Kindle Unlimited: Old School Fantasy Picks

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With Prime Day coming up, Amazon recently did a bit where if you were a prime member, you could subscribe to Kindle Unlimited for 2 years at 40% off. It's not cheap by any means, but I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I could afford it.

My main purpose was to give my mom access to move reading. She has near unlimited time being a retiree and she's much less picky about starting something new than I am. She's read dozens if not hundreds of books that initially I purchased from a Daily Deal or monthly deal.

But did that mean there was nothing for someone who grew up in the eighties? Someone who grew up reading Michael Moorcock and David Smith among others?

This is kind of a trick question in many ways. For example, while The Fellowship of the Ring is part of the Kindle Unlimited bit, I read it. If you've stumbled upon my blog, you may not know, but I rarely go back and reread anything as I have dozens of books I haven't read at all. Among those 

The Silmarillion, which is also available in Kindle Unlimited.

When trying to find titles, it's a massive miss. For an electronic company, the ability to sort the options in Kindle Unlimited suffers vastly. There is no way to sort by author. What an amazing lack of forethought here. You can sort by featured, price, average review, and publication date.

But not by author.

Eh?

You'll also note that you can't sort by title. One of the most basic functions of sorting and you can't do it here.

You can use the various options on the left side of the screen to cut down and chop up the options, but again, no ability to search by author.

Some might be thinking, well, how about using something like the sword & sorcery to cut down the sexy mage ladies?



That gives you options like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Whoever is setting up the meta tags clearly has no idea of what they're doing.

Failure Amazon. 100% pure failure.

It does hit some popular titles. For example, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is in the Kindle Unlimited package. So if you, like me, have missed that particular icon of modern fantasy, well, there's a lot of hope for you.

And if you're willing to just dive into a fantasy series, man, you've got your options. Some of the covers I recognize from long deals that Amazon has had on the series. Others look like supernatural fantasy modern day 'Buffy' style books that my mom devours daily.

Most I don't recognize at all.

But a few do stand out!

The Princess Bride: Despite greatly enjoying the movie, I've never read the book.

Llarn Cycle: There are many great authors that I didn't read when I was younger because when I found out about them, the books were out of print. Nowadays that isn't such a problem IF the books are in e-format AND I remember them. Garder F. Fox is one of them. Some of his stories were even reworked into Marvel Comic's Conan. Heck, most comic books fans will be familiar with Garder from his work on the comics that did things like introducing the multi-verse to DC.

That whole bit is a win for me. I appreciate that not all of the oldies are goodies. That a lot of what has come since has been done better or is more fitting for modern politically correct times.

But I also like seeing where the genre came from and that includes things that are rarely touched on like Planetary Romance sagas.

Also included among other series by Garder, is his Kothar series. A pastiche of Conan? Perhaps but more fun stuff from back in the day.

Witch World: Here's a series I'd HAVE to reread because my reading of it was all messed up due to the publication of the original series in how I bought them. Andre Norton has a LOT of books in the Kindle Unlimited bit and that alone almost makes it worth the purchase for me.



Sword & Deviltry by Fritz Leiber:  While it's great to see some original Appendix N love here, it's almost a tease. The first book in the Kindle Unlimited, the rest? Nope.



There are other features to the Kindle Unlimited I haven't got to yet. For example, there are a ton of comics.

But again, no easy way to see the authors I like or even to list it in plain alphabetical order. Again, an immense failure by Amazon.

I'll keep digging into the Kindle Unlimited and noting some of the gems when I run across them.

Those who who already have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, are there are comics, fantasy, science fiction, historical, or business books you'd recommend? I'm going to try to get some utility out of this even if I initially bought it for the mom.

Amazon Kindle Bits and Buys

One of the things I like to do, is mention when something is a good price or on sale.

Having said that, I've been pretty lax about this when it comes to Amazon. Some other forms of communication, notably Twitter, are better at sending out the shout outs to such quick, one day or lightning strike deals.

But since I'm already here....

Today's daily deal in the science fiction fantasy realm is The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I've heard good thing about it but haven't picked it up yet. I'm actually trying to work through my backlog of physical books, as well as books I have in other mediums. Having said that though I've still been buying comics. Go figure right?

For the monthly deals... m'eh?

I did pick up the Ultimate Comics Wolverine versus the Hulk, but that's only because I was amused by the Hulk ripping Wolverine in half. And the other day the daily deal had some of the introduction titles to DC's 52. Wow, they were worse then I thought they would have been. It's got to be hard to rewrite introduction stories for characters over and over again like they did for the Justice League. "Batman's real?" Ugh.

