Hasta el día de mañana se puede comprar el ebook Splashdance Silver de Tansy Rayner Roberts a precio reducido en diversas tiendas online. Por ejemplo, en Amazon cuesta 0,89€, pero en Kobo, en Smashwords y en Wizard's Tower Books (que fue donde descubrí la oferta) el precio es algo inferior a los 0,75€ (al cambio). Kassa Daggersharp has just heard word that her dad's dead and she's heir to a vast silver treasure trove from the famous Splashdance pirate ship. But in grand pirate tradition, the last will and testament of Vicious Bigbeard Daggersharp doesn't actually say where the silver is. And to add to Kassa's woes, everyone - from legendary royal champion and pin-up boy Aragon Silversword to the Lady Emperor Talle - seems to be trying to find and claim the silver for themselves. This hilarious story of the race for the Splashdance silver is about pirates and politics, treasure and traitors, epic adventures, magical mysteries, nearly-true-love and things which glint in the night.
Splashdance Silver won the inaugural George Turner prize for Tansy Rayner Roberts in 1998. The book was published by Bantam, and followed by a sequel, Liquid Gold. This new Fablecroft edition has been slightly revised by the author.
Hasta el próximo día 5 de enero se pueden comprar en Amazon España un buen número de ebooks en inglés a muy buen precio (entre uno y dos euros, la mayoría de ellos). El título más interesante, a mi entender, es el fantástico Dark Eden, de Chris Beckett, que no deberíais dejar pasar si os gusta la buena ciencia ficción. Pero no es el único que merece la pena, ni mucho menos.
Además de Saturnalia, recientemente se ha publicado otra antología (en inglés) con relatos de ciencia ficción y fantasía de temática navideña. Se trata de Seasons of Wonder, editada por Paula Guran, que tiene la siguiente tabla de contenidos: |
| Una de las muchas ilustraciones de portada de las que ha gozado la obra |
Meet Callaghan, a hard-drinking, drug-fuelled, womanising no-good son-of-a-bitch. He's the amoral hardcore photographer for Black & White, the tabloid rag that tells it as it is. Or at least, how it should be.
Callaghan's in way too deep with Mia, his Mexican stripper girlfriend... and even deeper with Sophie, estranged wife to Vladimir "Vodka" Katchevsy, infamous Romanian gun-runner and self-eulogising expert at human problem solving. People start to die. And Callaghan's caught in the middle. A situation even his Porsche GT3, Canary Wharf Penthouse suite and corrupt politician contacts can't solve.
At the nadir of his downward spiral, Callaghan is approached by a man: a serial killer who brings him a very unique and dangerous proposition...
INCLUDES THE BONUS SHORT STORY "MEMORY DUST".
In an age where interstellar travel is dangerous and unpredictable, and no-one knows exactly where they’ll end up, Avril Bradley is a Communications officer onboard a ship sent to re-contact as many of these lost souls as possible. But a mysterious explosion strands her in a world of political intrigue, espionage and subterfuge; a world of retired cops, digital ghosts and corporate assassins who fight for possession of computer data lain undisturbed for almost a century. . .
Half-vampire Darwin stumbles across a corpse on the streets of London, and in a pocket discovers a notebook in a mysterious language. Divided between human ethics and vampire bloodlust, Darwin finds himself both condemner and saviour of a race who’ve never considered him one of their own. Now, he must try and lead the survivors to sanctuary in New Salisbury before Mr West completes his genocide of the vampires in his quest to obtain the book…
Maureen Summerglass is eighty-two years old, and a prisoner in her ramshackle home. She is afraid to let people enter in case they discover the oak door in her cellar. Threatened with homelessness and retirement from her job as a gatekeeper between worlds, Maureen breaks protocol when the death of a close friend is covered up… and enters the city of New Salisbury to search for his missing notebook. There, she discovers a world unlike the one of myth and fairy tale she imagined, and instead one of black market economies, brand names and tuk tuks. As she investigates, not only is she in extreme danger, but discovers she may be the first human female able to use magic…
The Warrior’s Journey is an epic fantasy set in a mystical dark age where monsters roam the plains, mages wield powerful sorcery and arguments are settled by the honour of the blade.
