The Economist now Available on Kindle

From reading the discussion boards over at Amazon, I think this must be one of the most desired magazines that has been missing from the Kindle. At least once a week (around Christmas, once a day), someone asks why The Economist isn't available for the Kindle and when it will be showing up. I'm not entirely certain how great a "bargain" this is - at $10.49/month, the price is more in line with a newspaper subscription, instead of a magazine; then again, you do get four issues a month. It's the same price as a print subscription - but you get it wherever you are and without worrying about it being lost in the mail. It's only been out a day and there are already some reviews at Amazon - all five star from those who have read the first issue (and some one and three star reviews from those who haven't but seem to think that's a valid way of protesting the price). Remember - you get a two week free trial with any subscription - that means two and possibly three issues before you have to decide whether you want to keep the subscription and your credit card is charged.

The Economist is the premier source for the analysis of world business and current affairs, providing authoritative insight and opinion on international news, world politics, business, finance, science and technology, as well as overviews of cultural trends and regular Special reports on industries and countries.

Established in 1843 to campaign against the protectionist corn laws, The Economist remains, in the second half of its second century, true to the liberal principles of its founder. James Wilson, a hat maker from the small Scottish town of Hawick, believed in free trade, internationalism and minimum interference by government, especially in the affairs of the market. The Economist also takes a fiercely independent stance on social issues, from gay marriage to the legalisation of drugs, but its main service to its readers is as a global newspaper: To uncover new ideas from all around the world.

Author Spotlight on Tim Pratt (aka T.A. Pratt)

Many of you were first introduced to Tim Pratt thru his novel Blood Engines, which is currently free in the Kindle Store, written under his pseudonym T.A. Pratt. Finding the rest of the series can be a bit tricky, as Amazon has them listed under Tim Pratt (despite the T.A. Pratt on the covers) and they are not linked in to his Author's Page. Most of his earlier novels, under the Tim Pratt name, are short story collections and he continues to write short stories and has put a large number of them on his website as free reads. He also used to edit a webzine, FlyTrap, and you can order back issues as well as find a few stories by his wife, Heather Shaw.

Now, Tim's wife has lost her job and he is trying to raise money with a serialized novel he is publishing on the web. Bone Shop is a Marla Mason novel, but a prequel to the existing series. There will be a new chapter each Monday and there is a Donate button on the website where you donate as much (or as little) as you wish. The first chapter is already up and you can read it HERE. For more information, you can also check out his blog and check out the Marla Mason website for a free short story, Pale Dog, a map of Felport and bios on all the major players in the series. No doubt, buying his books in the Kindle store will also help (as he is also trying to sell a new novel and more readers always helps), but direct sales/donations are more immediate.

Marla Mason Series
1. Blood Engines (free)
2. Poison Sleep ($5.59)
3. Dead Reign ($5.59)
4. Spell Games ($5.59)

Novels
The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl ($9.60)
Little Gods ($14.95 Paperback)
If There Were Wolves ($10.00 Paperback)
Hart & Boot & Other Stories ($14.95 Paperback)
The Urban Bizarre ($13.50 Paperback)

Here is a quick synopsis of his novels that are available in the Kindle Store (see this blog post for Blood Engines).

Poison Sleep ($5.59)

The bad girl of the magical underworld is back and badder than ever

Someone wants Marla Mason dead. Usually that’s not news. As chief sorcerer of Felport, someone always wants her dead. But this time she’s the target of a renegade assassin who specializes in killing his victims over days, months, or even years. Not to mention a mysterious knife-wielding killer in black who pops up in the most unexpected places. To make matters worse, an inmate has broken out of the Blackwing Institute for criminally insane sorcerers—a troubled psychic who can literally reweave the fabric of reality to match her own traumatic past.

With her wisecracking partner Rondeau reluctantly in tow, Marla teams up with a “love-talker” whose dangerous erotic spells not even she can resist. Together they’re searching the rapidly transforming streets of Felport for a woman who’s become the Typhoid Mary of nightmares, infecting everything—and everyone—she touches with a chaos worse than death itself.

Dead Reign ($5.59)

Death has come calling, and one woman has what he wants most of all...

