Kindle eBooks Bargain Thread

[Islanti]

As kerzain pointed out here we could really use a Kindle ebook bargain thread.

I just got my Kindle a few days ago. I'm clueless as to how to find bargains on Amazon's site. I've been buying ebooks for some time other places though. Quite a big fan of Webscription. Their content is a few specific genres of Fantasy and Military Sci-Fi. What I really like is the "Webscription" itself. 5-6 eBooks available for $15 per month. Usually 1-2 newer titles and a selection of their older titles. Their eBooks are DRM-free, multiformat, and available as MOBI files. You can email these to @free.kindle.com.

[Gav]

There are a few blogs which track these things.

I look at http://ebooks.addall.com/amazonfree.html and http://booksontheknob.blogspot.com/. The latter is good because she gives a description of each book, so you can avoid the Christian ones and Harlequins, which between them probably make up 90% of the free kindle market.

[Gus_Smedstad]

If you're going to mention Baen Webscriptions, it's worth mentioning the free library and the Fifth Imperium mirror site with many other Baen books available for free beyond the free library. Baen likes to include CDs with free copies of older, related books with their hardcovers, and they don't mind if you spread them around, provided you don't sell them.

[DennyA]

That Fifth Imperium site has the disc from Lois McMaster Bujold's latest book, which has the entire Miles Vorkosigan series on it. If you haven't read these books, or you've only read some of them, I highly recommend grabbing it. The disc has the books in ebook-reader compatible formats.

Download the Cryoburn CD (top of the list) from here.

[OrfBC]

What are these other CDs? Slammers must be Hammer's Slammers, which I read as a kid and may revisit. Honorverse is Honor Harrington, which I've read the first several of and then got sick of the constant recitation of ship stats, but also may revisit. Are any of the others worth checking out?

Edit: Actually, what are these CDs in the first place? I recognize several individual titles from the Honor Harrington series, so Honorverse must not be the whole thing as I thought. I mean what is the basic concept behind these CDs? Is it just the book in several formats?

[Kryten]

I don't mind David Weber so have grabbed the new Mission of Honor CD (nice to see they're doing .mobi and .epub versions on the disc now). Baen rock, I've happily given them money and will continue to do so, but it sure is nice to have the back catalogue of their books I've already read just laying about in digital form.

[Gus_Smedstad]

it sure is nice to have the back catalogue of their books I've already read just laying about in digital form.

Exactly. I have all the Miles books in physical form except Cryoburn, which I purchased from Baen's site. It's nice to have free electronic versions as well for convenience's sake.

[Wisbechlad]

Picked up some decent free classics from amazon (rather than gutenberg) e.g.

Adam Bede
Scenes From Clerical Life - both by George Elliott
There's about 25 books in total by the same team - including Thackery's Vanity Fair which is one of my favourite books ever. Yeah, you can get them from gutenberg, but this is easier

What's nice is that normally I wouldn't read them - would stick to her better known stuff. Which I am meh about. But when she isn't in This Is A Serious Book About Serious Things mode (Middlemarch, I'm talking about you - I've tried and failed to read that thing a number of times) she's actually a seriously good descriptive writer

[SirTomster]

Any problem turning this into an ebook thread vs Kindle only. Since I have a nook and not a kindle?

[Galadin]

Any problem turning this into an ebook thread vs Kindle only. Since I have a nook and not a kindle?

Same here, wife and I also have a nook instead of a kindle, so I would also like an ebooks thread.

[SirTomster]

Also besides the Baen Free Library and all the awesome CD's there is Webscriptions where you can order books a ton cheaper than either Amazon or B&N.

Mainly Baen books but a few other publishers too. Was buying from them before there was an ebook reader. Today all go into my nook.

[Tracy Baker]

Also besides the Baen Free Library and all the awesome CD's there is Webscriptions where you can order books a ton cheaper than either Amazon or B&N.

Mainly Baen books but a few other publishers too. Was buying from them before there was an ebook reader. Today all go into my nook.

You mean the same Webscriptions linked in the very first post in this thread?

I look at Manybooks every so often, and Munsey's is incredible if you like pulp fiction. Just Free Books is a terrific search engine that scours multiple legal sources at once, and there's an option to search specifically for books that work with the Kindle. And don't forget that The Black Library still offers some free digital downloads.

Thanks for starting this thread, as I sometimes run into limited-time offers but wasn't sure where to post them.

[rei]

Wish I would have seen this thread to post the 60% off O'reilly books last night.

[DennyA]

All of the stuff here is applicable to all eBook readers -- these aren't proprietary formats. As for changing it to incorporate the Nook, you can't change a topic title retroactively.