In the land of Castille, Garrick Chilver is a soldier trained in combat by his honourable father, Sir Nickholi. The tale follows Garrick and his companions, an enslaved pair of outcasts, an old knight returning home to his family, an imprisoned murderer, a young innocent marked for great power, and a mysterious sorcerer – as their land is struck by a series of terrible and catastrophic disasters. As demons and dark sorcerers roam the lands wreaking terror, chaos and death, Garrick and his companions find a common goal in their struggles against the corrupt Brotherhood of Guardians and the evil Paladins of the Gods.
When the person closest to Garrick is slaughtered by the leader of the Paladins, Garrick’s journey of vengeance brings him to the capital of Castille where, alongside its rulers, he will face the true evil that stalks the world...
The Warrior’s Journey is an epic tale of champions and honour, showing what it truly means to be a hero - a shining example of a bright flame ranged against the darkness of chaos!
Have you looked in the closet lately? Well beware, because some things are not meant to come out...
Monsters Anonymous, a support group that lets the monsters out from behind the closet door. A place where creatures from nightmare meet up, share their experiences, and talk about their addictions... Because addiction is what monsters suffer; whether it’s the vampire addicted to blood, the cannibal or were addicted to meat, or the mummy addicted to life essence – these monsters are misunderstood, and want to share their stories.
From the streets of Victorian London, the jungles of deepest Mexico, the ancient city of Thebes or the sex-shop backstreets of Birmingham, monsters get into all sorts of places... and all sorts of devices. Wild chases, raw meat, unorthodox sex toys and the Holy Grail, Monsters Anonymous will make you laugh, weep, and maybe even scream.
Supongo que a estas alturas casi todo el mundo habrá leído ya El juego de Ender de Orson Scott Card, pero por si hay algún rezagado, hoy tenéis la oportunidad de adquirirlo en Amazon en formato electrónico sin DRM por sólo 1,89€.La Tierra se ve amenazada por los insectores, una raza extraterrestre completamente ajena a los humanos, a los que pretende destruir. Para vencer a los insectores es necesario un nuevo tipo de genio militar, y por ello se ha permitido el nacimiento de Ender, quien en cierta forma constituye una anomalía viviente: es el tercer hijo de una pareja en un mundo que ha limitado estrictamente a dos el número de descendientes. El niño Ender deberá aprender todo lo relativo a la guerra en los videojuegos y en los peligrosos ensayos de batallas que realiza con sus compañeros. A la habilidad en el tratamiento de las emociones, ya característica de Orson Scott Card, se une en este libro el interés por el empleo de las simulaciones de ordenador y juegos de fantasía en la formación militar, estratégica y psicológica del protagonista.
Siguiendo con la campaña 12 Days of Christmas, la editorial Angry Robot nos ofrece hoy en oferta en su tienda dos títulos de Chuck Wendig en formato electrónico a una libra esterlina cada uno siempre que usemos el cupón "tinsel". Os recuerdo también que Blackbirds, del mismo autor, se puede descargar gratuitamente hasta final de este año.Miriam is trying to keep her ability - her curse - in check.
But when Miriam touches a woman in line at the supermarket, she sees that the woman will be killed here, now.
She reacts, and begins a new chapter in her life - one which can never be expected to go well.
Meet Mookie Pearl.
Criminal underworld? He runs in it.
Supernatural underworld? He hunts in it.
Nothing stops Mookie when he’s on the job.
But when his daughter takes up arms and opposes him, something’s gotta give...
Miriam Black knows when you will die. She's foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and suicides.
But when Miriam hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim.
No matter what she does she can't save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she'll have to try.Nota: Agradezco a mi amigo Josep María Oriol el aviso de esta promoción.
La semana pasada se puso a la venta un libro de ensayo con un título de lo más interesante: Singularities - Technoculture, Transhumanism, and Science Fiction in the 21st Century, de Joshua Raulerson. El texto no es precisamente barato, pero igual Papá Noel todavía está la escucha (y, si no, siempre se puede echar un vistazo a la tesis doctoral de Raulerson que parece formar el núcleo de este volumen).In a time of protracted economic crisis, failing political systems, and impending environmental collapse, one strand in our collective cultural myth of Progress – the technological – remains vibrantly intact, surging into the future at ramming speed. Amid the seemingly exponential proliferation of machine intelligence and network connectivity, and the increasingly portentous implications of emerging nanotechnology, futurists and fabulists look to an imminent historical threshold whereupon the nature of human existence will be radically and irrevocably transformed. The Singularity, it is supposed, can be no more than a few years off; indeed, some believe it has already begun.