As chief sorcerer of Felport, Marla Mason thought she’d faced every kind of evil the magical world had to offer. But she’s never faced a killer like this. He’s dark, glib, handsome as the devil—and exactly who he says he is. Death—in the flesh. He’s arrived in Felport with a posse composed of a half-insane necromancer and the reanimated corpse of John Wilkes Booth, and he isn’t leaving until he gets what he came for. Only Marla is crazy enough to tell Death to go back to Hell.

With the Founders’ Ball just around the bend, drawing together the brightest, meanest, and most dangerous of Felport’s magical elite, the last thing Marla needs is all-out war with the King of the Underworld, but that’s exactly what she’s got. As the battle lines are drawn, she can count on her hedonistic, body-hopping partner Rondeau…but how many of her old allies will stand by her side when facing the ultimate adversary? To save her city, Marla will have to find a way to cheat Death…literally.

Spell Games ($5.59)

Brain-eating fungi, wannabe sorcerers, long-lost relations–does even a hard-core witch stand a chance?

Mad sorcerers, psychic vampires, an army of vengeful demons, Marla Mason would rather face them all than a flesh-and-blood ghost from her dysfunctional family past: her con artist brother, Jason. As Felport’s chief sorcerer, Marla would ordinarily consider it her duty to protect her town from such an unscrupulous ne’er-do-well. As his sister, things are a lot…trickier. Now, as Marla attempts to train an apprentice oracle whose magical wires have gotten crossed, Jason is setting up an elaborate sting and drawing her ever-so-corruptible partner Rondeau into the ruse.

Their patsy is a filthy-rich wannabe mage and their bait is something so valuable, so dangerous, so sought after, it probably doesn’t exist. But now word’s gotten out that the Borrichius spores do exist and instead of a sucker Jason and Rondeau have a much bigger–and much deadlier–fish on their line: a reclusive sorcerer whose devotion to the mushroom god and command of vegetal magic could bring a fungal apocalypse to Felport. It’ll be the mother of all bad trips unless Marla can pull off the ultimate magical switcheroo…and somehow live to tell about it.


The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl ($9.60)

As night manager of Santa Cruz’s quirkiest coffeehouse, Marzi McCarty makes a mean espresso, but her first love is making comics. Her claim to fame: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, a cowpunk neo-western yarn. Striding through an urban frontier peopled by Marzi’s wild imagination, Rangergirl doles out her own brand of justice. But lately Marzi’s imagination seems to be altering her reality. She’s seeing the world through Rangergirl’s eyes–literally--complete with her deadly nemesis, the Outlaw.

It all started when Marzi opened a hidden door in the coffeehouse storage room. There, imprisoned among
the supplies, she saw the face of something unknown…and dangerous. And she unwittingly became its guard. But some primal darkness must’ve escaped, because Marzi hasn’t been the same since. And neither have her customers, who are acting downright apocalyptic.

Now it’s up to Marzi to stop this supervillainous superforce that’s swaggered its way into her world. For Marzi, it’s the
showdown of her life. For Rangergirl, it’s just another day....

Author Spotlight on K. A. Thompson

If you read yesterday's blog (You didn't? Stop now, go read it and come back. We'll wait. Really.... OK, now that you'r up to speed...), then you know that Max Thompson's human companion,K.A. Thompson, also has a few books out, all currently priced at $1.19, each. The Charybdis Novels series, includes Charybdis, As Simple As That and critically acclaimed Finding Father Rabbit.

Charybdis
His life littered with the women he's used--including a dead hooker he'd planned on marrying--Chip Davis is ready to move on. A blue eyed teenage wonder has found her way into his life, and he intends to run with her at full speed towards happiness. He knows she's the one, and nothing is going to keep him from holding onto her; not a dead friend, a missing brother, a kidnapped son, or a father whose sudden choice to explore the darker side of his employment will turn him away. Nothing except for his own demons, and, perhaps, the truth.

As Simple As That

They were supposed to ride off into the sunset and live out the cliche of happily ever after. They were supposed to have two-point-five kids, buy a minivan, carve out a slice of suburbia, and stay healthy and young and beautiful forever. They weren't supposed to make mistakes, have tempers or fights or bad days. They weren't supposed to split up. But with 18 years of marriage, 4 kids, a cat, and The Issue between them, Chip and Terry Davis aren't quite sure what to do when the distance between them seems to far to cross--or what to do when a simple case of the flu crosses it for them.

