$5 Magazine Subscriptions

This deal is a non-electronic one. I wanted to make sure you knew about the Black Friday $5 Magazine Deals Amazon is having on 10 different magazines. Give a gift, renew an existing subscription, or start a new one -- all for $5. Not only are a couple of them not good candidates for reading on the Kindle (sometimes you just want to look thru the glossy pictures), I know my Christmas List has some people on it that don't have any type of ereader.

The savings Amazon shows are off of retail price, so are a bit inflated, but I know several of these normally have subscription rates in the $20-$25 range, such as Real Simple or SmartMoney. There doesn't seem to be any limit to how many of the subscriptions you take advantage of (last year, they had a similar deal and I ordered three of them), so you may be able to get a subscription for yourself and give the same magazine as a gift to as many people as you want.

The Delian Cycle

The Delian Cycle ($9.99), by Alan Burt Akers, is an omnibus edition of the first five titles in the The Saga of Dray Prescot series. That works out to $2 per book and all the customer reviews are 4 and 5 stars. I'm not sure I'll read the entire series (it's 45 books, all available on Kindle), but I'll definitely check this one out.

Book Description
For the first time ever, the first five books in the Saga of Dray Prescot of Earth and of Kregen are brought together in this omnibus edition. Together, these five books make up the Delian Cycle, in which Dray Prescot comes to terms with finding himself on the alien world of Kregen. Here he tries to make sense of his situation: the Star Lords, the Savanti, the marvelous places, strange beasts and stranger people. And here he pursues his greatest love of two worlds, Delia of the Blue Mountains. Containing five books: Transit to Scorpio, The Suns of Scorpio, Warrior of Scorpio, Swordships of Scorpio, and Prince of Scorpio. (349000 words)

Transit to Scorpio
On the planet Kregen that circles Antares, the brightest star of the Constellation of the Scorpion, two forces contend for the world's destiny. One of them, the Savanti, called in a human pawn from far-away Earth. His name is Dray Prescot, and only the Savanti know his role. Dray Prescot confronted a fabulous world -- barbaric, unmapped, peopled with both human and non-human races. But there were always the Star Lords to watch and check the Savanti's plans. And it soon turned out that Dray Prescot himself had to make a decision that would change him from a mere pawn to a bolder piece on the planetary chessboard...

The Suns of Scorpio
Slave of the colossus builders or scourge of the Inland Sea? Both roles awaited Dray Prescot on his return to Kregen. Torn between two contending forces, the Star Lords and the Savanti, Prescot himself wanted only to find his beloved, the Princess Delia of the Blue Mountains. But the powers that had drawn him across interstellar space to the world that orbited the red and green suns in the Constellation Scorpio had set him a task, the nature of which even he could not fully comprehend...

Warrior of Scorpio
Once again in the grip of the Star Lords of the Constellation Scorpio, Dray Prescot finds himself torn from the battles of the Inner Sea for a mission in the air. For it was now his mission to carry his beloved Delia by airboat to that far kingdom, Vallia, from whence she had come. But the route lay across the gaunt mountains and the shadowy jungles of the Hostile Territories -- and there Dray was to be plunged among stranger peoples and more fantastic challenges than even his Kregen princess had known.

Swordships of Scorpio
What does a man do when fate makes him the protector of the royal head of the land of his enemies? If it is Dray Prescot, Earthman on Antares, he sets aside his quest to do his duty. His duty was to reach Vallia and his princess Delia and help her claim her throne. His duty was to defend Vallia's ancient foe and place its rightful heir on its throne -- sworn to attack Vallia. So when the third force, the pirate fleets known as the swordships came between the two contending demands, Dray sees that only by following his own personal star could the contradiction be resolved.

Prince of Scorpio
Dray Prescot had fought long and hard through perilous lands to claim the hand of the heiress of the mighty Vallia. Yet, when finally he set foot in that long-sought empire, it was not as hero or noble... It was as an unknown, a mendicant, and finally as a condemned slave. For the combatant fates that had interfered continually with his quest on the planet of the twin suns of Antares had yet more tests for the man they had selected as their agent. But for Dray there was only one goal -- already in sight -- and he would not be turned aside any longer no matter what dangers Vallian intrigues and quasi-human mysteries may have in store for him.

Amazon Adds PDF Support to Kindle2/2i

A few people have noticed that they have a few new pictures on their Kindle screensavers lately. And I noticed that I had a new version of the Kindle User's Guide in my library that appeared this week. It's all part of the new Kindle firmware update 2.3. Unlike previous updates, where Kindle owners had to guess and rely on other owners to determine what was included in an update, Amazon has created a 2.3 Firmware Update Highlights page for this update, which shows what the update includes for each of the Kindle versions out there (not including the original Kindle, which appears left out).

The major change is PDF support for the K2/K2i and the ability to rotate the screen. With this change, documents emailed to your Kindle email address will no longer automatically convert PDF files. So, Amazon has created a method of converting those PDF files that will work for DX users as well: just type "Convert" in the subject of the e-mail when you send a document for conversion.

The K2 and K2i also get improved battery life, while the KDX gets better PDF margin support and an extended period before the screensaver kicks in (20 minutes), which should help when studying, cooking or using a DX in meetings.

Those of us with the original Kindle are still on firmware version 1.2. I hope Amazon doesn't renege on it's promise to include us in the update next year that will allow better organization of content on the Kindle.

Free Read - Lemony Snicket

A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning ($3.99 Kindle), by Lemony Snicket, is available as a free read from Harper Collins this month.

Book Description
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent children. They are charming, and resourceful, and have pleasant facial features. Unfortunately, they are exceptionally unlucky.

In the first two books alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, a lumpy bed, a deadly serpent, a large brass reading lamp, a long knife, and a terrible odour.

In the tradition of great storytellers, from Dickens to Dahl, comes an exquisitely dark comedy that is both literary and irreverent, hilarious and deftly crafted. Never before has a tale of three likeable and unfortunate children been quite so enchanting, or quite so uproariously unhappy.

Click HERE for the free read. Want to see the video that shows what Lemony thinks of it? Click HERE.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger (author of The Time Traveler's Wife), is currently marked down to $5.79 -- a bit above the prices I usually report here, but a bargain for this particular title.

Book Description
...a spectacularly compelling and haunting second novel set in and around Highgate Cemetery in London.

When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leaves her London apartment to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina. These two American girls never met their English aunt, only knew that their mother, too, was a twin, and Elspeth her sister. Julia and Valentina are semi-normal American teenagers--with seemingly little interest in college, finding jobs, or anything outside their cozy home in the suburbs of Chicago, and with an abnormally intense attachment to one another.

The girls move to Elspeth's flat, which borders Highgate Cemetery in London. They come to know the building's other residents. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword puzzle setter suffering from crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Marjike, Martin's devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt's neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including--perhaps--their aunt, who can't seem to leave her old apartment and life behind.

Niffenegger weaves a captivating story in Her Fearful Symmetry about love and identity, about secrets and sisterhood, and about the tenacity of life--even after death.