James Somers
has several bargain books in this category. First up is The Chronicles of Soone - Rise of Lucin
, ($0.80) the sequel to The Chronicles of Soone--Heir to the King
($7.99). I'd prefer the first in the series be discounted and you would think authors would prefer it as well - get more readers hooked, while extending the income stream from the author's backlist.WAR RAGES
Lucin, the Fallen One, is victorious on planet Castai and the reign of the king has ended in a savage coup. The final days of mankind's hope are fading with the rise of a sinister foe.
THE MIGHTY FALL
King Tiet Soone and a small band of warriors have barely escaped planet Castai with their lives. No place is safe for them with Lucin on the hunt.
A FINAL PROPHECY
A mysterious prophet has come to direct the king towards his destiny—a second confrontation with Lucin and his army of assimilated humans. But with the reconciliation of Lucin's Mithrial brethren, the Agonotti, the odds for success are worse than ever. Outnumbered and outmatched, the king must risk all he has left or witness the end of mankind.
Two other titles are on Kindle: PERDITION'S GATE
and HALLOWED BE THY NAME
, both listed at the bargain basement price of $0.80. Both in the SciFi realm, they are stand-alone titles.
If you prefer more classic SciFi, then many of the SciFi pulp magazines of the past have fallen out of copyright and the short stories, novellas and serials they contained are now being republished on the Kindle, often at bargain prices. One collection that has a great cover is Planet of the Damned and Other Stories: A Science Fiction Anthology (Five Books in One Volume!)
by ($0.80) Harry Harrison. Of course, you can pick up free copies of the individual stories from Feedbooks or ManyBooks.If you want more contemporary authors, there is a wealth of free material to choose from, with more posted each week than most of us can hope to keep up with. Some of it gets posted at ManyBooks (Deviations: Appetite by Elissa Malcohn) or Feedbooks (several by Peter Watts). Others are posted on authors blogs and websites all over the world. Jeffrey Carver has listed Eternity's End as a free download (and Sunborn is still free, although I don't know for how long). In addition, he has listed the StarRigger series and several stand-alone novels at Fictionwise as a DRM-free multiformat downloads. All of his books can be read on the Kindle or most other readers. Best of all, they are all in the Anniversary Sale currently going on at Fictionwise (they also sell secure mobipocket books, which do not work with the Kindle, but everything in the store is on sale right now, for those who read on their PC or other readers; multiformat books are a straight discount, while secure DRM'd books require up-front purchase by CC/Paypal and do a store credit rebate). If you are a member of the FW club, it works out to about 57% off Carver's titles (and about 1/2 off if not a member).
There are also several free SF magazines online. Arkham Tales has just released a new issue and you can still download the first two. Frankly, I'm not sure that this magazine fits the SciFi category or even fully into Fantasy. It describes itself as Weird Fiction, so I'll leave it at that, but include it here, since I found out about it on a SF site. Plots with Ray Guns is also out and you can be amongst the first to read the Spring 2509 issue!
In fact, there are numerous SF sites that try to post just the free content each week. Two of the best are Futurismic and SF Signal. Both post a new list of free fiction on Fridays, so you'll always have something to read on the weekends. Just search for "free fiction" in their archives and you'll find more to read than you can keep up with.
Finally, for those that prefer Science Fact (or in this case, history) to Fiction, be sure to check out the history of the Apollo Space Program at NASA over at mobileread. Where No Man Has Gone Before, by W. David Compton is now available in mobi/prc format and is entirely free.
