Spontaneous ∂erivation

Buy: Kindle Store

Remy Chandler is really Remiel, an angel of the Christian stripe, and wanders the Earth as a private investigator. One day, in A Kiss Before Apocalypse, Heaven starts hiring him for jobs and life has been… interesting ever since.

Starring a talking dog (but Remy talks to animals, so…).

Buy: Kindle Store

A young sorcerer in London dies brutally at the hands of a evil mage and is resurrected two years later as… something else. Whatever he is now, he has vengeance on his mind.

Buy: Kindle Store

The second in the Orcs series, where the orcs, usually the monstrous other side in its massive numbers, are trying to find peace away from relentless persecution, ever since thefirst book.

Buy: Kindle Store

The conclusion of the gritty low-fantasy trilogy, Godless World, following Bloodheir and Winterbirth.

Buy: Kindle Store

Can’t do a better blurb than what’s already there: “Meet Monster. Meet Judy. Two humans who don’t like each other much, but together must fight dragons, fire-breathing felines, trolls, Inuit walrus dogs, and a crazy cat lady – for the future of the universe.”

I am really quite curious about the walrus dogs.

Buy: Kindle Store

Part of the Jason Wander series, a troubled teenage orphan in a future where aliens are attacking earth (indeed, they killed his family). A long time ago, he had to choose between the Army or jail. Fortunately he made the choice that resulted in the more interesting series of books.

The series thus far is all accounted for on the Kindle:

1. Orphanage
2. Orphan’s Destiny
3. Orphan’s Journey
4. Orphan’s Alliance
5. Orphan’s Triumph

Buy: Kindle Store

A new stand-alone book set in the world of his acclaimed First Law series (not yet available for the Kindle), a war-mongering duke decides have his far-too-deadly leading mercenary, Monza Murcatto, murdered, and leaves her for dead. In this awfully genre-blind act, the duke is going to get what’s coming to him.

Buy: Kindle Store

Parker, who penned what can only be defined as a hard low-fantasy war series, turns a new story about four retired soldiers seeking peace on an island with a hidden temptation, into a reflection on what happens to the machinery in people’s heads and their relationships after war.

Buy: Kindle Store

Library Journal’s description: “On the run from a cult of intergalactic religious fanatics who want her death, the Lady Sharrow emerges from retirement to seek out a powerful artifact that may save her life–the legendary Lady Gun, a weapon that kills by altering the reality around it.”

I’m going to take Banks at his word from the title that this is a book of his which, while I would enjoy reading it, would also leave me emotionally drained at the end.

Buy: Kindle Store

In the Corporate Owned Future, two superheroes, Jet and Iridium, grew up together, went to superhero academy—and then a tragedy set them apart. One is now the Hero of New Chicago, and the other is a Hero with Bad Publicity. When a reporter disappears and Iridium is suspected, there’s either going to be a throw-down or a reconciliation or even something else.

This particular superhero battle is anything but Black and White.

Buy: Kindle Store

Apparently most people’s reactions to the predecessor in the Autumn Rain series, The Mirrored Heavens, was along the lines of “… waaaoooh.” Featuring a female protagonist in a darker, grittier cyberpunk future, in The Burning Skies Claire Haskell takes more of a back seat compared to The Mirrored Heavens, while the political machinations of the Throne are front and center.

Buy: Kindle Store

Three high fantasy romance novellas in one package. Nice.

Buy: Kindle Store

A Seattle cop discovers her shamanistic powers. And also that she has to save the world from conquest by the Fae. In, like, three days. No pressure.

The first book in the series, the other two—Thunderbird Falls and Coyote Dreams—are also on the Kindle at the same time, as publishers learn the wisdom of/gain the ability of putting out as many series books as possible out, all at once.

Buy: Kindle Store

An urban fantasy romance series set in Manhattan, featuring Wren, a Retriever (finds dangerous magical things for you) and her lover Sergei, an agent who negotiates the fees involved. Things, you know, get interesting in multiple ways.