Technological Singularity – a trope conceived in science fiction and subsequently adopted throughout technocultural discourse and beyond – is the primary site of interpenetration between technoscientific and science-fictional figurations of the future, a territory where longstanding binary oppositions between science and fiction, and between present and future, are rapidly dissolving. In this groundbreaking volume, the first to mount a sustained and wide-ranging critical treatment of Singularity as a subject for theory and cultural studies, Raulerson draws SF texts into a complex dialogue with contemporary digital culture, transhumanist movements, political and economic theory, consumer gadgetry, gaming, and related vectors of high-tech postmodernity. In theorizing Singularity as a metaphorical construct lending shape to a range of millennial anxieties and aspirations, Singularities also makes the case for a recent and little-understood subgeneric formation – postcyberpunk SF – as a cohesive body of work, engaged in a shared literary project that is simultaneously shaping, and shaped by, purportedly nonfictional technoscientific discourses.
Dentro de la promoción 12 Days of Christmas de Angry Robot hoy le toca el turno a Cassandra Rose Clarke. Si vais a la tienda de la editorial y usáis el código "tinsel" podréis comprar (en formato electrónico sin DRM) sus tres novelas por una libra cada una. Éstas son las sinopsis de los libros en oferta:"Cat, this is Finn. He's going to be your tutor."
He looks and acts human, though he has no desire to be. He was programmed to assist his owners, and performs his duties to perfection. A billion-dollar construct, his primary task now is to tutor Cat. As she grows into a beautiful young woman, Finn is her guardian, her constant companion... and more.
But when the government grants rights to the ever-increasing robot population, however, Finn struggles to find his place in the world.
Following her acclaimed Young Adult debut for Strange Chemistry, The Assassin's Curse, the very talented Cassandra Rose Clarke moves on to more adult themes, in a heartbreaking story of love, loss... and robots.
Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan. But that only prompts the scorned clan to send an assassin after her. And when Ananna faces him down one night, armed with magic she doesn't really know how to use, she accidentally activates a curse binding them together.
To break the curse, Ananna and the assassin must complete three impossible tasks—all while grappling with evil wizards, floating islands, haughty manticores, runaway nobility, strange magic, and the growing romantic tension between them.
After setting out to break the curse that binds them together, the pirate Ananna and the assassin Naji find themselves stranded on an enchanted island in the north with nothing but a sword, their wits, and the secret to breaking the curse: complete three impossible tasks. With the help of their friend Marjani and a rather unusual ally, Ananna and Naji make their way south again, seeking what seems to be beyond their reach.
Unfortunately, Naji has enemies from the shadowy world known as the Mists, and Ananna must still face the repercussions of going up against the Pirate Confederation. Together, Naji and Ananna must break the curse, escape their enemies — and come to terms with their growing romantic attraction.
The sequel to The Assassin's Curse.
Hoy Solaris nos ofrece, a través de su tienda virtual Rebellion Store, un nuevo ebook rebajado: Champion of Mars, de Guy Haley, que se puede adquirir por sólo 0,98 libras. Ésta es su sinopsis:In the far future, Mars is dying a second time. The Final War of men and spirits is beginning. In a last bid for peace, disgraced champion Yoechakenon Val Mora and his spirit lover Kaibeli are set free from the Arena to find the long-missing Librarian of Mars, the only hope to save mankind.
In the near future, Dr Holland, a scientist running from a painful past, joins the Mars colonisation effort, cataloguing the remnants of Mars’ biosphere before it is swept away by the terraforming programme.
When an artefact is discovered deep in the caverns of the red planet, the company Holland works for interferes, leading to tragedy. The consequences ripple throughout time, affecting Holland’s present, the distant days of Yoechakenon, and the eras that bridge the aeons between.
La oferta del día de hoy de la editorial Solaris en Rebellion Store es Phoenicia's World, de Ben Jeapes. Se puede adquirir en formato electrónico sin DRM por 0,98 libras. Ésta es su sinopsis:EARTH’S COLONY HAS ONLY ONE CHANCE OF SURVIVAL
La Nueva Temporada is Earth’s only extrasolar colony – an Earthtype planet caught in the grip of a very Earth-type Ice Age.
Alex Mateo wants nothing more than to stay and contribute to the terraforming of his homeworld. But tragedy strikes the colony, and to save it from starvation and collapse, Alex must reluctantly entrust himself to the Phoenicia, the only starship in existence, to make the long slower-than-light journey back to Earth.
