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cofax, have an AMAZING selection of free (plus extremely low-priced) ebooks from Open Road Media.. It's weighted toward off from the 80s, which was a good time for sff in my opinion, and has some great stuff that should not be missed if you like that sort of thing, or want to have e-editions in addition to paper ones. Lots of stuff by both well-known and unfairly obscure writers, many women who ought to be better-known or have not published in a while.
I have no idea how long it will last, so grab what you want now. It's a long list and I mostly navigated by spotting books by authors I was interested in, then clicking on their names and sorting their author page by Kindle, then by price (low-high) to see if they had more freebies. Jane Yolen, Dave Duncan, Robert Silverberg, Nancy Springer, Patricia Wrede, R. A. MacAvoy (not her best books, sadly), and many more authors have multiple freebies. Weirdly, in a number of cases book two or three of a trilogy is free but book one is full-price; no idea what's up with that.
If there's anything on the list you'd like to rec, please do! Here's just a few of the many I rec:
People of the Sky
, by Clare Bell. Interesting anthropological sf about a planet where people ride giant dragonflies. I have not read this in ages but recall enjoying it, so look forward to revisiting it. The Jaguar Princess, an Incan fantasy, is also free. Bell also wrote a series about intelligent prehistoric cats discovering fire; she is unusually good at carefully thought-out odd or non-human perspectives.
The Cursed
, by Dave Duncan. Clever fantasy about a plague that brings quite original curse-or-blessing (mostly curse) superpowers to a medieval world. Heroine is a middle-aged innkeeper. I wish Duncan had written a sequel, but it's satisfying on its own.
I also picked up everything I have not yet read by Dave Duncan (I basically grabbed everything free of his - there's LOTS - Rose-Red City, Shadows, Strings, Hero, Wildcatter, Pook's World, Ill-Met in the Arena, Hero). He's a reliably enjoyable writer with consistently interesting, unusual settings and premises. Anyone read those or others?
The Ladies of Mandrigyn (The Sun Wolf and Starhawk)
, by Barbara Hambly. When the men of a township are kidnapped and enslaved, the women attempt to hire (and then kidnap) a mercenary to teach them to fight. Great (very realistic) martial arts and training sequences, large cast of well-drawn characters, thoughtful exploration of gender roles that goes beyond the obvious, and a super-dark magic system. I like this a lot and now I can take it everywhere I go.
Caught in Crystal (The Lyra Novels)
, by Patricia Wrede. A series of standalone novels in the same world; others are also free. This one is my favorite. It has a rickety plot but a charming cast of characters and a great world. Kayl was once a member of a sisterhood of adventurers, but retired to marry, have kids, settle down, and run an inn. After her husband's death, she's a middle-aged mom... until her past comes back to haunt her. Virtually the only fantasy novel I've ever read in which the parent is the hero and she takes her kids along because, come on, who ditches their kids? I got a fantastic Yuletide fic for this once, Echoes. It's backstory so it's not spoilery.
Cards of Grief / Jane Yolen
. Really unusual sf novel about a planet whose culture centers around grieving rituals. As usual for Yolen, it's an odd combination of fantasy and sf (I would call it science fantasy) and explores the process by which events become myth.
Dragonfield And Other Stories
, by Jane Yolen. Lovely collection of her short stories. ETA: Just saw that Tales of Wonder is also free. It's even better. Get both. Merlin's Booke too.
Yolen has lots for free. I'd say it's all good except her books with Robert Harris, which don't read much like her.
I also bought many I have not yet read, such as...
Watchtower (The Chronicles of Tornor Book 1)
and others by Elizabeth Lynn (classic fantasy I never got around to reading, involves lesbians and martial arts I think/hope?)
Moon Called
and Wheel of Stars by Andre Norton. I seem to have not read these. There's other freebies of hers which I already have.
Reefsong
and others by Carol Severance. Polynesian fantasy and island-set sf.
I also snagged miscellaneous free books I have not read by Robert Silverberg, Greg Bear, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Nancy Springer, Cynthia Kadohata, Lisa Goldstein, Pat Murphy, Elizabeth Hand, Jonathan Carroll, and Liz Williams. There's also quite a bit of free Piers Anthony. I mean. If you're curious.
Anything I missed?
cofax, have an AMAZING selection of free (plus extremely low-priced) ebooks from Open Road Media.. It's weighted toward off from the 80s, which was a good time for sff in my opinion, and has some great stuff that should not be missed if you like that sort of thing, or want to have e-editions in addition to paper ones. Lots of stuff by both well-known and unfairly obscure writers, many women who ought to be better-known or have not published in a while. I have no idea how long it will last, so grab what you want now. It's a long list and I mostly navigated by spotting books by authors I was interested in, then clicking on their names and sorting their author page by Kindle, then by price (low-high) to see if they had more freebies. Jane Yolen, Dave Duncan, Robert Silverberg, Nancy Springer, Patricia Wrede, R. A. MacAvoy (not her best books, sadly), and many more authors have multiple freebies. Weirdly, in a number of cases book two or three of a trilogy is free but book one is full-price; no idea what's up with that.