The complete Retrievers series is now available in the Kindle store, including:

1. Staying Dead
2. Curse the Dark
3. Bring It On¹
4. Burning Bridges
5. Free Fall
6. Blood from Stone

Buy: Kindle Store

Won the World Fantasy Award, although it’s a book I find difficult to like. I mention it in passing partly because of the WFA, and partly because there’s a 2004 flamewar going on in the Amazon reviews, back before Amazon had proper forums to have flamewars in (seriously, with 1-star review replies to each other and everything).

Buy: Kindle Store

Someone decided to Upload™ himself illegally after his death. Also, how do you have sex with a cyborg boyfriend?

This is an oldie—from 1999 in the UK, finally appearing in the US theatre. You can also find her 2004 critically acclaimed novel in the Kindle store, Natural History.

Buy: Kindle Store

Mind alteration, mind control, moral dilemmas, and short-listed for the 2001 Arthur C. Clarke award.

Buy: Kindle Store

From the writer who brought you Brasyl (not yet available in the Kindle store) comes its precursor, River of Gods, bringing a future India to life.

I’ve been waiting for this one for a long, long time.

Buy: Kindle Store

The first two books of Edelman’s debut Jump 225 trilogy are now available in the Kindle store. The second book, MultiReal, also makes its first showing in the Kindle store today.

Buy: Kindle Store

Well, we have book two of the Starship series, but no book one (Starship: Mutiny) in the Kindle store yet. Military SF opera.

I never feel comfortable starting smack in the middle of that type of series.

Buy: Kindle Store

Now this anthology I’ve been waiting for as well! Nineteen stories of—well, the title covers it all—edited by Lou Anders!

Includes stories by Robert Charles Wilson, Justina Robson, Paolo Bacigalupi, Robyn Hitchcock, Kage Baker, Tony Ballantyne, Elizabeth Bear, Stephen Baxter, A. M. Dellamonica, Larry Niven with Brenda Cooper, Louise Marley, Ken MacLeod, Mike Resnick with Nancy Kress, Ian McDonald, Pamela Sargent, Mary A. Turzillo, George Zebrowski, Gene Wolfe, John Meaney, and Paul Di Filippo.

Buy: Kindle Store

File this under humorous paranormal investigator fantasy, the sequel to Stalking the Unicorn: A Fable of Tonight (also available in the Kindle store).

No Stalking the Dragon yet, though, but there’s plenty of time.

Buy: Kindle Store

The third book in the Quantum Gravity series. The first two (Keeping it Real and Selling Out) are not yet available.

Cyborg Action Girl is tossed into political intrigue and dangerous byplay between elves and demons.

Buy: Kindle Store

Dave Freer comments, “A powerful obsessive dynastic fantasy with clever shades of Arthurian mythos.” And I definitely can’t do better than that. For those looking for a series, this is a stand-alone debut novel.

Mind you, authors and publishers sometimes go back on their word….

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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

Buy: Kindle Store

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

Buy: Kindle Store

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.”

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

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.

Buy: Kindle Store

Charles de Lint is in my “’nuff said” category. A supernatural love story that crosses the realm of the living and the dead, and oh heck, it’s Charles de Lint.¹

A few more of his works have been making it into the Kindle store.

Buy: Kindle Store

31 stories from one of the masters of SF/F! Gene Wolfe is also in my “’nuff said” bin. Problem though: the table of contents is not marked as such, so it doesn’t show up in the Kindle menu; and also no chapter navigation. Sigh.

The stories include: “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories”² , “The Toy Theater”, “The Fifth Head of Cerberus”³, “Beech Hill”, “The Recording”, “Hour of Trust”, “The Death of Dr. Island”, “La Befana”, “Forlesen”, “Westwind”, “The Hero as Werwolf”, “The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton”, “Straw”, “The Eyeflash Miracles”, “Seven American Nights”, “The Detective of Dreams”, “Kevin Malone”, “The God and His Man”, “On the Train”, “From the Desk of Gilmer C. Merton”, “Death of the Island Doctor”⁴, “Redbeard”, “The Boy Who Hooked the Sun”, “Parkroads—a Review”, “Game in the Pope’s Head”, “And When They Appear”, “Bed and Breakfast”, “Petting Zoo”, “The Tree is My Hat”, “Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?”, “A Cabin on the Coast”.

Buy: Kindle Store

A pathologist accidentally reanimates the corpose of Baron Rudolfo Vladimir Zginski, and is killed for her trouble. He’s not just a vampire, he’s also a racist vampire. In Memphis.