But it is his brother Quin, who loathes La Nueva Temporada and all the people on it, who must watch his world collapse around him and become its saviour... while everyone watches the skies for the return of the Phoenicia.
Fata Libelli nos propone para estas fiestas una antología de relatos navideños titulada Saturnalia, Cuentos del solsticio de invierno. El ebook, que se pone hoy a la venta, incluye los siguientes relatos:
Acabo de enterarme de que, al igual que Angry Robot, la editorial Solaris está realizando una campaña en forma de "calendario de Adviento" con una oferta diferente cada día en su tienda de libros electrónicos. El libro que se encuentra en promoción hoy es Ack-Ack Macaque de Gareth L. Powell, que se puede adquirir por 0,98 libras esterlinas en formato electrónico sin DRM. Habrá que seguir atentos a las ofertas de la editorial en los días que quedan hasta Navidad.In 1944, as waves of German ninjas parachute into Kent, Britain’s best hopes for victory lie with a Spitfire pilot codenamed ‘Ack-Ack Macaque.’ The trouble is, Ack-Ack Macaque is a cynical, one-eyed, cigar-chomping monkey, and he’s starting to doubt everything, including his own existence.
A century later, in a world where France and Great Britain merged in the late 1950s and nuclear-powered Zeppelins circle the globe, ex-journalist Victoria Valois finds herself drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the man who butchered her husband and stole her electronic soul. Meanwhile, in Paris, after taking part in an illegal break-in at a research laboratory, the heir to the British throne goes on the run. And all the while, the doomsday clock ticks towards Armageddon.
Sportula ha puesto a la venta Jack Kirby. El cuarto demiurgo, un ensayo en el que José Manuel Uría analiza la obra del co-creador de grandes personajes del cómic como Los Cuatro Fantásticos o X-Men. El libro se puede comprar en formato electrónico sin DRM por 3,50€ o en edición impresa por 11€.Jack Kirby creó, junto con Stan Lee, una de las más importantes mitologías populares del pasado siglo: el Universo Marvel. Posteriormente, en solitario, se reinventaría a sí mismo como autor completo en sus creaciones del Cuarto Mundo para DC comics. Su influencia, tanto visual como temática, ha sido enorme en el mundo del comic y de la cultura popular en general.
En este ensayo José Manuel Uría repasa la carrera del «Rey» Kirby centrándose en los aspectos quizá menos tratados de su obra: su labor como creador secundario, como demiurgo, no de uno sino de varios universos y las lecturas metafísicas y mitológicas que se derivan de ello. Con rigor y de forma exhaustiva, se repasan los puntos principales de su carrera y se nos muestran algunas de sus facetas menos conocidas.
El autor del día de hoy en la campaña 12 Days of Christmas de Angry Robot es Kim Curran. En la tienda de la editorial se pueden adquirir en ebook, por una libra esterlina cada una usando el código "tinsel", sus dos novelas orientadas al público juvenil: Shift y Control. When your average, 16-year old loser, Scott Tyler, meets the beautiful and mysterious Aubrey Jones, he learns he’s not so average after all. He’s a ‘Shifter’. And that means he has the power to undo any decision he’s ever made.
At first, he thinks the power to shift is pretty cool. But as his world quickly starts to unravel around him he realises that each time he uses his power, it has consequences; terrible unforeseen consequences. Shifting is going to get him killed.
In a world where everything can change with a thought, Scott has to decide where he stands.
Scott Tyler is not like other teenagers. With a single thought he can alter reality around him. And he can stop anyone else from doing the same.
That's why he’s so important to ARES, the secret government agency that regulates other kids like him: Shifters.
They've sent him on a mission. To track down the enigmatic Frank Anderson. An ex-Shifter who runs a project for unusual kids – as if the ability to change your every decision wasn't unusual enough. But Anderson and the kids have a dark secret. One that Scott is determined to discover.
As his obsession with discovering the truth takes him further away from anyone he cares about, his grip on reality starts to weaken. Scott realises if he can't control his choices, they'll control him.
Banda sonora de la reseña: Sugiero leer esta reseña escuchando Contents May Differ del disco Surface Detail de Geoff MacDonald (Spotify).
Sólo hoy se puede conseguir en Weightless Books el ebook The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2013, editado por Rich Horton, por 1,99$.