If there's anything on the list you'd like to rec, please do! Here's just a few of the many I rec:
People of the Sky
, by Clare Bell. Interesting anthropological sf about a planet where people ride giant dragonflies. I have not read this in ages but recall enjoying it, so look forward to revisiting it. The Jaguar Princess, an Incan fantasy, is also free. Bell also wrote a series about intelligent prehistoric cats discovering fire; she is unusually good at carefully thought-out odd or non-human perspectives.The Cursed
, by Dave Duncan. Clever fantasy about a plague that brings quite original curse-or-blessing (mostly curse) superpowers to a medieval world. Heroine is a middle-aged innkeeper. I wish Duncan had written a sequel, but it's satisfying on its own.I also picked up everything I have not yet read by Dave Duncan (I basically grabbed everything free of his - there's LOTS - Rose-Red City, Shadows, Strings, Hero, Wildcatter, Pook's World, Ill-Met in the Arena, Hero). He's a reliably enjoyable writer with consistently interesting, unusual settings and premises. Anyone read those or others?
The Ladies of Mandrigyn (The Sun Wolf and Starhawk)
, by Barbara Hambly. When the men of a township are kidnapped and enslaved, the women attempt to hire (and then kidnap) a mercenary to teach them to fight. Great (very realistic) martial arts and training sequences, large cast of well-drawn characters, thoughtful exploration of gender roles that goes beyond the obvious, and a super-dark magic system. I like this a lot and now I can take it everywhere I go.Caught in Crystal (The Lyra Novels)
, by Patricia Wrede. A series of standalone novels in the same world; others are also free. This one is my favorite. It has a rickety plot but a charming cast of characters and a great world. Kayl was once a member of a sisterhood of adventurers, but retired to marry, have kids, settle down, and run an inn. After her husband's death, she's a middle-aged mom... until her past comes back to haunt her. Virtually the only fantasy novel I've ever read in which the parent is the hero and she takes her kids along because, come on, who ditches their kids? I got a fantastic Yuletide fic for this once, Echoes. It's backstory so it's not spoilery.Cards of Grief / Jane Yolen
. Really unusual sf novel about a planet whose culture centers around grieving rituals. As usual for Yolen, it's an odd combination of fantasy and sf (I would call it science fantasy) and explores the process by which events become myth.Dragonfield And Other Stories
, by Jane Yolen. Lovely collection of her short stories. ETA: Just saw that Tales of Wonder is also free. It's even better. Get both. Merlin's Booke too.Yolen has lots for free. I'd say it's all good except her books with Robert Harris, which don't read much like her.
I also bought many I have not yet read, such as...
Watchtower (The Chronicles of Tornor Book 1)
and others by Elizabeth Lynn (classic fantasy I never got around to reading, involves lesbians and martial arts I think/hope?)Moon Called
and Wheel of Stars by Andre Norton. I seem to have not read these. There's other freebies of hers which I already have.Reefsong
and others by Carol Severance. Polynesian fantasy and island-set sf. I also snagged miscellaneous free books I have not read by Robert Silverberg, Greg Bear, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Nancy Springer, Cynthia Kadohata, Lisa Goldstein, Pat Murphy, Elizabeth Hand, Jonathan Carroll, and Liz Williams. There's also quite a bit of free Piers Anthony. I mean. If you're curious.
Anything I missed?
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I feel like it maybe hits some of the same buttons as Tombs of Atuan? But it's got to be at least twenty-five years since I've read it, hence all the ???? I just reread it a lot as a 12-14 year old, and shipped the textually totally platonic teenage girl with her new man friend.
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Do they have lesbians, or am I hallucinating?
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(awwww, I really love MacAvoy's Damiano books! -- but they were sort of formative 80's books for me, so.)
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Enjoy!
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Arrgh. So many interesting-sounding books recced in the post...
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Get back to work. ;)
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https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st_price-asc-rank?keywords=elizabeth+wein&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Aelizabeth+wein&qid=1482184737&sort=price-asc-rank
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ALMOST as delighted as I was to discover that Marlene Dietrich wrote what appears to be a gossipy cookbook??? Marlene Dietrich's ABC: Wit, Wisdom and Recipes. HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS.
There's also some other interesting nonfiction on offer -- I grabbed a biography of Emma Goldman and a book about yellow journalism -- and, listed under LGBT, several Mary Renaults. I wanted to go look for more historical fiction after that but by that point my eyes were glazing over from clicking through Amazon search pages, so if anyone has fortitude for that task and finds further cool stuff, let me know!
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http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2016/12/17/5000-free-kindle-ebooks-from-open-road-media-until-1220/
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Jane Yolen is SO YOU. Her main theme is how reality becomes myth. You need to grab both those books instantly. Also Sister Light, Sister Dark (skip the sequels).
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I also really, really like Dragon's Blood (sequels are, as usual with her, skippable); it has some of-its-time oddities and is probably not as much your type of thing, but it was a really formative book for me, about a slave kid who steals a baby dragon that communicates with telepathic color images.
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ETA: Just checked my local library network, and it looks like it has several copies of that as a book-book, so given that I now have a good set of free ebooks, maybe I'll work through those & then get this one as an interlibrary loan.
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Clearly I must rectify this gap in my reading knowledge! Middle aged moms on adventures with kids in tow!
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Just grabbed "The House on the Borderland" for 99 cents.
... And found the entire Jerusalem Quartet (which I've been meaning to read for ages) was free!
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I have no idea if they will hold up, but I adored Nancy Springer's The Book of Isle stories back in the 80s, so I nabbed them. The first one isn't free, but the others are:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J90F7O6/ref=series_rw_dp_sw
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https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?rh=n%3A133140011%2Cp_27%3AGeorge+A+Effinger&qid=1482188377&sort=price-asc-rank
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It's... a slightly swashbuckling space opera where the viewpoint character is an artist. He wants to see new things, he wants to paint; it was a revelation to me about what can work as the plot of a novel.
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