He has adventures.

Buy: Kindle Store

Publisher’s Weekly says: “Bova’s cautionary medical thriller, the uncut version of his 1996 novel Brothers, explores the political, social and religious ramifications of what could be humankind’s greatest medical breakthrough—organ regeneration.”

Buy: Kindle Store

The sequel to An Unexpected Apprentice (not yet available for Kindle), Tildi Summerbee begins to understand how powerful the Great Book she now possesses is, and also how badly some people want it.

Buy: Kindle Store

The final book in the YA high fantasy Stoneways Trilogy, which began with Reiffen’s Choice and Queen Ferris (both available in the Kindle store as well).

Buy: Kindle Store

Intergalactic space drama done by the master of intergalactic space drama, and the second book of the very loosely connected Galactic Empires series. The Stars, Like Dust is also available on the Kindle, while Pebble in the Sky is not.

Buy: Kindle Store

“Mortal peril is a total turn-on.”

I declare Buffyversification here.

Buy: Kindle Store

Forced into a demon-killing job by the bureaucracy of Heaven, Evangeline must survive in her new world. And her lovers are Cain and Abel, because obviously there is not enough drama in her life already.

The first book in the new urban fantasy Marked series.

Buy: Kindle Store

The sequel to Postsingular (not yet available for the Kindle), it’s Rudy Rucker so it’s goofy SF with a whirlwind of ideas, which is a nice change of pace from the usual Wasteland of the Future scenario. Even Publisher’s Weekly calls it “giddy”, but in a good way.

Buy: Kindle Store

The blurb on the back says: “What lies beneath the millions of orbiting nanotech satellites that shroud the world called Haze? Major Keir Roget’s mission is to make planetfall in secret, find out, and report back to his superiors in the Federation, the Chinese-dominated government that rules Earth and the colonized planets.”

Buy: Kindle Store

Cory Doctorow (!) wrote an Amazon review and, among other things, says, “The early jacket copy for Julian Comstock reads, in part, ‘If Jules Verne had read Karl Marx, then sat down to write The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he still wouldn’t have matched the invention and exuberance of Robert Charles Wilson’s Julian Comstock.’ Damn right.”

Buy: Kindle Store

The third book in the Zoe Martinique series. Zoe can walk the dimensional planes, which is very useful, except that she’s lost it—and her mother’s soul is trapped on the Abysmal plane.

The first two books, Wraith and Spectre, are also available for the Kindle.

Buy: Kindle Store

The second and most recent book in the Hunter Kiss series featuring Maxine Kiss, whose living demonic tattoos give her the power to fight the demonic army that would take humankind.

The prequel novella to the series, Hunter Kiss, and the first book, Iron Hunt, are also available in the Kindle store.

Buy: Kindle Store

The third book in the Hidden Worlds trilogy, where machine A.I.s destroyed the Earth, leaving humanity as refugees scattered across multiple worlds.

The first book, Hidden Worlds, and the second, The Cold Minds, are also available in the Kindle store.

Buy: Kindle Store

The sequel to Gordath Wood, continuing the adventures of Lynn Romano and Kate Mossland after they were pulled from the real world into that of a medieval fantasy land in turmoil. Horses are so involved.

Buy: Kindle Store

A story of intrigue spread across the galactic level, in the world of “Thousandth Night” (a novella available in One Million, A.D., not yet available for the Kindle).

Buy: Kindle Store

From the writer of The Mists of Avalon comes a retelling of the fall of Troy through the eyes of unfortunate Kassandra, daughter of King Priam, and whose prophecies no one, unfortunately, believes.

Buy: Kindle Store

Another volume in the awesome Dresden Files series, all of which are available in the Kindle store.

Buy: Kindle Store

In an alternate Portland, OR, Allison Beckstrom is a Hound—someone who tracks illegal magic back to their casters. You can imagine how the casters feel about that.

This is the second book in the series; the first, Magic to the Bone, is also available in the Kindle store.

Buy: Kindle Store

Seattle investigator Harper Blaine becomes a walker of the grey between reality and the supernatural world, and sees an interesting change in her usual clientele.