Finding Father Rabbit

After three years in the seminary, Kevin Davis comes home for his brother's birthday, and refuses to tell anyone why he's not going back. No one can pry the reason from him, not his parents, his brothers, or even his twin sister. But when childhood love Lydia Freeman bounces back into his life and yanks him out of his pool of despair, he considers telling her the truth, even though once she knows, there's no going back. He struggles with the truth, a pen pal who wants to be so much more, and an unfortunate streak with fire. Finding Father Rabbit follows the Davis family through two years, from Kevin's return home to the explosion of his secret revealed.

It's Not About The Cookies is a stand-alone novel.

There's a long dead brother Sam can see and with whom she shares long conversation. A mother she blames for just about everything. Two sisters who carry their own assortment of baggage. A friend who survived junior high with Sam and who understands why Sam hasn't been home in fifteen years, and a husband who thinks she should go.

Samantha Stark has a ready made list of excuses to not go back, but even though they top the list, she knows...it's not about the cookies.

By the way, Max is apparently a little upset that I didn't mention his blog in yesterday's post (good thing he doesn't live here, my shoes are safe). Be sure to check it out for regular updates (at least, when he manages to sneak onto the internet without his human's supervision). Rumor has it that he has another book in the works, as well.

Author Spotlight on Max Thompson

Max Thompson suffers from a severe disadvantage when it comes to writing - he can't hold a pen, never went to school and lacks the dexterity to type. His shortcomings haven't kept him from writing his own blog or authoring two books from that blog. Of course, that may be because Max is a cat, one more commonly known as PsychoKitty, and he keeps a slave around that assists him with these and other needs. He's even written a guide for the people owned by cats, cleverly titled The Rules: A Guide For People Owned By Cats ($1.19), so that other humans will be able to assist their cat owners in the best way possible. After all, it's not the cat's fault if you don't follow the rules and your shoes must pay the price!

Book Description
People, you need help. Truly you do. You bring home these cute little balls of fur and squeal at its cuteness, declare your life complete because of it,and then get upset when your New Meaning of Life that you treasure poops in the bathtub or hocks a hairball into your shoe. You need to know the rules. You meed to know the truth. Max Thompson, known far and wide as "The Psychokitty" is an expert on all things kitty and has finally decided to share the wisdom of his years of dealing with People, and his in-depth discussions with kitties online. This is his gift to you, the People who are willingly owned by cats. A gift that costs less than $15. Because that's how generous he is. Complete with paw-drawn illustrations!

The Psychokitty Speaks Out: Diary of a Mad Housecat ($1.59)

Book Description
He's 14 pounds of sleek black and white glory. With an attitude ... and opinions ... on everything.

"The PsychoKitty Speaks Out" is the diary of Max, a put-upon and under-appreciated domestic feline with both a disdain and a fondness for Sticky Little People, an addiction to Kitty Crack, and an appetite for Stinky Goodness. He began his popular blog "The Psychokitty Speaks Out" in October of 2003, and this is an expansion of that journal; all those dates when he didn't blog--they're here, in all his snarky glory.

The Psychokitty Speaks Out: Something of Yours Will Meet a Toothy Death ($1.59)

Book Description
Look. I'm funny. You like me. And if you buy my book, I earn cash towards fresh cat nip and crunchy treats. It's as simple as that... But if you need more: This is the diary of Max Thompson, blogger extraordinaire. Thousands of people (maybe hundreds) flock to his blog every day to be amused an enlightened by his feline wisdom. Plus, it's the follow up to "The Psychokitty Speaks Out: Diary of a Mad Housecat" so you know it's good. Some people even though it was FUNNIER. But you don't have to read that one first. Oh, and I have a potty mouth. So you're warned.

Tune in tomorrow - Max has allowed his human to publish her own stories, as well (although it seems he insists she price them at or below the cost of his least expensive book, at least as far as Kindle editions go). Under his tutelage, she has written a three-book series and one stand-alone novel that are in the Kindle store.

