 collectively over the FW price of finding that out.

There's really not much in the Fantasy "Free" category which hasn't already shown up, since most speculative fiction authors tend to write across genres. Here are some of the few credentialed authors who've popped up.

Again, I have no idea whether this is permafreebie or RAEBW only stuff.

Vera Nazarian (ISFDB), a former Marion Zimmer Bradley protegée who now runs her own fantasy reprint house, offers a free to download humorous novella and does not seem to have anything else particularly on sale.

Eric T. Reynolds (ISFDB) who also runs his own small sf/f imprint which has had an anthology reviewed by Locus Magazine, offers a free sf short which is misfiled, being about an android on a lunar colony.

Naomi Clark (ISFDB) who has minor credits for known small outlet stuff, offers a free urban fantasy short.

J. Kathleen Cheney (ISFDB), who was a Nebula finalist, offers a free short which is likely to be promo only (her previous free shorts were only for a limited time and have gone back up in price).

Iain Rowan (ISFDB) offers a China-set supernatural fantasy short originally published in Black Gate magazine in 2003.

Stephen D. Sullivan mentioned above has one of his 99 cent shorts free-with-coupon and another you-set-the-price.

Philippa Ballantine (ISFDB) who currently writes steampunk for HarperCollins as Pip Ballantine, offers an AU Shakespearean fantasy novel free to download. ImagineThat! Studios also lists a number of freebie shorts by other related writers, but they don't seem to have anything particularly on sale.

Ilona Andrews (ISFDB), author of the popular Kate Daniels urban fantasy series, has a few free-to-download shorts and offers a mini-collection of paranormal romantic ones for 99 cents.

ETA: Scott William Carter (ISFDB) has a number of short stories free-to-download and may also have some free-with-coupon or sale stuff. He's got a lot of entries and I'm not going to bother checking each one.