This is the first book in the Greywalker series, finally available on the Kindle. The second (Poltergeist) isn’t, but the third (Underground) is, and the fourth (Vanished) is available for pre-order.

Buy: Kindle Store

From the writer whose debut novel was the excellent and unexpected Whitechapel Gods, comes another, entirely different story—this time Te, a paranormal investigator in training, is the only one who can stop her father’s murderer from releasing the monsters imprisoned across the town of St. Ives.

Buy: Kindle Store

Paleontology. The Great Old Ones. Their paths cross here.

Buy: Kindle Store

Part of the Noble Dead series, which has gradually been migrating to the Kindle.

The current status:

Series 1:

1. Dhampir, available July 7th
2. Thief of Lives, available July 7th
3. Sister of the Dead, not yet available
4. Traitor to the Blood, available now
5. Rebel Fay, available now
6. Child of a Dead God, available now

Series 2:

1. In Shadow and Shadow, available now
2. Through Stone and Sea, not yet available

Buy: Kindle Store

The first in a trilogy, revolving around the intrigue between two factions in a cursed city: the Darkborn, blind and who can’t survive in the light, and the Lightborn, who can’t survive without light.

Buy: Kindle Store

The third book involving paranormal secret agent Eddie Drood, in case you’re tired of the paranormal P.I’s. The other two books in the Secret Mysteries series, The Man with the Golden Torc and Daemons are Forever, are also available for the Kindle.

Green is also famous for his Nightside series, almost all of which are also in the Kindle store.

Buy: Kindle Store

The third book in the Crosspointe series, which can be summed up as: everyone is at war now, and it’s all your fault, Ryland.

The first two books, The Cipher and The Black Ship, are also available on the Kindle.

Buy: Kindle Store

The second book in the Landover series.

The first book in the series, Magic Kingdom for Sale—Sold! is currently available for free in the Kindle store.

The third book, Wizard at Large, is also available for the Kindle.

If you’re a fan of the Many Things of Shannara multi-series, you can find just about all of them in the Kindle store.

Buy: Kindle Store

The tragic history of the very short-lived Starshield series is here, and of the two only ever released, this is the second one.

Buy: Kindle Store

The most recent book in the science fiction series centered around the Well World. Its previous successor, The Sea is Full of Stars, is also available on the Kindle. The older books, however, are not.

Buy: Kindle Store

The first book in the Web Warriors series, a reprint from the early aughts. Think Netrunner.

Buy: Kindle Store

One of the classic Heinlein juveniles, gradually trekking their way into the Kindle store.

Buy: Kindle Store

The beginning of a brand new supernatural private investigator series starring one Sylvie Lightner, whose beat covers south Miami Beach.

Buy: Kindle Store

The continuing adventures of Raine Benares, a Seeker who can’t stay out of trouble, with a sarcastic bite and and an amulet that’s taken control of her life.

This time, demon hordes, a gate that’s yawned into hell, and what can only be called Elric’s Bane, all threaten to pull her down.

Oh, and she’s managed to get bonded to two powerful men, each on opposing sides of good and light. I’m pretty sure this is an archetype story element by now.

The previous two books in this series are both on the Kindle: Magic Lost, Trouble Found and Armed & Magical.

Buy: Kindle Store

The newest chapter in the Lost Fleet series. I’m not sure I can concisely describe what’s going on from the multiple synopses on the web. One may need to start from the beginning of the series to appreciate what’s going on.

I rather liked John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series, and this series keeps getting recommended to me on a fairly consistent basis, so I need to try one of these some day.

For the curious, the Lost Fleet series is entirely available on the Kindle:

1. Dauntless
2. Fearless
3. Courageous
4. Valiant

Oh, SF/F series and your naming patterns. Never change.

Buy: Kindle Store

Far future space opera writ on enormous time scales across this series, following one post-human, Imre Bergamasc: pervious engram incarnation, previous murder victim, previous ruler of the galaxy, now abdicated, having brought along a sort of peace.

But peace never does last.

The other books in the Astropolis series are available in the Kindle store: Saturn Returns and
Earth Ascendant.

Buy: Kindle Store

I think I’m going to cry. Robert Asprin has been gone since last May. Almost a year now. He was a funny man.

