More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now download V. E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie Larue for only 4.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link. This OneLink will take you to the nearest Amazon site serving your country and you'll see if you can take advantage of this sale.

Here's the blurb:

In the vein of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Life After Life, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab’s genre-defying tour de force.

A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

You can also get your ends on the digital edition of Olivie Blake's The Atlas Six for only 3.99$ here. This OneLink will take you to the nearest Amazon site serving your country and you'll see if you can take advantage of this sale.

Here's the blurb:

The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.

Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will.

Most of them.

This week's New York Times Bestsellers (July 17th)

In hardcover:

Adam Christopher's Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith debuts at number 11. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

More inexpensive ebook deals!

You can now get your hands on the digital edition of Shelley Parker-Chan's She Who Became the Sun for only 2.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link. It's a OneLink that will take you to the closest Amazon site that serves your country and you can see if the sale price applies to you.

Here's the blurb:

To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything.

“I refuse to be nothing…”

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now get your hands on the digital edition of Joe Abercrombie's Red Country for only 2.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link.

Here's the blurb:

A New York Times bestseller!

They burned her home.
They stole her brother and sister.
But vengeance is following.

Shy South hoped to bury her bloody past and ride away smiling, but she'll have to sharpen up some bad old ways to get her family back, and she's not a woman to flinch from what needs doing. She sets off in pursuit with only a pair of oxen and her cowardly old step father Lamb for company. But it turns out Lamb's buried a bloody past of his own. And out in the lawless Far Country the past never stays buried.

Their journey will take them across the barren plains to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feud, duel and massacre, high into the unmapped mountains to a reckoning with the Ghosts. Even worse, it will force them into an alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, and his feckless lawyer Temple, two men no one should ever have to trust . . .

RED COUNTRY takes place in the same world as the First Law trilogy, Best Served Cold, andThe Heroes. This novel also represents the return of Logen Ninefingers, one of Abercrombie's most beloved characters.

The Art of Prophecy

I've become wary of short fiction authors moving on to novel-length projects. Too often, they seem to forget what made their short stories and novellas such good reads and end up padding their storylines with boring and extraneous character arcs and plot devices. But Wesley Chu's upcoming The Art of the Prophecy sounded intriguing and I gave it a shot.

Alas, I should have followed my instincts. Not only does Chu's latest lack depth and substance, it is also more or less YA from one end to the other. I wish the book had been marketed that way, like Del Rey did with Peter V. Brett's newest. Had I known, I would have given this one a pass.

Here's the blurb:

So many stories begin the same way: With a prophecy. A chosen one. And the inevitable quest to slay a villain, save the kingdom, and fulfill a grand destiny.

But this is not that kind of story.

It does begin with a prophecy: A child will rise to defeat the Eternal Khan, a cruel immortal god-king, and save the kingdom.

And that prophecy did anoint a hero, Jian, raised since birth in luxury and splendor, and celebrated before he has won a single battle.

But that’s when the story hits its first twist: The prophecy is wrong.

What follows is a story more wondrous than any prophecy could foresee, and with many unexpected heroes: Taishi, an older woman who is the greatest grandmaster of magical martial arts in the kingdom but who thought her adventuring days were all behind her; Sali, a straitlaced warrior who learns the rules may no longer apply when the leader to whom she pledged her life is gone; and Qisami, a chaotic assassin who takes a little too much pleasure in the kill.

And Jian himself, who has to find a way to become what he no longer believes he can be—a hero after all.

What really made me want to read this novel was the fact that, according to the press release at least, it was inspired by Chinese culture, history, and mythology. That it would appeal to readers looking for a fantasy series that steps outside of Western influences. Trouble is, as was the case with novels like S. A. Chakraborty's The City of Brass, everything that has to do with non-Western influences is little more than window dressing. Sure, you witness such details in the food, the clothing, the martial arts, etc. But in the end, The Art of the Prophecy reads like your typical Western SFF book. You never feel yourself immersed in the setting the way you were when reading Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven and River of Stars. This was a major disappointment for me, because I expected Chu to imbue his latest work with the sort of imagery that makes the setting come alive and leap off the page. Kind of the way authors like Jacqueline Carey, R. Scott Bakker, Steven Erikson, or even James Clavell were able to do so. As it is, there is little to differentiate Wesley Chu's latest from what's out there.

