Spontaneous ∂erivation

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Marked optimized for Kindle DX, due to plenty of pictures and complicated layouts (like all good Making Of books do).

In fact, now that the DX is around, books like this have a lot more play in the field. As well as your typical textbook.

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The Age of Unreason series is now completely present in the Kindle store. It took a few months, and apparently either some righteous and painful scanning or some digging through files to re-discover PDFs and reformat… but now they’re all here.

1. Newton’s Cannon
2. A Calculus of Angels
3. Empire of Unreason
4. The Shadows of God

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A collection of every single Kirinyaga story, sequenced into an overall narrative. An SF utopia classic, based on the cultures of Africa.

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The most relevant bit of the blurb, I think: “… everything changed in an instant when inventor Barrington Boles succeeded in making Max the human gate to numerous parallelities.”

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The last book in the Sangreal Trilogy, a science fiction fantasy about a boy who discovers a dreaming gateway into Eos, complete with grails and princesses and things. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the bad guys aren’t also in his waking world.

Its sister books, The Greenstone Grail and The Sword of Straw, are also available in the Kindle store.

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The second book in the Apprentice Adept SF/fantasy series, which goes on for seven more books. None of the others are available yet for the Kindle.

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The Dark Angel TV series (cyber/bio/etc-punk) died an early death, but lives on in books like The Eyes Only Dossier. Although it’s optimized for Kindle DX, the experience isn’t particularly downgraded for regular Kindles (although obviously pictures of the well-done police reports and evidence photos are much smaller).

You can also buy both seasons on DVD these days.

And the Dark Angel trilogy (expanding upon the TV series) are also available for the Kindle:

1. Dark Angel: Before Dawn
2. Dark Angel: Skin Game
3. Dark Angel: After the Dark

Someone really loved this series.

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The beginning of a sequel series to The Sun Sword.

The Sun Sword sextet itself is recommended on the Song of Ice and Fire message boards for lovers of George R.R. Martin’s indomitable series, but none of the Sun Sword books (much less its preceding duology) are yet available for the Kindle.

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An anthology of nineteen fantasy stories divided into different history ages (Age of Antiquity, Age of Sails, Colonial Age, Age of Pioneers, Pre-Modern Age, Age Ahead).

Stories by Rob St. Martin, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Caitlin Sweet, Urania Fung, Karina Sumner-Smith, Natalie Millman, Ika Vanderkoeck, Brad Carson, Jana Paniccia, Ceri Young, Liz Holliday, Sandra Tayler, Kristen Bonn, Linda A.B. Davis, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Jennifer Crow, Tony Pi, Queenie Tirone, K.J. Gould, and Costi Gurgu.

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The first book in Swann’s new Hostile Takeover Trilogy, featuring a Terran Confederacy that implodes, human refugees founding a group of colonies, and mysterious emissions from space, which are almost never a good thing.

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The second book in the Nessantico Cycle, another epic fantasy empire world-building series. Another recommendation for George R.R. Martin fans, from the man himself (!).

The first book, A Magic of Twilight, is also available on the Kindle.

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An anthology of eleven alternate history stories, featuring the talents of Robert Charles Wilson, Jeff VanderMeer, Stephen Baxter, Theodora Goss, Liz Williams, Gene Wolfe, Greg van Eekhout, Alstair Reynolds, Paul Park, Lucius Shephard, and Benjamin Rosenbaum.

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The sequel to Marseguro (also available in the Kindle store), where a far-future Dr. Moreau type flees with his created race of genetically modified humans—Selkies, adapted to water environments—to the water world of Marseguro.

He was followed, of course.

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The first book in the series Inda’s Story, which is specifically not a YA work.

The three existing books are all available in the Kindle Store, for a change:

1. Inda
2. The Fox
3. The King’s Shield

A fourth book, Treason’s Shore is forthcoming in August 2009.

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A new urban fantasy (not involving investigators of any shape or form as main characters) featuring a young museum research assistant who inherits a mysterious shop from his grandmother.

The customers who show up are indeed something else entirely.

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Another urban fantasy setting with an unusual premis: the world of fantasy and reality collied for a fantasy author.

The previous books in this series include Moon in the Mirror and Hounding the Moon.

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Seventeen stories involving swordplay across the world.

From the pens of Kristine Kathyryn Rusch, Mike Moscoe, Allan Rouselle, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Phaedra M. Weldon, Peter Orullian, David H. Hendrickson, Gail Selinger, Terry Hayman, Dan C. Duval, Laura Resnik, Loren L. Coleman, John Alvin Pitts, Janna Silvertein, Annie Reed, J. Steven York, Jean Rabe.