This is obviously a legacy written while he was still alive from the previous year, only now published, and a sequel to Dragons Wild, in the world of underworld dragons. Who run speakeasies and gambling joints.

Godspeed, Mr. Asprin.

Buy: Kindle Store

Finally, book one of this series starring Kate Daniels, mercenary with a BFS in an alternate Atlanta where magic has invaded reality.

The series is now almost complete on the Kindle, alongside Magic Burns and Magic Strikes, save for an upcoming fourth book.

Buy: Kindle Store

Sawyer is back in full form with Wake, the start of the WWW series. The Internet has woken up. That is so very cool and full of awesome.

There’s also an intelligent monkey and Chinese revolutionary bloggers battling against a (still) repressive government. What more can you ask for? Well, okay, ninjas and pirates. Still.

Buy: Kindle Store

A makeup artist with the magic power to literally transform people (not that they’re entirely aware of it). If this means fewer hours under latex mold creation, I’m sure this is every SF/F TV/movie actor’s dream.

Her latest client unfortunately becomes possessed by a powerful and dark forest god.

The previous book in the saga of the LaZelle family, A Fistful of Sky, is also available on the Kindle. I don’t believe there are any other LaZelle books around, print or not.

Buy: Kindle Store

Magic cyberpunk. Ravirn is thrown into an alternate universe and must hack his way back into our reality.

The previous books in this series—which is a definite you-should-not-miss if you’re a tech geek who also happens to love fantasy—are all available on the Kindle:

1. WebMage
2. Cybermancy
3. Codespell

Buy: Kindle Store

Another paranormal crime series with a strong female lead, Tess Corday (an OSI, Occult Special Investigator). Her beat is Vancouver, and now I want this book, because it covers Vancouver.

(Supernatural investigator books have a strong presence of specific city, usually, like Dresden’s Chicago or Chen’s Singapore Three.¹ Books in “our age” usually are deeply tied to a modern city, not always where the author lives.

You can pretty much identify each such series by city. It’s like they all stake out their own claim in Idea Space.)

The other book in this series, Night Child, is also available in the Kindle store.

Buy: Kindle Store

In a post-apocalyptic world, an ex-marine establishes an autocratic fortress/school for troubled young rich folks. Things go horribly wrong, and teenage geeks save the world.

Buy: Kindle Store

Regular Joes and Janes are recruited to act as Witnesses for the atonement acts of an alien race. Through Craig’s List. Or something like it (this is near-future SF).

Buy: Kindle Store

Modesitt launches another fantasy trilogy.

An apprentice artist learns he’s an Imager—what he wishes comes true. This is almost never good (and it really isn’t) and causes much trouble for him (as par for such courses).

Buy: Kindle Store

Based on the hit video game of the same name, and a prequel to Dragon Age: Origins (not yet on the Kindle).

A deposed prince Maric must take back his father’s lands. Fortunately he has an army. Unfortunately, he can safely trust about a total of two people in the world: an outlaw and a warrior maiden.

Buy: Kindle Store

An idea SF tale: a tycoon wakes up in the 24th century, where society has become a sort of Ayn-Randian utopia¹, controlled by corporations and the free market, where people own stock in each other in lieu of actual relationships.

Buy: Kindle Store

All three books of the main trilogy rolled up into one. Lest you be spurned by the more-than-$10 price ($15.42 as of this writing, but could go down in the future and usually does), remember that this is three (very large) books rolled up into one.

Nice cover, eh? I like the covers of these guys. See more below, along with The Hobbit.

Buy: Kindle Store

Many people love The Hobbit and dislike the trilogy, others love the trilogy and wish they could forget The Hobbit. And still many more love both.

This is getting downloaded to my Kindle as of this instant.

Buy: Kindle Store

I had no idea that this post-humous tale from Tolkien had made it to Real Story status (what about The Silmarillion? Although that really was more notes-ish and short-story-ish). If you can’t get enough of Tolkien, you could get this.

It’s sort of depressing. Well, it’s really depressing. Bit of a downer.

Buy: Kindle Store

The first book in the trilogy is also sold separately if for some reason you desire this.

It’s also my favorite. If I were a real stickler, I probably would just buy only this one and forget the rest, but so many of us are completists at heart….