[SirTomster]

All of the stuff here is applicable to all eBook readers -- these aren't proprietary formats. As for changing it to incorporate the Nook, you can't change a topic title retroactively.

Well some people are all fanboyish over their ebook reader of choice and if this was a full on Kindle love fest thread, I would create another one that would be for all ebook readers. Even the 300 different types I saw in all the Black Friday ads. Seemed like every store had an ebook reader this year.

[SirTomster]

Orbit Books has been running a monthly special on one book and they announce. Here is December's Book

So far the books haven't been great, the reviews on last month were horrible so I skipped, but the reviews on this book are better and considering.

[barstein]

Found the "free ebooks?" thread at last. There are a few useful links there, I believe, mostly in post #1.

I meant to post that here sooner, but had trouble finding it again for some reason.

[DennyA]

So of those Baen CD, which ones are worth reading? I've heard some people like the Honor Harrington stuff. How's the John Ringo stuff outside of the over-the-top book that was discussed in the Vorkosigan topic?

[ydejin]

So of those Baen CD, which ones are worth reading? I've heard some people like the Honor Harrington stuff. How's the John Ringo stuff outside of the over-the-top book that was discussed in the Vorkosigan topic?

I really like the David Weber & John Ringo March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars series.

The first book in Eric Flint's 1632 series is a fun read. I personally think 1633 and 1634: The Baltic War are pretty decent, although I've had a harder time with some of the others. Last time we discussed this, there seemed to be agreement that 1632 was worth a read, and that the quality dropped off after that with some disagreement on when the quality dropped so low it wasn't worth reading anymore.

I also rather like John Ringo's There Will Be Dragon's series, although one could argue that there is a touch of Oh John Ringo No in it. Nowhere near anything like his Ghost series mind you.

[Chowhound]

So how do I get all these free books into my ipad with Kindle reader? I assume for the Kindle itself, you just copy the file over, but I'm not sure how the ipad will be able to, or am I just out of luck?

[ydejin]

So how do I get all these free books into my ipad with Kindle reader? I assume for the Kindle itself, you just copy the file over, but I'm not sure how the ipad will be able to, or am I just out of luck?

AFAIK if you really want to use the Kindle app you are out of luck. Instead you'll need to read them in the iBook application. I transfer them over using Calibre.

[Damien Neil]

So of those Baen CD, which ones are worth reading? I've heard some people like the Honor Harrington stuff. How's the John Ringo stuff outside of the over-the-top book that was discussed in the Vorkosigan topic?

Honor Harrington is popular, although a number of people (myself included) fell out of love with the series partway through. Start at the beginning, read until you don't like it any more, and pretend Weber died of a massive heart attack at that point. It won't get any better. (Same advice applies to the Anita Blake series, come to think of it.)

From the Baen Free Library, some other recommendations:

Harald, by David Friedman. The adventures of a leader in fantasyland Scandinavia. I liked this a lot, but that opinion isn't universally shared.

The Tank Lords by David Drake. Drake isn't quite my thing, but he's a very solid author of grim-and-gritty military SF. He's a Vietnam vet, and the influence shows strongly in his fiction.

Telzey Amberdon, by James Schmitz. If you like girls-with-guns anime, then Schmitz should be right up your alley. Schmitz wrote light adventure SF from the 40s through the 70s, and his work holds up well today.

Wizard's Bane, by Rick Cook. Light fantasy series about a computer programmer transported to a fantasy world. The computer bits are probably a bit dated.

Doc Sidhe, by Aaron Allston. Doc Savage as an elf, told from the perspective of one of his sidekicks. Fun stuff.

[Eric P]

Doc Sidhe, by Aaron Allston. Doc Savage as an elf, told from the perspective of one of his sidekicks. Fun stuff.

What the hell. His life wasn't over. He had a great bowl of wonton soup and a pair of well-tied shoes.

Sold!

[Gus_Smedstad]

Doc Sidhe, by Aaron Allston. Doc Savage as an elf, told from the perspective of one of his sidekicks.

I enjoyed that one a lot. It has a sequel, Sidhe Devil, that's also worth reading. Not free, but not expensive at $4 either.

Honor Harrington is popular, although a number of people (myself included) fell out of love with the series partway through. Start at the beginning, read until you don't like it any more, and pretend Weber died of a massive heart attack at that point. It won't get any better.

I don't know if this happens to other people, but getting fed up with his later writing damaged his earlier books for me. Re-reading On Basilisk Station, I noticed many of the same writing flaws. They just weren't as bad back then.

The Tank Lords by David Drake. Drake isn't quite my thing, but he's a very solid author of grim-and-gritty military SF. He's a Vietnam vet, and the influence shows strongly in his fiction.