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Intriguing review at Tor.com.

Extremely good first chapter.

Free short story online set in the same world.

Okay, I just found my reading for the next couple days. This is a book mugging.¹

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The second book set in the Hidden Cities world, this time with a history professor exploring the dark side of hurricane-ravaged Katrina with a magic map, looking for a way to revive a dead love untimely ripped from life.

Mind the Gap, the first book, covers the dark side of London; both are stand-alone novels and both are available in the Kindle store.

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Urban fantasy noir with private investigator Connor Grey, a druid who used to be part of a Faerie task force that oversaw the antics of the fey; now out on his own. In his third book, Connor must deal with the veil between the land of death and ours lifting, as well as the usual string of weird occult murders and an angry Faerie queen (well, not as usual).

The first two books, Unshapely Things (beginning with a string of dead faerie prostitutes) and Unquiet Dreams (war between Celtic faeries and Teutonic elves, in case you thought they were One and the Same), are also available on the Kindle.

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H.P. Lovecraft’s world of Cthulhu is one of the most famous “shared spaces” for writing, where people != Lovecraft are encouraged to expand the mythos with their own characters, stories, arcs.

Of course, like all fan fiction, this did not necessarily go well in all cases.

However! In swoop Pelan and Adams to save the day with new stories, some written by the best modern-day fantasy and science fiction authors, from Poppy Z. Brite to China Miéville, to breathe newfound terror into your life.

The stories:

• “Details” by China Miéville
• “Visitation” by James Robert Smith
• “The Invisible Empire” by James Van Pelt
• “A Victorian Pot Dresser” by L.H. Maynard and M.P.N. Sims
• “The Cabin in the Woods” by Richard Laymon
• “The Stuff of the Stars, Leaking” by Tim Lebbon
• “Sour Places” by Mark Chadbourn
• “Meet Me on the Other side” by Yvonne Navarro
• “That’s the Story of My Life” by John Pelan and Benjamin Adams
• “Long Meg and Her Daughters” by Paul Finch
• “A Fatal Exception Has Occurred At…” by Alan Dean Foster
• “Dark of the Moon” by James S. Dorr
• “Red Clay” by Michael Reaves
• “Principles and Parameters” by Meredith L. Patterson
• “Are You Loathsome Tonight?” by Poppy Z. Brite
• “The Serenade of Starlight” by W.H. Pugmire, Esq.
• “Outside” by Steve Rasnic Tern
• “Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea” by Caitlin R. Kiernan
• “A Spectacle of a Man” by Weston Ochse
• “The Firebrand Symphony” by Brian Hodge
• “Teeth” by Mat Cardin

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The follow-up to the galactical-apocalyptic trilogy known as Star Trek: Destiny. As you may or may not guess, Destiny did not end on the best of terms; will this bring you closure or just add some more pathos and struggle against the darkening of the light? Only your Kindle knows.

The three books of Star Trek:Destiny are also available on the Kindle:

• Gods of Night
• Mere Mortals
• Lost Souls

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Yes, it’s another paranormal urban horror series with vampires/zombies/etc, starring a man bred to walk the line between the world of the supernatural and ours, and (this time) he and his kin are called “Skinners,” and we’re running out of them, an unfortunate thing.

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In the far future, Ash Harbor is one of the few domed cities that exists in a land devastated by an Ice Age, devoid of life and freaking cold to boot. Fueled and kept from the brink of death by the Clockworkers, the city’s people have learned to not ask questions.

One day, Sol’s father disappears. He begins to ask questions. Things turn grim quite quickly from there.

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Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality series is finally making it onto the Kindle, following just about every single Xanth book in existence.¹ The rest of the series (in particular, On a Pale Horse) are not yet available, but we’ll be watching.

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Yet Another H.P. Lovecraft Collection With a Title So Unsubtle He Would Be Rolling Over in His Grave Right Now and Yeah You Better Watch Out, Anthology Editor.

Although his dialogue was rather terrible, even as his sense of gripping terror was compelling, so I guess pot, kettle, green-spotted-luminous-tentacled-folds.

Stories include: “Cool Air”, “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”, “The Terrible Old Man”, “Herbert West–Reanimator”, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, “The Lurking Fear”, “The Hound”, “The Outsider”, “The Unnamable”, “From Beyond”, “Arthur Jermyn”, and others.