Another problem is that, like Brandon Sanderson, Chu appears to be a not terribly funny person who tries like hell to be funny. Not everyone can be a Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, or Terry Pratchett, and no amount of trying can change that. It also doesn't help that the humor tends to be quite juvenile. Ultimately, though some jokes are actually funny, the bulk of Chu's humerous attempts tend to fall rather flat and become annoying after a while. The dialogue is reminiscent of late-night B-movies that didn't even make it straight to DVD. À la Sanderson, Chu also steers clear of profanities and replaces them with ridiculous phrases that made me roll my eyes at every turn. What in (insert name)'s shrivelled scrotum is this all about? I mean, come on. . .

The premise of this novel was very interesting. What if a prophecy is wrong? Such a premise promised so many different avenues to explore. In that regard, it feels as though the author didn't even try. True, The Art of the Prophecy acts like an introduction to what, one can only hope, will be a more compelling and multilayered tale. But like its supposedly Chinese backdrop, the book lacks depth and substance. Doesn't have any, from what I could perceive. I wish Chu would have worked more on his plotlines and protagonists instead of focusing on insipid jokes and action scenes. There are a few bright sparks that show that the story had potential, but overall the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Had this been a debut from an unknown writer, it never would have been published.

Try as I might, I never could bring myself to root for any of the characters, or even stay invested and interested in any of them. They are all over-the-top caricatures, each more badass than the other. I mean, they make Drizzt Do'Urden seem like a blundering oaf. Taishi is by far the worst, but Sali and Qisami are not far behind. Jian, the closest thing to a main protagonist, is a cardboard cutout we've seen a million times. The supporting cast is no better, with Xinde being the only exception.

Surprisingly, for all of its faults and its 526 pages, The Art of the Prophecy doesn't suffer from pacing issues. Sure, there are portions in which the plot meanders through Sali and Qisami chapters. But overall, Chu keeps his tale going at a decent clip. It just might be this novel's only saving grace. That and a few revelations near the end.

Sadly, for me it was a case of too little, too late. Had I known that it would be a black and white YA sort of book filled with action and juvenile humor, I never would have read this book. Having said that, for people looking for a light read to bring on vacation this summer, it just might do the trick. For more demanding readers, well. . .

The final verdict: 5.5/10

For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

You can read an extract from the novel here.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now get your hands on the digital edition of Jonathan Maberry's Glimpse for only 2.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link. 

I'm giving Amazon's OneLink another shot after so-so results a few years back. Technically, clicking on this link will take you to the nearest Amazon website serving your region and you can see whether or not this title is on sale there.

Here's the blurb:

A chilling thriller that explores what happens when reality and nightmares converge, and how far one will go to protect the innocent when their own brain is a threat.

From New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry comes a novel that puts a bold new spin on the supernatural thriller.

Rain Thomas is a mess. Seven years an addict and three difficult years clean. Racked by guilt for the baby she gave up for adoption when she was sixteen. Still grieving for the boy’s father who died in Iraq. Alone, discarded by her family, with only the damaged members of her narcotics anonymous meetings as friends. Them, and the voices in her head.

One morning, on the way to a much-needed job interview, she borrows reading glasses to review her resume. There is a small crack in one lens and through that damaged slice of glass she sees a young boy go running down the aisle of the subway train. Is he screaming with laughter or just screaming? When she tries to find the boy, he’s gone and no one has seen him.

The day spins out of control. Rain loses whole chunks of time. She has no idea where her days went. The voices she hears are telling her horrible things. And even stranger things are happening. Unsure whether she is going insane, Rain sets out to find answers to long buried questions about an earlier life she has avoided for years—in what may be the most dangerous collision of all, that between reality and nightmare.

How far will one person go to save someone they love?

Read on at your own peril...

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now download Robert R. McCammon's The Border for only 1.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link.