Buy: Kindle Store

The second book in the trilogy is also sold separately, although I don’t know why anybody would only want The Two Towers and not Return of the King; those two are bound together far more tightly than with Fellowship.

Buy: Kindle Store

The final volume in the trilogy, should you desire to get this by itself and not rolled up with the others.

Buy: Kindle Store

Do you miss good fantasy world-building?

In Lamentation you’ll find a far-future war brewing between kingdoms against a background of culture and history that’s forgotten us—but remains, as ever, extremely human. Yes, there is magic.

There’s quite a bit of free material out there if you want to explore the world of Lamentation a bit:

Free short story for everybody:
A Weeping Czar Beholds the Fallen Moon

Free story for members of Tor.com (registration is free):
Last Flight of the Goddess

An excerpt from the history of The Named Lands:
An Excerpt from The Rise of the Named Lands: A Brief History of the Settlement of the New World and the Establishment of Kin-Clave

Free previews:
Prelude and Chapter 1
Chapter 2

Author speaks:
An Unexpected Novel and the Influences Behind It
Interview with Jay Lake (YouTube)

Buy: Kindle Store

The prequel to Truancy, read about the origins of a future totalitarian city with an oppressive school system that makes Little Brother look like Judy Blume… and the underground group of students who will take it down.

Buy: Kindle Store

A heist-and-caper novel set in a fantasy Elizabethan England, where an unlikely and highly pragmatic hero, normally a playwright, ends up on a mission to Save the World.

Buy: Kindle Store

A reclusive cartoonist, who normally resides in California, is sent a mysterious package from a relative to deliver to his uncle in New Cyprus—and discovers that the package isn’t what it seems, and that his uncle is part of an organization that originates from the Knights of Templar, entrusted to salvaging and protecting magical artifacts. Of course, nothing works as planned.

Buy: Kindle Store

She wants a normal life, for Chrissakes. She didn’t want to inherit the family business.

But when Death is kidnapped for a non-Holiday, she must take his place—but that’s proving to be harder than simply returning home to chair Death, Incorporated.

Buy: Kindle Store

She likes to kill things. In particular, vampires. After the events of the previous book, Break of Dawn, she leaves Hollywood for England to exterminate the next vampire lair and perhaps work out some problems. This is, of course, never easy.

All of the previous books are also available in the Kindle store:

1. Night Rising
2. Midnight Reign
3. Break of Dawn

Buy: Kindle Store

A return to the world of Coyote, a series of Golden Age Heinlein-esque stories about interstellar colonists settling the Coyote planet, seen mostly through the eyes of adolescents Wendy Gunther and Carlos Montero. In this novel, Coyote has been partly settled by the hjadd, a mysterious alien race, who’ve opened up an embassy—but not necessarily anything else.

The previous books are also all available on the Kindle:

1. Coyote
2. Coyote Rising
3. Coyote Frontier
4. Spindrift

Buy: Kindle Store

The third book in the Alchemist series, a medieval alternate history where the cranky Nostradamus’ powers of prediction are real, and he and his apprentice Alfeo Zeno solve murder mysteries.

The previous books, The Alchemist’s Apprentice and The Alchemist’s Code, are also available on the Kindle.

Buy: Kindle Store

Atlanta: a city where magic and technology struggle in a never-ending battle for reality, and Kate Daniels lives by the sword. A different kind of urban fantasy.

The first book, Magic Bites, isn’t available on the Kindle, but the second book, Magic Burns, is.

Buy: Kindle Store

The fourth book in a fantasy series tracing the adventures of an uneasy partnership between court magician Felix Harrowgate and assassin/cat burglar Mildmay the Fox.

The previous books are also available for the Kindle:

1. Mélusine
2. The Virtu
3. The Mirador

Buy: Kindle Store

The beginning of another paranormal private investigator series, starring Sylvie Lightner, in a world where Greek Mythology can really kick your ass.

Buy: Kindle Store

High school life can really suck, especially when vampire jocks kill you. Of course, you’re just undead, but it’s not really a life enhancing experience in this world. So Elizabeth is going to take some pages out of Salem’s Lot and see how that works out.