The Fixer (new TV Series) - Two Day Special

Jon F. Merz's Lawson Vampire series is being made into a TV series, The Fixer. Most of the books in this series are out of print, with The Syndicate ($5.99 Paperback) the only apparent exception.

Series Description
Called "James Bond with fangs," THE FIXER tells the story of Lawson, a cynical, jaded part cop/spy/commando divinely chosen from birth to help protect the Balance - the line separating humanity and the race of living vampires that has evolved in secret alongside humans over thousands of years. Called upon to protect his race by rooting out rogues, criminals, terrorists, and ne'er-do-wells, Lawson dispenses justice with extreme prejudice, sarcasm by the bowlful, and bullets by the pound. Lawson's area of operations (AO) is Boston and New England, but his previous missions have taken him all over the world.

What makes THE FIXER so unique and utterly cool? Unlike every other vampire story, the vampires in Lawson's world are *not* undead. They're members of a separately evolving race that has existed in secret for thousands of years. They have their own society carefully intermingled with humans who, for the most part, have no idea they exist.

A thrilling mix of Crime, Espionage, and Magic - THE FIXER will deliver pulse-pounding episodes with fantastic production quality garnered from a team of industry veterans and blazing up-and-comers.

It's been quite a while in the making and people have been asking when his Lawson Vampire books are going to be re-issued (which he announced in Aug 2006 on his MySpace page). With, apparently, no firm release date in sight, he is instead making them available, for a VERY limited time, as ebooks, in either PDF or Mobi versions, if you buy all of them in one bundle. Here's the announcement from his web site:

Announcing – and ONLY for a VERY limited time – your chance to read everything Lawson Vampire that I’ve written – TO DATE (meaning there’s still a lot more to come) in a very special ebook compilation, THE FIXER FILES. This is NOT going to be available anywhere, except through me directly. This very special compilation includes:

• THE FIXER
• THE INVOKER
• THE DESTRUCTOR
• THE SYNDICATE
• THE COURIER (novella)
• THE KENSEI RED TIDE (short story)
• THE PRICE OF A GOOD DRINK (short story)

All for just $9.99. The ONLY way to get this package is to pre-order NOW, direct through me, by clicking the BUY NOW button below. Only two formats will be made available: .pdf and .mobi – be sure to specify when you place your order.

You may be asking - how do I get a sample of his writing (and this series), to decide if I want to buy? It turns out that you can read Red Tide from the TV series web site (HERE). Plus, you can read what looks like the entire novella The Courier on his myspace page. It was posted back in 2006 and the page starts with the epilogue (click on Older Posts, at the bottom, twice to get to the beginning entry).

He's now posted a deadline - this offer is only good thru Midnight (EST), tomorrow night and only available HERE.



You may also want to check out some of his work that is available on Kindle.

PARALLAX and VICARIOUS ($1.59 each) are full length novels, while THE BRANK OF KHOSADAM and PRISONER 392 ($1 each) are short stories. It seems the automatic discounting is broken at Amazon right now, but these short stories should be listed at 80 cents, each, if it kicks back in.

Parallax
What happens when two professional assassins - one a Mafia hitman and the other a former German terrorist - kill at exactly the same moment in time? For Ernst Stahl and Frank Jolino the result is a psychic bond that slowly blossoms in each man's mind, enabling them to see into the other's world. Frank Jolino doesn't like what he sees, especially when he realizes that Stahl is headed to his home turf of Boston to kill a scientist who may hold the key to solving the world's deadliest diseases. But for Stahl, there's no other option. Virtually bankrupt and with his son in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant, he's got little choice but to take the assignment. Jolino has other ideas. On the run from his crime syndicate for refusing to kill his ex-girlfriend-turned-government-informant, Jolino sets a plan in motion that will bring the two men face-to-face and gun-to-gun...with no guarantees either will survive.

Vicarious
When disgraced ex-FBI agent-turned-Boston-cop Steve Curran finds a corpse with no practical explanation for its death, the nightmares start again. Convinced the serial killer that caused his expulsion from the Bureau is once again haunting him, Curran soon learns his theories are all wrong. When the sister of the latest victim, Lauren Fields, uncovers an old journal detailing the hunt for a creature known only as the Soul Eater, she and Curran must confront the very real prospect that the killer is not of this world at all – and that his motives have little to do with killing, but all to do with something far, far worse.