If you get this plus the first volume, Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macbre: The Best of H.P. Lovecraft, you’ll have a fairly full complement of his short story work. And yes, none of the stories are duplicated.

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Douglas Adams’ classic Hitchhiker’s Guide series is also coming to completion on the Kindle, with most of the series following by December 31st.

1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (available now)
2. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (available now)
3. Life, the Universe, and Everything (available now)
4. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (December 31st)
5. Mostly Harmless (no date yet)
6. And Another Thing… (to be written by Eoin Colfer, who pens the Artemis Fowl series)

The Salmon of Doubt, consisting of Adams’ essays and an incomplete Dirk Gently novel, is also available.

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The adventures of Flinx, a man born with an abnormal mind condition² and a telepathic minidragon named Pip, and they have adventures in the far future in the Humanx Commonwealth worlds.

Other books involving this odd partnership:

1. For Love of Mother—Not
2. The Tar-Aiym Krang and Orphan Star 2-for-1 bundle
3. The End of the Matter
4. Flinx in Flux
5. Mid-Flinx
6. Reunion
7. Flinx’s Folly
8. Sliding Scales
9. Running from the Deity
10. Bloodhype
11. Trouble Magnet
12. Patrimony

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The first book in an alternate history saga of the United States, How Few Remain is a novel that begins with: What if the South won the war?—and goes on from there through Second Civil War between the now truly divided United States.

Also the 1998 Nebula Award winner for Best Novel.

It is followed herewith by:

1. American Front (The Great War, Book 1)
2. Walk in Hell (The Great War, Book 2)
3. Breakthroughs (The Great War, Book 3)
4. Blood and Iron (American Empire, Book 1)
5. The Center Cannot Hold (American Empire, Book 2)
6. The Victorious Opposition (American Empire, Book 3)
7. Return Engagement (Settling Accounts, Book 1)
8. Drive to the East (Settling Accounts, Book 2)
9. The Grapple (Settling Accounts, Book 3)
10. In at the Death (Settling ACcounts, Book 4)

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The second book in the Merry Gentry series, featuring private detective Meredith Gentry, who also happens to be a faerie princess. Love, sex, magic, supernatural, etc.—the usual red-hot Laurell K. Hamilton mix.

The series is now complete on the Kindle:

1. A Kiss of Shadows
2. A Caress of Twilight
3. Seduced by Moonlight
4. A Stroke of Midnight
5. Mistral’s Kiss
6. A Lick of Frost
7. Swallowing Darkness

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Yes, they are indeed bringing Frog and Toad, as well as the rest of Arnold Lobel’s classic charming children’s books, onto the Kindle.

Frog and Toad:

1. Frog and Toad are Friends (December 30th)
2. Frog and Toad Together (not yet available)
3. Frog and Toad All Year
4. Days with Frog and Toad (December 30th)

Also available is the exceedingly charming Owl at Home. There’s also Mouse Soup, and Uncle Elephant.

… this is going to be like The Velveteen Rabbit all over again. Well, it’s not like I’ll ever find my tattered, third-hand Frog and Toad paperbacks, ever lost in the space of time and… well, probably time.

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Featured over on John Scalzi’s The Big Idea, she talks about the theme of faerie lore and its collision with modern Central Park. This Young Adult book is under consideration for my January review pick for Tor.com.

You know, I’m very appreciative of The Big Idea series; otherwise trying to find books with more than a cover blurb is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, especially for new authors whose fans have not yet carved out a niche in Wikipedia.

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Strongly resembling a mix of John Swift and Alice in Wonderland, this is the second book in the adventures of Lizard Maker Finn, his companion Letitia (a half-human/half-mouse experiment left over from older times), and Julia (his intelligent mechanical lizard). Finn must deliver a gift to a the King of Heldessia, which doesn’t like Finn’s home country. This, of course, doesn’t bode well.

The first book in this series, which apparently has no more, is The Prophecy Machine.

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Banks’ Culture series is just now being released to the Kindle, starting with the third book, Use of Weapons. The only other book in the Culture series currently available on the Kindle is the seventh book in this 8-book series, Look to Windward. His most recent and acclaimed novel in this series, Matter, is not yet available on the Kindle either.

This should be remedied near in the future, considering that Orbit is the publisher.

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The second book the the Chronicles of Solace trilogy, about the far-future art of terraforming and all the things that can go horribly, horribly wrong. The first book, The Depths of Time, is not yet available on the Kindle, but the third book, The Shores of Tomorrow, is.