Buy: Kindle Store

A new book in the fantasy series The Black Jewels, a world of three parallel fae realms (and Hell) with a caste system based on the magic in your blood (or, perhaps, lack thereof).

All but one of the previous books in this series are available for the Kindle:

1. Daughter of the Blood
2. Heir to the Shadows
3. Queen of the Darkness
4. Dreams Made Flesh (not yet available)
5. Tangled Webs
6. The Invisible Ring

Buy: Kindle Store

Another book in a supernatural P.I. series involving Cal Leandros, half-human, half-monster, all detective. And you really, really don’t want to meet his family.

The previous book in this series, Madhouse, is also available on the Kindle.

Buy: Kindle Store

All the stories of Private Investigator Gil “The Arm” Hamilton, science fiction mysteries set in the future.

Buy: Kindle Store

You are a veterinarian. Your husband comes back from Romania as a werewolf. Discuss.

Buy: Kindle Store

Paranormal romance, involving witches and the men who hunt them (who lose a piece of their soul if they happen to kill someone who’s an innocent witch, rather than someone who’s sold their soul to demons).

Buy: Kindle Store

Three sister-clones of a Balkwan war criminal must try to save a world that is self-destructing environmentally, geopolitically, and economically.

(Hmmm. That kind of sounds like today.)

Oh, and they all hate each other.

Buy: Kindle Store

A vicious plague of demons has reduced humanity to a post-apocalyptic state, hiding in small villages protected by magic wards, or so they hope. Young Arlen, Leesha, and Rojer grow up in different wards, but find they must explore the dangerous world for themselves.

For writers who wonder a little about the editing process, Brett can tell you more.

Buy: Kindle Store

The sequel to The Dreaming Void, where a Second Dreamer has triggered a galaxy-ending expansion of the Void. Chaos results.

Buy: Kindle Store

Badda-bing, badda-boom, Matter, eight novel in the Culture series, on the Locus Recommended Reading List for 2008, and probably about to get nominated for multiple awards, including the Hugo and the Nebula, is finally available on the Kindle.

In Matter, the mentoring of less technologically advanced species by greater ones is explored in detail in a sort of Russian nesting doll set of the Sari (near Industrial Age), who are mentored by the Oct, who are in turn mentored by the Nariscene, who are in turn mentored by the Morthanveld (and the buck stops there).

Buy: Kindle Store

Continuing the story from the acclaimed Y.A. novel Wake, in Fade, Janie and Cabel continue their dream-catching work under Captain, investigating the nightmares surrounding a teacher-run sex ring at a high school.

Buy: Kindle Store

Bianca leaves the small town she grew up in for Evernight Academy, a boarding school where everyone possibly glitters she doesn’t fit in, and then meets Lucas, a brooding, aggressive, and over-protective loner.

This might sound a little familiar to fans of Twilight.

Buy: Kindle Store

Be careful what you wish for. Be really, really careful.

Buy: Kindle Store

In a world like our own, but suffused with magic, Thea is expected to be a powerful magic-wielder. She’s the seventh daughter of a seventh son and a seventh daughter, after all. But when she manifests no abilities at all, she’s sent to the Wandless Academy¹ for the magically challenged… and indeed, her challenges begin to accelerate at a terrible speed. World-saving involved.

Because HarperCollins has a clue, on the same day that the first book in the Worldweavers series was released to the Kindle, so were the other two:

Worldweavers: Spellspam
You think normal spam is bad? Try spam mixed with magic, sent to the students of the Wandless Academy.

Worldweavers: Cybermage
The Federal Bureau of Magic needs Thea to unravel a deadly magical mystery.

Buy: Kindle Store

Alternate history fantasy about the last days of the Third Reich, involving as central characters Speer, Himmler, and Dönitz, trying to preserve the regime; and the Flying Magical Loerber Brothers, quadruplets with psychic powers who become insider rebels of the Nazi party.

Buy: Kindle Store

A retelling of the famous Indian epic, the Mahābhārata, through the eyes of the wife of the five Pandavas brothers² and her life and times during exile, civil war, and encounters with deities.

Buy: Kindle Store

Christopher Moore, irreverent fantasy humorist, turns out an alternate Shakespeare twist on King Lear, where the king’s fool, Pocket, has to muck out the kingdom-wide problems caused by the mad king and his entire troubled court (both alive and dead). With a Moore take on the traditional Shakespeare theatrics and mechanics, to boot. Poor fool.