Here's the blurb:

It happened one day in April. Huge explosions in skies across the world heralded the coming of the Gorgon ships, sparking a worldwide panic. Indestructible, they blasted Earth’s greatest cities into rubble. Then, through portals opening in the air, came the skeletal Cyphers. And Earth became a battlefield in a war between two alien races bent on mutual destruction.

In Colorado, just over a hundred survivors have found sanctuary in the ruins of an apartment complex—and it’s not just the Gorgons and Cyphers who threaten them. They are regularly besieged by the Gray Men, humans mutated by something in the atmosphere into monstrosities straight out of nightmares.

With their ammunition and supplies dwindling, the remaining humans face a bleak future. Then one day, a teenage boy appears, seemingly human, seemingly the victim of catastrophic injuries. He can’t remember where he came from, but he senses a power within himself—one that causes an earthquake to repel a horde of Gray Men. A voice speaks to the boy in his sleep, telling him to find “the white mansion.” Now, the one thing the survivors need most of all is blossoming within them: hope. But only if they choose to trust in a boy who has no memory and only three words from a dream to guide him . . .

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now get your hands on the digital edition of Robert Jackon Benett's American Elsewhere for only 2.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link. There is a price match in Canada.

Here's the blurb:

From one of our most talented and original new literary voices comes the next great American supernatural novel: a work that explores the dark dimensions of the hometowns and the neighbors we thought we knew.

Some places are too good to be true.

Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map: Wink, New Mexico.

In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things.

After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different . . .

This week's New York Times Bestsellers (July 10th)

There are no speculative fiction bestsellers this week.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now get your hands on the digital edition of Frank Herbert's Dune Saga Collection: Books 1-3 for only 1.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link. There is a price match in Canada.

Here's the blurb:

Perfect for longtime fans and new readers alike−this eBook collection includes the first three novels in Frank Herbert’s Dune saga: DUNE, DUNE MESSIAH, and CHILDREN OF DUNE

DUNE IS NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, David Dastmalchian, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem.

In the far future, on a remote planet, an epic adventure awaits. Here are the first three novels of Frank Herbert’s magnificent Dune saga—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction series of all time.

The Dune Saga begins on the desert planet Arrakis with the story of the boy Paul Atreides—who would become known as Muad’Dib—and of a great family’s ambition to bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream...

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can get your hands on the digital edition of Joe Abercrombie's excellent Best Served Cold for only 2.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link.

Here's the blurb:

Springtime in Styria. And that means war.

There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. While armies march, heads roll and cities burn, and behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.

War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her employer's taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.

Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started...

Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now download Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Prime Meridian for only 1.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link. There is a price match in Canada.

Here's the blurb:

“A subtle and powerful tale of Mars, movies, and Mexico City which stands amongst the best novellas of the past few years.” —Jonathan Strahan, Locus

Amelia dreams of Mars. The Mars of the movies and the imagination, an endless bastion of opportunities for a colonist with some guts. But she’s trapped in Mexico City, enduring the drudgery of an unkind metropolis, working as a rent-a-friend, selling her blood to old folks with money who hope to rejuvenate themselves with it, enacting a fractured love story. And yet there’s Mars, at the edge of the silver screen, of life.

It awaits her.

You can also download her short fiction piece, The Tiger Came to the Mountains, for 1.99$ here. There is a price match in Canada.

Here's the blurb:

Mexico, 1917. On a farm during the violent tumult of revolution, a more immediate threat prowls in a short, emotional story about survival by the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

She is the adventurer of the family. Her brother, the gentle dreamer. Even as they bond over folktales and hold each other close, their world has never felt so dangerous. Revolutionaries and pelones are in conflict, soldiers have turned into scavengers, and an escaped tiger has slipped up the mountain, looking for easy prey. As the darkest of legends becomes real, a young girl will do anything to save her brother’s life.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Tiger Came to the Mountains is part of Trespass, a collection of wild stories about animal instincts, human folly, and survival from award-winning, bestselling authors. Read or listen to each in a single sitting.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now download Alastair Reynolds' Permafrost for only 0.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link.