Still, it's good to check on the various sites every now and again. I do with that the Google Market was easier to navigate. For example, they have a section where you can check out books. Then there's a section where you can check out what's on sale. Trying to sort that mess into something you can quickly flip through by say author or price or genre? Nope. At least not that I saw. I'm sure that someone has a better method of sorting through there or that I'm doing it wrong, because that's just plain bad design.

And I've never used the iBookstore so have no clue how that one works.

Where is everyone else picking up their e-books these days? Any good deals? Any sites worth watching daily?

The Cutting Edge: Part One of A Handful of Men by Dave Duncan

Another victory for the dollar spinner rack from Half Price Books. Good thing too! I went to look at Amazon and see what it would run to pick up the material in e-book format and it's over $7 bones a pop. What's worse is it has a different cover and while I understand that art and graphic design and all that good stuff is a personal matter, and this cover isn't my favorite by far, the new version is made of fail. If you're going to charge premium prices, make sure you've covering all your bases eh? Mind you, this doesn't seem to be too far from how Dave himself thinks if you read his web page.

While I realize that no everyone has access to a local used book store, or a yard sale, or even that you can't find all the books you want in a particular series or setting, I have so many other books currently, and so many more I could buy for well under $7, that I'm afraid unless those books go on sale at some point, Dave Duncan or Tor, the publisher, will never see a penny of my reading his materials.

I've never read any of his books before mind you. That's one of the benefits of the dollar spinner rack. I can afford to pick up a book by an author, like Dave Duncan , who I've never read before and see if it's something I want to continue with.

Having never read any of the work here before, I will note that despite it being a sequel to a previous series, that I didn't have any problem reading it or following along with the characters. It does end on a massive cliffhanger though, so if that is a problem for you, you may want to avoid it.

Below I'll be discussing spoilers from the book so if you'd rather avoid those, read no further.

1. Magic Words. One of the interesting things about the 'magic system' in this series is that there are words of power. Many game systems go different routes to bring such magics to the game, including 3.5  which, like previous editions, had it's various "Word" spells. This doesn't count specific classes like the 3.5 version of Tome of Magic. Here, when you attend an older person, they may sound off their knowledge of a word of magic and if you have 'talent', it will grant you power.

For me, in D&D, that might be a good reason why mages go adventuring at all. Only by fighting and killing other mages can they learn these 'words of power.' Each would can be used to advance a spell level so that you could learn higher level spells. Sure, sitting in a tower may get you access to the material, but if you don't actually know the words of power to unlock the ability to learn a 2nd level spell, you'll never be able to cast it. Here to learn higher level spells you'd have to continue to earn new words of power.

2. The Future: There are a few bits that involve seeing the future here. One of them involves a scrying pool that when you put one foot in, shows you things you should move towards, and if you put the other foot in, it shows you things you should avoid. Another one showcases how a person who is always seeing the future might act. They often get confused with how things are and what is actually happening. It makes them less likely to be taken by surprise mind you but at the same time doesnt' put them in good standing in social situations.

3. A Mage By Any Other Name: The setting is populated by all manner of powerful spellcasters. The most powerful of which, are known as Warlocks. These 'titles' are a manner of honorific as it's revelead that of the 'four' traditional ones, there was a non-Warlock who was more powerful than all of them. It also doesn't account for other variables. This to me, reminds me of the older editions use of names for the different levels of the core classes. Instead of every cool sounding noun getting it's own core class or prestige class or paragon levels or whatever going on nowadays, the titles are ranks or honorifics.

4. It's A Small World After All. Despite the novels' length, it is only the start of the story and some of the.... I don't want to say secondary characters, but characters whose presence in the novel is under felt, have a way to go before their story impacts the core tale. These characters though are from a forgotten and/or lost race and aren't known, in general, to the outside world. Indeed, even among their own people they can hide from one another if they choose. One of the games the mages there play on outsiders is, when ot wiping them out entirely, is of making their journey go in circles. If there is a hidden race or society or group, there should be a sound reason why they're not known outside of, "Oh, no one goes down that street."

