The Mandalorian and Grogu

Finally watched The Mandalorian and Grogu. . .

And even with absurdly low expectations based on reviews, it was fucking awful.

It feels as though Disney's not even trying anymore. =(

This week's New York Times Bestsellers (May 31st)

In hardcover:

Matt Dinniman's A Parade of Horribles debuts at number 1. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Dani Francis' Broken Dove debuts at number 3. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Sable Sorensen's Fury Bound is down eight spots, finishing the week at number 10. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Matt Dinniman's Carl's Doomsday Scenario is up one position, ending the week at number 11. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Alex Aster's Starside is down three positions, ending the week at number 12. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Matt Dinniman's The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook is up one spot, finishing the week at number 13. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl returns at number 15. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

In paperback:

Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary is down one position, ending the week at number 3. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl is up two positions, ending the week at number 4. For more info about this title, follow this Amazon Associate link.

More inexpensive ebook goodies

You can now get your hands on the digital edition of Cameron Sullivan's The Red Winter for only 2.99$ 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:

A devastating love story. A bewitching twist on history. A blood-drenched hunt for purpose, power, and redemption.

In 1785, Professor Sebastian Grave receives the news he fears most: the terrible Beast of Gévaudan has returned, and the French countryside runs red in its wake.

Sebastian knows the Beast. A monster-slayer with centuries of experience, he joined the hunt for the creature twenty years ago and watched it slaughter its way through a long and bloody winter. Even with the help of his indwelling demon, Sarmodel – who takes payment in living hearts – it nearly cost him his life to bring the monster down.

Now, two decades later, Sebastian has been recalled to the hunt by Antoine Avenel d’Ocerne, an estranged lover who shares a dark history with the Beast and a terrible secret with Sebastian. Drawn by both the chance to finish the Beast for good and the promise of a reconciliation with Antoine, Sebastian cannot refuse.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now download Glen Cook's The Black Company: The First novel of "The Chronicles of the Black Company" for only 2.99$ 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:

Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead.

Until the prophesy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more. There must be a way for the Black Company to find her...

So begins one of the greatest fantasy epics of our age—Glen Cook's Chronicles of the Black Company.

Quote of the Day

The art of diplomacy is to very gently, very kindly, very sincerely press a rope into the hands of your enemies and insist, most politely, that he hang himself with it.

- RICHARD SWAN, Steel Gods

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

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now get your hands on the digital edition of Guy Gavriel Kay's amazing Tigana for only 2.99$ 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:

A masterful epic of magic, politics, war, and the power of love and hate — from the renowned author of The Fionavar Tapestry and Children of Earth and Sky.

Tigana is the magical story of a beleaguered land struggling to be free. It is the tale of a people so cursed by the black sorcery of a cruel despotic king that even the name of their once-beautiful homeland cannot be spoken or remembered...

But years after the devastation, a handful of courageous men and women embark upon a dangerous crusade to overthrow their conquerors and bring back to the dark world the brilliance of a long-lost name...Tigana.

Against the magnificently rendered background of a world both sensuous and barbaric, this sweeping epic of a passionate people pursuing their dream is breathtaking in its vision, changing forever the boundaries of fantasy fiction.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now download K. J. Parker's Colours in the Steel for only 2.99$ 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:

An epic novel of blood, betrayal, and intrigue. . .

Perimadeia is the famed Triple City and the mercantile capital of the known world. Behind its allegedly impregnable walls, everything is available-including information that will allow its enemies to plan one of the most devastating sieges of all time.

The man called upon to defend Perimadeia is Bardas Loredan, a fencer-at-law, weary of his work and the world. For Loredan is one of the surviving members of Maxen's Pitchfork, the legendary band of soldiers who waged war on the Plains tribes, rendering an attack on Perimadeia impossible. Until now, that is.

But Loredan has problems of his own. In a city where court cases are settled by lawyers arguing with swords not words, enemies are all too easily made. And by winning one particular case, Loredan has unwittingly become the target of a young woman bent on revenge. The last thing he needs is the responsibility of saving a city.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now get your hands on the digital edition of Scott Lynch's Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent for only 3.99$ 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:

First published as a letterpress-printed, limited edition from Conversation Tree Press.

~~~

The novels in the acclaimed Gentleman Bastards series trace the exploits of an elite band of thieves and confidence artists moving through a richly imagined city-state shaped in the image of medieval Venice. In Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent, Scott Lynch returns to the cobblestones and canals of Camorr, offering a glimpse into the formative years of one of the young Gentleman Bastards.

Here, however, Locke is not yet the architect of elaborate deceptions, but a boy apprenticed to learn something wholly new and entirely unnatural: the discipline and meagre rewards of (mostly) honest, hard labour.

Set against the uproar of taverns and the quiet menace of the canals, the story focuses on an unlikely companionship and the education it affords.

First published in Grimdark Magazine, this edition has been expanded by the author and is considered his preferred and final version.

If this is your first visit to Camorr, you’ll find a tale that’s equal parts funny, tragic, and warm, while being entirely accessible as a standalone. If you’ve met any of the Gentleman Bastards before—well, you know what to expect.

More inexpensive ebook goodies!

You can now download Ian McDonald's Empire Dreams for only 1.99$ 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:

A collection of science fiction stories and novelettes by the Hugo and Philip K. Dick Award–winning author of Desolation Road and Luna: New Moon.

Published in conjunction with his Locus Award–winning debut novel, Desolation Road, Empire Dreams collects some of Ian McDonald's finest early short fiction, including a several stories that first appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.

In "Vivaldi," an astrophysicist contemplates the death of the universe as he hurtles through space to investigate a black hole. A beach bum in Morocco encounters a woman who is curiously full of life in "Radio Marrakech." An Irish scientist prepares to make contact with aliens as his daughter dreams of fairies in "King of Morning, Queen of Day." And in the title novelette, a boy is given an experimental treatment that allows him to fight his cancer via virtual reality gameplaying.

As Asimov'sScience Fiction declared, Ian McDonald is "the Frank Herbert, William Gibson, or arguably even Thomas Pynchon of the early 21st century."