Those who don't have Kindles will find these for sale in PDF format on his website.

Free Ebook - In Over Her Head (PDF)

In Over Her Head ($24.95 Paperback) is Elsie Russell's first novel and it is an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semi-finalist, but the author hasn't been able to find a publisher (not surprising, with publishers cutting back all over and the apparent fascination with pseudo-celebrities they have been signing these days). So, the author has decided to self-publish using Lulu.com and Amazon (so far, not using Kindle - so be sure to leave her a note asking for a Kindle edition and click on the I’d like to read this book on Kindle link on the Amazon page). She is also giving away a free PDF copy of the book on her web site (which also has links to paintings she has done).

Book Description
The debut of Penny Bell's's musical composition, featuring the use of mysterious extremely low frequency waves takes a tragic turn when several concert-goers die in their seats during the performance. The once-bright horizons of Penny's career collapse, and she retreats to a dank Soho basement apartment lit only by the glow of computer monitors and electronic displays. There, using herself as a guinea pig, she sets out to unlock the secrets of her beautiful and deadly symphonies. A series of strange coincidences intrude upon her solitary quest. Her neighbor, the erotic performance artist Ula Nova's, disappears after her studio is broken into. And then Ula's charming and damaged young choreographer appears, and sweeps Penny off to Europe to search for the diva, plunging Penny into a seedy and unfamiliar world of jet set artists and international intrigue where the threads of every encounter always seem to lead back to those ELF waves and their pint-sized progenitor.

Download your free copy HERE.

Shimmer by John Passarella

For some reason, this article didn't get posted (it was stuck on "scheduled", even though it's been a week after the posting date). I'm posting it now, but I just checked John's web site and it's down for the moment. Hopefully, it will be back up soon.

John Passarella is another Hollywood writer, best "known" for his Buffy the Vampire and Angel books (even if most don't know who the writer is on a TV series), who has started publishing in the Kindle store. What those fans may not realize is that he is also a Stoker Award winning novelist (Wither, currently out of print, but coming to Kindle in July, along with Wither's Rain). He recently started releasing a free serialized version of his latest novel, Shimmer, a techno-thriller, on his web site and the complete novel has just been released in the Kindle store ($4.99) and in other formats from his author store, for those that don't want to wait for the ending. He's already started removing the free downloads from his web site (he says they will disappear at the rate of about 9 chapters a week), but has a special offer where you can get the first 9 chapters emailed to you HERE ("if you email me at author[at]passarella[dot]com and mention [kindleboards.com], I will be happy to mail you the expired first 9 chapters for another week"), then you can download the rest of the first 48 chapters on his website HERE. Subscribe to his site or check back every week to get the lastest chapter (I suspect the final chapters will only be available free for a week or two). Of course, if that's too much trouble and you don't want to read the book all broken up into parts, you can be reading the Kindle version in about a minute.

Book Description
Logan Walker has a gift: he senses supernatural trouble before it happens. But when his special talent predicts hell on earth, he knows his gift has become a nightmare for him and his unusual family. Possessing various paranormal abilities, the Walkers have, through generations spanning thousands of years, protected the human race from supernatural predators. These creatures enter our world through dimensional rifts and must be defeated or returned to their world before wreaking havoc in our own. But the Walkers have suffered a long war of attrition and their numbers have dwindled. They are at their weakest when our world faces its greatest threat. And time is running out.

Ayn Rand on Kindle

Looks like these were all bootlegs. All but one have been pulled from the Amazon store and I suspect it will be gone soon.

Ayn Rand's Anthem is in the public domain and there are numerous editions of it in the Kindle store and available at most free book sites. What's been missing was the other novels that are classics (and required reading for high school and college English students). That has apparently been remedied and there are now five additional Ayn Rand titles in the Kindle Store. Be sure to download samples and check the formats (I've only looked at a couple, but have heard there are some problems with them). So far, they appear to be Mobi (AZW) with no DRM.

Atlas Shrugged ($1.99)
The Fountainhead ($5.99)
Night of January 16th ($1.99)
Virtue Of Selfishness ($1.99)
For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand ($1.99)