Here's the blurb:

A 2019 Locus Award finalist
A USA Today Bestseller

Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. Master of science fiction Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost.

2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox.

2028: a young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery. In the days following her operation, she begins to hear another voice in her head... an unwanted presence which seems to have a will, and a purpose, all of its own – one that will disrupt her life entirely. The only choice left to her is a simple one.

Does she resist ... or become a collaborator?

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

This week's New York Times Bestsellers (July 3rd)

There are no speculative fiction bestsellers this week.

Mini reviews

Hey guys,

It took a couple of weeks, but things are slowly getting back on track. Resuming work and a normal life after more than six weeks spent in Spain took some time. Unless something unexpected happens, these should be the last mini reviews. I intend to return to full reviews with my next one for Wesley Chu's The Art of Prophecy.

- End of Watch by Stephen King (Canada, USA, Europe) 7.75/10

I was looking forward to this last installment in the Bill Hodges trilogy. Unlike its two predecessors, there is a paranormal element in this novel. It was great to see Bill, Jerome, and Holly back together again. They're definitely one of King's most interesting casts in recent years. I particularly enjoyed how the author elected to close the show, not taking the easy way out. Not King's best works by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm still happy to have brought these books with me to Spain for my Camino!

Here's the blurb:

The spectacular finale to the New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with Mr. Mercedes (winner of the Edgar Award) and Finders Keepers—In End of Watch, the diabolical “Mercedes Killer” drives his enemies to suicide, and if Bill Hodges and Holly Gibney don’t figure out a way to stop him, they’ll be victims themselves.

In Room 217 of the Lakes Region Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, something has awakened. Something evil. Brady Hartsfield, perpetrator of the Mercedes Massacre, where eight people were killed and many more were badly injured, has been in the clinic for five years, in a vegetative state. According to his doctors, anything approaching a complete recovery is unlikely. But behind the drool and stare, Brady is awake, and in possession of deadly new powers that allow him to wreak unimaginable havoc without ever leaving his hospital room.

Retired police detective Bill Hodges, the unlikely hero of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers, now runs an investigation agency with his partner, Holly Gibney—the woman who delivered the blow to Hartsfield’s head that put him on the brain injury ward. When Bill and Holly are called to a suicide scene with ties to the Mercedes Massacre, they find themselves pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put their lives at risk, as well as those of Bill’s heroic young friend Jerome Robinson and his teenage sister, Barbara. Brady Hartsfield is back, and planning revenge not just on Hodges and his friends, but on an entire city.

In End of Watch, Stephen King brings the Hodges trilogy to a sublimely terrifying conclusion, combining the detective fiction of Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers with the heart-pounding, supernatural suspense that has been his bestselling trademark. The result is an unnerving look at human vulnerability and chilling suspense. No one does it better than King.

- The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo (Canada, USA, Europe) 7.5/10

By the time I left Santiago de Compostela, I was aware that I would run out of reading material in the following days. There are plenty of books on my Kindle App, but I wanted a hard copy of something I could bring with me instead of my tablet. Trouble is, trying to find a novel in English in Bilbao proved to be quite a challenge. Most bookstores don't carry any and those that do only have a few of them. Perusing this small selection, I came across Dolores Redondo's debut. Not only was the premise interesting, but the author comes from the Basque Country. Since I was spending the last days of my trip in Bilbao and San Sebastian, this looked like I was destined to read this novel. Her trilogy sold more than 1.5 million copies in Spain alone, so I figured that all those people couldn't be wrong.

The Invisible Guardian is an engaging magical realism tale. Redondo's prose and evocative and atmospheric and I encourage you to give this thriller a shot if you're looking for something different. The book is not as self-contained as I would have liked, but it did make me want to read the next two volumes.

Here's the blurb:

Already a #1 international bestseller, this taut, gripping psychological thriller follows a police inspector who reluctantly returns to her hometown in Spain’s Basque Country—a place shrouded in mythology and superstition—to solve a series of eerie murders.

