Spontaneous ∂erivation

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Another vampire paranormal romance series, featuring Jack McShane, a vampire with a family¹ falling in love with Connie Jones, vampire slayer, in a sort of Anita Blake way rather than a Buffy the Vampire Slayer way.² Also, he must save humans from otherwordly threats to the city of Savannah while tourists swarm for St. Patrick’s day.

All the books in the Savannah Vampire series are now available on the Kindle:

1. The Vampire’s Seduction
2. The Vampire’s Secret
3. The Vampire’s Kiss
4. The Vampire’s Betrayal
5. The Vampire’s Revenge

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The beginning of another paranormal series from the author who brought you Women of the Otherworld—now featuring men who step into the wild, other world. Here we have Clayton, a six-year-old orphan werewolf who finds a mentor and the American werewolf pack and manages to make a dire enemy as well. It’s the American werewolf coming-of-age story, only rougher and meaner.

Most of the books in the Women of the Otherworld series are all available on the Kindle:

1. Bitten (Elena, werewolf)
2. Stolen (Elena)
3. Dime Store Magic (Paige, witch)
4. Industrial Magic (Paige)
5. Haunted (Eve, witch)
6. Broken (Elena, now pregnant)
7. No Humans Involved (Jaime, necromancer)
8. Personal Demon (Hope, a half-demon)
9. Living with the Dead (Hope)

There’s also free online fiction to peruse.

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The second volume of the Alchymist’s Legacy duology, a fantasy epic featuring two young mages—the impulsive Rieuk who accidentally frees a demon, and vengeful Celestine, who unknowingly becomes the demon’s protege. And now seven demons are about the wreck havoc on the world, and only Rieuk and Celestine can stop them.

The first half of the duology, Tracing the Shadow, is also available for the Kindle.

John Joseph Adams’ In 60 Seconds, akin to John Scalzi’s The Big Idea, features this duology and the ideas behind it.

The duology itself is part of the larger Tears of Artamon series, set in an alternate 18th century. The other books are also available on the Kindle:

1. Lord of Snow and Shadows
2. Prisoner of the Iron Tower
3. Children of the Serpent Gate

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Very illustrated novel, although the illustrations are in black and white, so this may translate to the Kindle well.

Emiline is a mousehunter in a world populated by extremely varied species of mice (who have, in this alternate world, taken over more than a few vital ecological niches), and sets off to hunt the legendary pirate Mousebeard.

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Also very illustrated, although the annotations should carry over well to the Kindle³: yet another Lovecraft collection, but this time annotated all to heck by avid Lovecraft researchers S. T. Joshi and Peter Cannon, who show the devotion usually only privy to that of cultists of the King in Yellow.

There’s also An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia available for the Kindle, put together by Joshi.

This actually looks to correspond to the first volume of annotated Lovecraft tales (the second is More Annotated H.P. Lovecraft).

If you can’t get enough Lovecraft, buy this book.

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Ginjer Buchanan is more famous as an editor for Ace books, but she also wrote a Highlander novel, wherein “Duncan MacLeod, Hugh Fitzcairn, and Danny O’Donal get trapped in the frozen Yucan,”⁴ and apparently also an endless time loop.

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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.