Buy: Kindle Store

The second book in the Seekers series, which is a spinoff of the Warriors fantasy mega-series, this time featuring intelligent bears instead of cats. The previous book, The Quest Begins, is available on the Kindle, along with every Warriors book ever.

Buy: Kindle Store

The final book in the Five Ancestors series is now available on the Kindle, featuring a street urchin who gets mixed up with the five greatest criminals in China.

The entire series is available on the Kindle:

1. Tiger
2. Monkey
3. Snake
4. Crane
5. Eagle
6. Mouse

Buy: Kindle Store

Sid, the last Synapsid³, who lived 30 million years before the dinosaurs, and is now traipsing into our time to hunt down the vicious gorgonopsid. Rob and Phoebe must help him, or else the entire human race is a stepped-on butterfly, if you know what I mean.

Buy: Kindle Store

In a small town in post-Katrinia Louisiana, Iris and her friends play around with being psychic mediums, and Iris accidentally invokes a real and scary ghost, and he’s not anywhere near nice. When he haunts her, she decides to try to solve his murder so that he might have some peace.

Buy: Kindle Store

A retelling of the story of Eve, trying to rebuild her life after being cast out of the garden with Adam, and of course the family ties are a bit strained.

Buy: Kindle Store

Henry York’s adventures continue, with him still on the farm with his aunt and uncle in boring ol’ Kansas, except for that cupboard with 100 doors⁴ that are portals to other worlds. He decides to start exploring them in the hopes of uncovering his own unknown personal history.

The first book in the series, The 100 Cupboards, is also available on the Kindle.

Buy: Kindle Store

A Kabbalist discovers that twelve of the 36 anonymous saints in Jewish folklore are real and exist in the world, and records the fables of each saint and his or her own tale.

Buy: Kindle Store

Finally, the first book in the Age of Unreason series is here, based on the question: what if Isaac Newton discovered the laws of Alchemy rather than Gravity? The answer: international magic mayhem.

The second book, A Calculus of Angels, is also available in the Kindle store.

Buy: Kindle Store

Expanded from the original Nebula-nominated, Hugo-nominated, and Sturgeon finalist novella, The Walls of the Universe is a story about John and Johnny, each an alternate of the other in another world, who end up trading places. John goes off to explore the multiverse; but unfortunately for him, he finds out too late that the return home is impossible, and Johnny takes over his original life.

Buy: Kindle Store

Sabine is no innocent sorceress; she summons and binds a demon king to do her bidding. Unfortunately, she falls in love with warrior (and the heat turns up, of course)… and the demon king ends up binding her instead.

Buy: Kindle Store

An epic and large fantasy novel, and the beginning of a new series. In medieval Arthurian Britain, a former apprentice of Merlin must destroy a renegade mage, and must turn to young Danyin, who holds the key to the Blackgloom Keep.

Buy: Kindle Store

Part of the Wizard in Rhyme series, wherein Matt, a doctoral student in our world, is transported to an alternate history medieval Europe, where magic is real, and so are God and the Devil. In The Feline Wizard, Matt is now a Royal Magician with his very own apprentice, a feline wizard who suddenly goes missing.

The novels in this series, most of which are unfortunately not available on the Kindle yet:

1. Her Majesty’s Wizard
2. The Oathbound Wizard
3. the Witch Doctor
4. The Secular Wizard
5. My Son, the Wizard
6. The Haunted Wizard
7. The Crusading Wizard
8. The Feline Wizard

Buy: Kindle Store

Part of the vampire romance Prime series/universe, featuring a vampire magician and former telepathic werewolf whisperer, who falls in love with a sexy female werewolf.

Other books set in the same universe available on the Kindle:

• I Burn for You
• I Thirst for You
• I Hunger for You
• Crave the Night
• Master of Darkness
• Primal Heat
• Primal Desires

Buy: Kindle Store

The fourth and final book in the Winterlands series, where Barbara Hambly does dragons. So far the other three (Dragonsbane, Dragonshadow, and Knight of the Demon Queen) aren’t yet available on the Kindle, and this is probably not a series to start this late.