When the body of a teenaged girl is found on a riverbank in a remote area, the crime appears all too similar to a murder committed only months prior, igniting the worst fears of the small community of Elizondo. Homicide inspector Amaia Salazar, a strong, borderline-obsessive investigator, is assigned to the case. After all, this beautiful, peculiar backwater steeped in the blood of the Spanish Inquisition, where pagan beliefs still flourish under a thin veneer of modernity, is a space she knows better than anyone. Forced to return to Elizondo, a town she has always sought to escape, Amaia is tasked with finding a serial killer on the loose.

As the murders in the area grow increasingly violent, the locals come to believe only one creature could possibly be responsible: a creature of Basque mythology known as the basajaun, or Invisible Guardian. But Amaia is logical—a professional—and she refuses to let local superstitions distract her from her careful detective work. As the investigation deepens, a troubling secret from Amaia’s past plagues her with nightmares and soon her findings seem to transform myth into reality. Everything she believes to be rational and verifiable is called into question. Now Amaia must fight her demons and determine if these murders are the work of a ritualistic killer or something even darker.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now download Ian McDonald's excellent River of Gods for 0.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link. It's also on sale in Canada and in the UK (where most of McDonald's novels are priced down).

Here's the blurb:

As Mother India approaches her centenary, nine people are going about their business--a gangster, a cop, his wife, a politician, a stand-up comic, a set designer, a journalist, a scientist, and a dropout. And so is Aj--the waif, the mind reader, the prophet--when she one day finds a man who wants to stay hidden.

In the next few weeks, they will all be swept together to decide the fate of the nation.

River of Gods teems with the life of a country choked with peoples and cultures--one and a half billion people, twelve semi-independent nations, nine million gods. Ian McDonald has written the great Indian novel of the new millennium, in which a war is fought, a love betrayed, a message from a different world decoded, as the great river Ganges flows on.

You can also get your hands on the digital edition of Brasyl for 1.99$ here. It's also on sale in Canada and in the UK.

Here's the blurb:

Think Bladerunner in the tropics...

Be seduced, amazed, and shocked by one of the world's greatest and strangest nations. Past, present, and future Brazil, with all its color, passion, and shifting realities, come together in a novel that is part SF, part history, part mystery, and entirely enthralling.

Three separate stories follow three main characters:

--Edson is a self-made talent impressario one step up from the slums in a near future São Paulo of astonishing riches and poverty. A chance encounter draws Edson into the dangerous world of illegal quantum computing, but where can you run in a total surveillance society where every move, face, and centavo is constantly tracked?

--Marcelina is an ambitious Rio TV producer looking for that big reality TV hit to make her name. When her hot idea leads her on the track of a disgraced World Cup soccer goalkeeper, she becomes enmeshed in an ancient conspiracy that threatens not just her life, but her very soul.

--Father Luis is a Jesuit missionary sent into the maelstrom of 18th-century Brazil to locate and punish a rogue priest who has strayed beyond the articles of his faith and set up a vast empire in the hinterland. In the company of a French geographer and spy, what he finds in the backwaters of the Amazon tries both his faith and the nature of reality itself to the breaking point.

Three characters, three stories, three Brazils, all linked together across time, space, and reality in a hugely ambitious story that will challenge the way you think about everything.

You can also download Cixin Liu's The Wandering Earth for only 2.99$ here. There is a price match in Canada.

Here's the blurb:

From New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu, The Wandering Earth is a science fiction short story collection featuring the title tale--the basis for the blockbuster international film, now streaming on Netflix.

These ten stories, including five Chinese Galaxy Award-winners, are a blazingly original ode to planet Earth, its pasts, and its futures. Liu's fiction takes the reader to the edge of the universe and the end of time, to meet stranger fates than we could have ever imagined.

With a melancholic and keen understanding of human nature, Liu's stories show humanity's attempts to reason, navigate, and above all, survive in a desolate cosmos.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

You can also download Alastair Reynolds' Century Rain for only 1.99$ here.