5. Love. There is a 'Roman' style society here in its glory. Their ruler is a good man. Not great in ll virtues mind you but a sound leader. His love for his wife however, is almost more of a matter of function and of her attractiveness. This leader's right hand man however, is a lover of the ladies and has already seen himself, in a scrying pool, with his lord's wife. But the way things are developing, you can tell the wife, who is treated more as an object as opposed to a person, isn't against such a potential future because it involves her making decisions. Her sense of values and what she wants out of life are also much different than what her husband wants. She would be content to learn to love her husband and their daughter if they could do so in solitude as opposed to being part of the court life. In many ways, it echoes another famous love story that went wrong show cased in many tales like the movie Excalibur. NPCs, subplots, themes of betrayal and tragedy, can all add deeper elements to a campaign that embraces them.

6. Duty. When good king Rap uses his magical abilities to see what is going on in the grander scheme of things, he is overcome with a sense of great evil preparing to come. He find that it's his duty, his solomon duty, to stand against this. It's an interesting thing because when he's asked if it's to save his own home, he answers that it's to save the world. Failure to save the world would be the same thing as failure to save that home. Characters that need motivation to take up arms or to get out of the tavern, can be motivated when they know that failure to do something, results in the end of the game.

I enjoyed the book and will look for other volumes in the series next time I'm at Half Price books. I like the way the writer is able to transition from deep personal moments to hand waving seasons in order to move characters closer to one another over large spans of land or to age the younger characters in the book without it seeming to be skipping important parts.

Dave Duncan handles a large cast and is able to bring them together to start the real struggle that won't occur till at least the next volume.

e-book Free Battles!

I was listening to NPR, National Public Radio, and a musician was discussing the difficulty of getting the brand name and brand awareness out there and while he admitted that he wasn't sure what the financals of it all would be, some bands would be lucky if people would even bother to steal their music given how much material is out there in the 'wilds' of the internet.

When looking through the top one-hundred free science-fiction books on Amazon for their kindle format, I noticed that At the Queen's Command, while in the top ten, is still being beaten out by two authors I have no idea who they are or what they write, and one by H.G. Wells, his novel, The Time Machine. This is a man whose been dead since 1946. If at free, with a great cover and a brand new book in the series, you can't make the first place or beat out a dead man, this is some serious thought to be given to how expensive your book is not only in comparission to other authors, some of them whose popularity allows them to essentially charge whatever the market will bear in whatever format, but to the dead authors who have been classics before you were even born.

Now to go download the Time Machine...

Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes For $1.99!

I have a few posts where I discuss some of Joe Abercrombie's work and well, if you are interested in getting his latest in e-format, Amazon has The Heroes for $1.99. It's not my favorite of his works but there was enough in there for me to post a few things about it and well, it's the price of a cup of coffee at Star Bucks.

Another e-book Pricing Rant

I've mentioned before that my sweet spot for e-publications is around the $2.99 point. Amazon has various daily deals that meet my standard in addition to hundreds, if not thousands of free books. Hell, I'm reading the invisible man now that was free. Tor has some steambooks on sale for the $2.99 and took some of their biggest fantasy franchises to the $2.99 price point for the first book in the series. I've seen a few others, like a recent steampunk fantasy anthology for $2.99 as well as others, that makes me ponder that my 'mythical' price point isn't that far out of line.

What does that have to do with anything?

On RPG.net, someone start a WIR, short for where I read, and the book in question was Black Company, by Glen Cook. Go over to Amazon and hey, no Kindle copies at all, regardless of the cost. But the new stuff? Yeah, it's there. This is another case of author not taking control of his e-rights and insuring that his existing material is creating another revenue stream for him.

But then on an art blog, I see this fantastic drawing of Death Dealer, a Frank Fazetta character. It inspires me to look up one of my favorite authors of sword and sorcery fiction or semi-modern times, David Gemell. All of his books cost around $7.99 in kindle format.

Uh... listen estate of Dave, if you didn't make the money necessary to earn profit on those books while he was alive, then it might be a little late now and because the author is dead, it might be easier to spread information about him and his works at a much lower price point since as I started off, there are thousands of e-books out there for free.

I dread looking up what something like the Amber series would cost.

And one reason for that, is at the end of the series, sometime well after it, there was a nice trade paperback collection of the whole series. And Glen Cook's Black Company is also in collection edition. So how would the e books go in that instance? $7.99 per each of the original Black Company or Amber books or one reasonable price for a collection? While many of Bernard Cornwell's e books are around paperback price, the trilogy covering Bernard's version of King Arthur, the Warlord Chronicles, covers all three books and runs $5.14 for The Winter King, Enemy of God, and Excalibur under one file.

Once again, this tells me that my preferred price point isn't out of whack with reality and that if living authors like Bernard can do it with collections of their work, that someone needs to step up to the black and first make sure we have e books that take the existing work already out there and two, make it affordable to the masses.