Just a quick trio of bargain books for the night - these are not likely to be reduced for long (I know the first will go back up on the 4th). I'm going to buy all three, as they look to be very good reads.
The double novella
When the Blue Shift Comes (
$0.99), by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro and Robert Silverberg (Phoenix Pick), is priced less than a short story from Silverberg usually goes for. He also publishes via Penguin and
Valentine Pontifex: Book Three of the Majipoor Cycle can now be pre-ordered (at what is a decent price from this publisher, $9.99).
Book Description
A grand new adventure by a Grandmaster of science fiction.
Life has spread across the stars, and everyone enjoys a long life. However, only those who are Earth-born are truly immortal.
But what happens when the immortals of Earth are suddenly faced with their ultimate destruction?
Hanosz Prime, a near-immortal (though not truly so, not being of true Earth stock) travels to humanity’s ancient home to discover the ultimate answer to humanity’s end.
A new Silverberg story in the tradition of the old classics, with an accompanying novella by up-and-coming writer Alvaro Zinos-Amaro.
Hide Me Among the Graves (
$0.99), by Tim Powers (HarperCollins), almost looks like a pricing error (the paperback doesn't come out until next year).
Book Description
London, winter of 1862, Adelaide McKee, a former prostitute, arrives on the doorstep of veterinarian John Crawford, a man she met once seven years earlier. Their brief meeting produced a child who, until now, had been presumed dead. McKee has learned that the girl lives—but that her life and soul are in mortal peril from a vampiric ghost. But this is no ordinary spirit; the bloodthirsty wraith is none other than John Polidori, the onetime physician to the mad, bad, and dangerous Romantic poet Lord Byron. Both McKee and Crawford have mysterious histories with creatures like Polidori, and their child is a prize the malevolent spirit covets dearly.
Polidori is also the late uncle and supernatural muse to the poet Christina Rossetti and her brother, the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. When she was just fourteen years old, Christina unwittingly brought Polidori's curse upon her family. But the curse bestowed unexpected blessings as well, inspiring Christina's poetry and Gabriel's paintings. But when Polidori resurrects Dante's dead wife—turning her into a horrifying vampire—and threatens other family members, Christina and Dante agree that they must destroy their monstrous uncle and break the spell, even if it means the end of their creative powers.
Determined to save their daughter, McKee and Crawford join forces with the Rossettis, and soon these wildly mismatched allies are plunged into a supernatural London underworld whose existence goes beyond their wildest imaginings. Ultimately, each of these disparate individuals—the sensitive poet, the tortured painter, the straitlaced animal doctor, the reformed prostitute, and even their Artful Dodger–like young daughter—must choose between the banality and constraints of human life and the unholy immortality that Polidori offers.
Sweeping from the mansions of London's high society to its grimy slums, the elegant salons of the West End to the pre-Roman catacombs beneath St. Paul's Cathedral, Hide Me Among the Graves blends the historical and the supernatural in a dazzling, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride—a modern horror story with a Victorian twist.
The Cloud Roads (
$1.99), by Nebula-nominee Martha Wells (Night Shade Books), has a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly. The next in the series,
The Serpent Sea, can now be pre-ordered for January delivery, with a third book already on the publishing schedule.
Book Description
Moon has spent his life hiding what he is - a shape-shifter able to transform himself into a winged creature of flight. An orphan with only vague memories of his own kind, Moon tries to fit in among the tribes of his river valley, with mixed success. Just as Moon is once again cast out by his adopted tribe, he discovers a shape-shifter like himself... someone who seems to know exactly what he is, who promises that Moon will be welcomed into his community. What this stranger doesn't tell Moon is that his presence will tip the balance of power... that his extraordinary lineage is crucial to the colony's survival... and that his people face extinction at the hands of the dreaded Fell! Now Moon must overcome a lifetime of conditioning in order to save himself... and his newfound kin.