Sometimes too strongly. His contribution to one of the "War World" books (the Mote in God's Eye universe anthologies centered around a the Sauron Supermen) was really jarring in tone. It didn't fit the background at all, mainly because of the Vietnam-era nihilism.

Drake's another author I used to like, but don't so much anymore. At some point I realized that most of his characters were abrasive assholes. People who fought with each other constantly over trivial things. Not all of them, but enough to make things like Bridgehead hard to read when I was older.

[Damien Neil]

I enjoyed that one a lot. It has a sequel, Sidhe Devil, that's also worth reading. Not free, but not expensive at $4 either.

Yes, the sequel is good. I wish he'd write some more books. The world could use more classic adventure novel pastiche.

Huh. Checking Wikipedia, he's written a bunch of licensed fiction. Okay, I wish he'd write some more non-licensed books. :>

I don't know if this happens to other people, but getting fed up with his later writing damaged his earlier books for me. Re-reading On Basilisk Station, I noticed many of the same writing flaws. They just weren't as bad back then.

This happens to me with a number of authors. It's especially annoying when it happens with someone who I really did like--Weber was never a favorite, so I don't mind having the older Honor Harringon books spoiled.

The two classic cases for me are Connie Willis and Orson Scott Card. Willis, I eventually realized, almost exclusively writes stories about people with no intentionality. If you're one of her characters, there's no point in getting up in the morning--the story is going to turn out a certain way, and nothing you try to do will have the slightest effect on it. Sometimes she plays this as tragedy and sometimes as comedy; Doomsday Book, somewhat confusingly, plays it as both. Once I saw it, though, it made her pretty much unreadable for me.

Card writes stories about the virtues of pain. I think he's trying to answer the classic religious "problem of pain": Why would an omnipotent, benevolent god allow suffering to exist in the world? Card's answer is that pain is a good thing, and he does go on about it at length. Most apparent in the Worthing Saga books, and least apparent in Ender's Game--which may well be why the latter is the most atypical and the most popular of his works.

Drake's another author I used to like, but don't so much anymore. At some point I realized that most of his characters were abrasive assholes. People who fought with each other constantly over trivial things. Not all of them, but enough to make things like Bridgehead hard to read when I was older.

I tried some of the Hammer's Slammer's stories, and burned out on him before the end. "Vietnam-era nihilism" about covers it: Each story was about grim people doing horrible things in terrible situations to no purpose. The village is endlessly burned down, with no salvation in sight. I have no complaint with him as an author, but it wasn't for me.

[Gus_Smedstad]

Checking Wikipedia, he's written a bunch of licensed fiction. Okay, I wish he'd write some more non-licensed books. :>

Heh, that's exactly how I feel. No matter how much I might like him otherwise, I'm not reading Star Wars novels just to read more of his work.

I think of him mainly as a gaming author. He's written a fair amount for Steve Jackson's GURPS system. It was a surprise to see a regular novel with his name on it.

If you're one of her characters, there's no point in getting up in the morning--the story is going to turn out a certain way, and nothing you try to do will have the slightest effect on it.

That's a fair point. I've only read a couple of her books, but you're right, things just sort of happen to the protagonists.

Card writes stories about the virtues of pain.

Ye gods. I'd never thought of it that way, but almost every Card novel I can think of can be characterized that way. Even the short stories. There's one told from the point of view of an intelligence-enhanced monkey on a space station, and the monkey ends up torturing himself to get past some mental conditioning.

You could certainly cast at least some of Ender's Game that way. Certainly Speaker for the Dead is just chock-full of it.

[ydejin]

Card writes stories about the virtues of pain.

Ye gods. I'd never thought of it that way, but almost every Card novel I can think of can be characterized that way. Even the short stories. There's one told from the point of view of an intelligence-enhanced monkey on a space station, and the monkey ends up torturing himself to get past some mental conditioning.

You could certainly cast at least some of Ender's Game that way. Certainly Speaker for the Dead is just chock-full of it.

The worst "self-torture" series I've seen is David Feintuch's Hope Series. I thought the first book, Midshipman's Hope was great. We saw a young Midshipman grow through hardship. But then every subsequent book went out of it's way to repeatedly cut the character back down to zero and torture the poor guy. It got old very quickly.

[Gus_Smedstad]

I read all of the "hope" books, and you're right, the bugs in the main character's head get tiresome.

[SirTomster]

The Hope series just totally messes with me. I cannot and will not read again. Seafort (damn I still remember his name Nicholas Seafort) just hates his life.

I actually like the story but being in his head just makes you want to kill yourself.

[Gus_Smedstad]

Seafort (damn I still remember his name Nicholas Seafort) just hates his life.

And for no good reason, either. He's got a pretty good life, all around. He just twists everything mentally until he sees himself as the worst human being, ever.