Here's the blurb:

Three hundred years from now, Earth has been rendered uninhabitable due to the technological catastrophe known as the Nanocaust. Archaeologist Verity Auger specializes in the exploration of its surviving landscape. Now, her expertise is required for a far greater purpose. Something astonishing has been discovered at the far end of a wormhole: a mid-20th-century version of Earth, preserved like a fly in amber.

Somewhere on this alternate planet is a device capable of destroying both worlds at either end of the wormhole. And Verity must find the device, and the man who plans to activate it, before it's too late -- for the past and the future of two worlds.

Century Rain is a jaw-droppingly good SF thriller, packed with pace, adventure, brilliant storytelling and with twists that will keep you guessing to the end.

Finally, you can also download Mira Grant's Parasite for only 1.99$ here. It's also on sale in Canada. The other two installments in that trilogy are also discounted.

Here's the blurb:

A decade in the future, humanity thrives in the absence of sickness and disease.

We owe our good health to a humble parasite -- a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the Intestinal Bodyguard worm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system -- even secretes designer drugs. It's been successful beyond the scientists' wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them.

But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives . . . and will do anything to get them.

This week's New York Times Bestsellers (June 26th)

There are no speculative fiction bestsellers this week.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now get your hands on the digital edition of Kameron Hurley's The Light Brigade for only 1.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link. There is a price match in Canada.

And I'm pleased to report that the novel is another gritty and quality science fiction yarn with its own take on time-travel.

Here's the blurb:

From the Hugo Award­­–winning author of The Stars Are Legion comes a brand-new science fiction thriller about a futuristic war during which soldiers are broken down into light in order to get them to the front lines on Mars.

They said the war would turn us into light.
I wanted to be counted among the heroes who gave us this better world.

The Light Brigade: it’s what soldiers fighting the war against Mars call the ones who come back…different. Grunts in the corporate corps get busted down into light to travel to and from interplanetary battlefronts. Everyone is changed by what the corps must do in order to break them down into light. Those who survive learn to stick to the mission brief—no matter what actually happens during combat.

Dietz, a fresh recruit in the infantry, begins to experience combat drops that don’t sync up with the platoon’s. And Dietz’s bad drops tell a story of the war that’s not at all what the corporate brass want the soldiers to think is going on.

Is Dietz really experiencing the war differently, or is it combat madness? Trying to untangle memory from mission brief and survive with sanity intact, Dietz is ready to become a hero—or maybe a villain; in war it’s hard to tell the difference.

A worthy successor to classic stories like Downbelow Station, Starship Troopers, and The Forever War, The Light Brigade is award-winning author Kameron Hurley’s gritty time-bending take on the future of war.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now download Mike Brooks' The Black Coast for only 0.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link. There is a price match in Canada.

Here's the blurb:

War Dragons. Fearsome Raiders. A Daemonic Warlord on the Rise.

When the citizens of Black Keep see ships on the horizon, terror takes them because they know who is coming: for generations, the keep has been raided by the fearsome clanspeople of Tjakorsha. Saddling their war dragons, Black Keep's warriors rush to defend their home only to discover that the clanspeople have not come to pillage at all. Driven from their own land by a daemonic despot who prophesises the end of the world, the raiders come in search of a new home . . .

Meanwhile the wider continent of Narida is lurching toward war. Black Keep is about to be caught in the crossfire – if only its new mismatched society can survive.

The start of an unmissable fantasy series.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now get your hands on the digital edition of Alex Marshall's A Crown For Cold Silver for only 1.99$ by following this Amazon Associate link. It's also on sale in Canada.

Here's the blurb:

"It was all going so nicely, right up until the massacre."

Twenty years ago, feared general Cobalt Zosia led her five villainous captains and mercenary army into battle, wrestling monsters and toppling an empire. When there were no more titles to win and no more worlds to conquer, she retired and gave up her legend to history.

Now the peace she carved for herself has been shattered by the unprovoked slaughter of her village. Seeking bloody vengeance, Zosia heads for battle once more, but to find justice she must confront grudge-bearing enemies, once-loyal allies, and an unknown army that marches under a familiar banner.

FIVE VILLAINS. ONE LEGENDARY GENERAL. A FINAL QUEST FOR VENGEANCE.