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Seven young adult Western stories that all take place in seven different ghost towns. By the talented journalist and fiction writer behind The Other Side of Dark.

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A young adult parody of Lord of the Rings, where Joe, an ordinary boy, is pulled into the world of Muddle Earth by the wizard Randalf, who works for the Horned Baron and his wife Ingrid. Amusing parallels listed on Wikipedia.

By the Sword: A Repairman Jack Novel by F. Paul Wilson

Buy: 17.13

An urban mercenary who faces criminals, street gangs, ninjas, mystics, cultists, and supernatural beings. It’s just another day in the life of Repairman Jack, who runs amuck in his own series, which includes many books cheaper than $17.13, including

• Harbingers $7.99
• Infernal $7.19
• Gateways $7.19
• The Haunted Air $7.99
• Hosts $6.39

And finally, there’s also a young-adult spinoff with a teenage Repairman Jack, first of a three-part series: Jack: Secret Histories.

Also, repairmanjack.com is available for all your Repairman Jack needs. Or feeding thereof.

The story “The Long Way Home” is available as an Amazon short for less than $0.50.

Swallowing Darkness: A Novel by Laurell K. Hamilton

Buy: 9.99

Laurell K. Hamilton does faeries. Yes. This is either thrilling you or horrifying you.

Gears of War: Aspho Fields by Karen Traviss

Buy: 8.00

The first tie-in novel for the hit game Gears of War, exploring the history, friendship, and tribulations of Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago. Oh, and lots of battle scenes. This is Gears of War.

The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard by Robert E. Howard

Buy: 8.00

Classics from the master of horror that both Lovecraft and Stephen King respect. (“For stark, living fear… what other writer is even in the running?” Lovecraft supposedly said.) Includes stories like “Pigeons from Hell”, “Black Canaan”, “Worms of the Earth”, and more.

Night Secrets by Cherry Adair

Buy: 5.59

The sequel to the paranormal romance Night Fall, also available on the Kindle.

Quofum by Alan Dean Foster

Buy: 9.99

Part of the Humanx Commonwealth far-future political-intrigue-with-aliens series, world-building that spans an enormous number of books.

The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford

Buy: 9.59

A collection of short surreal stories themed around drowning (or being overwhelmed), starting with a city of the drowned and a father who wishes to return to the surface to fulfill a promise made to his son, and moving through 16 very different and evocative SF/Fantasy tales.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Buy: 3.95

The entire classic Narnia series is now available for the Kindle for extremely low prices (down to $1.95 for The Last Battle), including:

• The Magician’s Nephew
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
• The Horse and His Boy
• Prince Caspian
• The Silver Chair
• The Last Battle

All I Want for Christmas Is a Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks

Buy: 5.59

If only I weren’t completely burned out on vampires, because her How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire was a fun and brilliant sparkle in the drudgery that can be the paranormal romance pool. This looks to be more of the same.

For all you folks who are still looking for romantic comedies done up in Christmas and vampires, this is totally your book.

Fallen Angel by Margaret Weis And Lizz Weis

Buy: 5.59

An angel without faith. An innocent but feisty woman who persuades him to join a rock band she manages. A rock star in league with the devil and who wants to bring the world to an end. It’s paranormal romance with angels, and with a male lead.

Galactic Corps by Ian Douglas

Buy: 6.39

Military science fiction, second book in the Inheritance series (which starts out with Star Strike). As one reviewer puts it, “In which our heroes go to the center of the galaxy, see new and interesting enemies, and blow things up.”

Dead Reign by Tim Pratt

Buy: 5.59

Featured at John Scalzi’s Whatever Big Idea series, and a particularly entertaining one. You can also read a short story featuring the main character, Marla Mason, for free: “Pale Dog”. Also, she apparently twitters.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

Buy: 9.99

The first book in a series. A girl marked from birth as a warrior, bestowed with the Grace—of a kind that lets her kill efficiently. A romance and a fantasy, featuring a strong main character who must reach beyond her isolation and come to terms with her power.

This book has garnered numerous positive reviews on the Amazon Vine program (high-ranking reviewers are invited to join this group that receives free advanced reading copies to review early). Quite a lot of them, actually.

Shadow’s Edge by Brent Weeks

Buy: 6.39

The second in the Night Angel fantasy trilogy (which started with The Way of Shadows). An orphan boy grows up as an assassin trained in the Way of Shadows, but rejects his upbringing and attempts to start his life afresh. You know what that means: trouble.