StoryBundle's World SF 3 bundle

StoryBundle is doing their third World SF bundle. These are pay what you want ebooks (with a minimum payment of $15 if you want to unlock the bonus books) that are DRM free.

There are some interesting sounding titles in this offering. Click on the link above to see their site (where if you click on the covers you'll see a synopsis of each book).

StoryBundle's DRM free World Sci-Fi eBook Bundle

I haven't posted many of these ebook bundles lately, but this one's got some great stuff. I enjoyed Servant of the Underworld (read before I started reviewing) and Prime Meridian and thought the Apex Book of World SF 4 had some interesting stories. The Secret History of Moscow has long been on my 'to read' list.

Basically how these bundles work is you pay what you want (ETA: starting at $5) for the first group of books (in this case 4 titles: The Secret History of Moscow, Servant of the Underworld, The Apex Book of World SF 4, and A Small Charred Face). If you pay more than $15, you get all the other books as well. They're DRM free and in multiple formats (generally epub, mobi (for kindles), and/or PDF).

Check out the StoryBundle page to read more about the books.

Aurora Award StoryBundle 2

Douglas Smith has curated a second book bundle for the Canadian SFF prize, the Prix Aurora Award. As usual, the books are DRM free, pay what you want (with minimum amounts of $5 or $15).

Here are the books:

The initial titles in the Aurora Bundle 2 (minimum $5 to purchase) are:

• Destiny's Blood by Marie Bilodea
• Drowning in Amber by E.C. Bell
• Impossibilia by Douglas Smith
• Out of Time by D.G. Laderoute
• Druids by Barbara Galler-Smith and Josh Langston

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $15, you get all five of the regular titles, plus five more!

• Golden Fleece by Robert J. Sawyer
• Hair Side, Flesh Side by Helen Marshall
• Defining Diana by Hayden Trenholm
• Marseguro by Edward Willett
• The Cursed by Dave Duncan

Here's the site if you want more information.

LGBT+ StoryBundle

Story Bundle has their new DRM free ebook bundle up, and it's full of LGBT+ goodness for Pride Month. The curator of this bundle, Melissa Scott, has this to say about the offerings:

First, no novels in which being queer means you're evil, nor any in which it's a doomed and tragic fate. There are places for the latter, but this is June and Pride Month, and I want to share books that celebrate queerness. I've also decided to focus on small press offerings, as they are more likely to be overlooked than books from the mainstream houses. I've tried to pick newer novels, and to reintroduce some older writers, and in general to include books and writers who you might not have seen yet.

Here's what you can get (copied from the email), learn more about each book on the website.

The initial titles in the LGBT+ Bundle (minimum $5 to purchase) are:

• The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal by KJ Charles
• Wonder City Stories by Jude McLaughlin
• The Mystic Marriage by Heather Rose Jones
• Riley Parra Season One by Geonn Cannon
• Out of This World by Catherine Lundoff

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $15, you get all five of the regular titles, plus seven more!

• The Marshal's Lover by Jo Graham
• Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman
• Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett
• Death by Silver by Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold
• The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories by A.C. Wise
• Trafalgar and Boone in the Drowned Necropolis by Geonn Cannon
• Silver Moon by Catherine Lundoff

They still have 2 other bundles up for sale, Moonscapes and Military SF.

Humble Bundle: Women of Science Fiction and Fantasy

If you're looking for some great SF & F titles by women, Humble Bundle's got you covered with books published by Open Road Media. As with their other bundles, pay a certain amount to unlock DRM free ebooks in multiple formats.

At $1+ you get Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand, Jaran by Kate Elliott, and Path of Fate by Diana Pharaoh Francis.

Pay $8+ and you also get Parable of the Talents and Wild Seed (Octavia Butler), Sunshine (Robin McKinley), Black Light and Saffron and Brimstone (Elizabeth Hand), Skeen's Leap (Jo Clayton) , Lammas Night (Katherine Kurtz), and Skin Folk (Nalo Hopkinson).

Finally, for $15+ you get all the above plus Octavia Butler's Unexpected Stories, Robin McKinley's Beauty and The Hero and the Crown, Katherine Kurtz's Camber of Culdi, Pamela Sargent's The Shore of Women and Jane Yolen's Sister Light, Sister Dark.

Want to learn more? Check out the site.

Steampunk Story Bundle

If you're looking for a batch of steampunk novels to read, Cat Rambo has curated the new Story Bundle. Sold DRM free in a pay what you want fashion (minimum $15 if you want the Bonus titles), it's a great way to check out new authors. (Book links are from the story bundle page.)

The main titles are:
The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia

The Bookmanby Lavie Tidhar

City of the Saintsby D.J. Butler

Altered America: Steampunk Storiesby Cat Rambo

All the Paths of Shadowby Frank Tuttle

The bonus titles are:

The Emperor's Edge Series: Books 1-3by Lindsay Buroker
Ghost in the Cogsedited by Scott Gable & C. Dombrowski
Blood Tiesby Quincy J. Allen
Mechaniqueby Genevieve Valentine
The SEA Is Ours - Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asiaby Jaymee Goh and Joyce Chng
Best of Penny Dread Talesedited by Kevin J. Anderson and Quincy J. Allen

StoryBundle: Starward Bound

StoryBundle has a new science fiction ebook bundle up, this time focusing on space opera.  From their email:

The initial titles in The Starward Bound Bundle (minimum $5 to purchase) are:

• Starfire by B. V. Larson
• Outlaw by Edward W. Robertson
• Aetna Adrift by Erik Wecks
• Patcher: Books 1 & 2 by Martin Kee
• The Novum Trilogy Book 1: Crucible by Moira Katson

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $15, you get all five of the regular titles, plus five more:

• Otherness by David Brin
• Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos
• The Outpost by Mike Resnick
• Racers of the Night by Brad R. Torgersen
• The Returning by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Not interested in space opera but still want some ebooks?  They've still got their Historical Fantasy bundle and their Haikasoru Japanese Sci-Fi bundle.  All of these bundles are for a limited time only (and the Haikasoru one is ending soon), so get them while you can.

Story Bundle: Aurora Award

Douglas Smith has curated the most recent Story Bundle, and it's full of Aurora Award winners and finalists.  If you're not familiar with the Auroras, it's Canada's speculative fiction award.  The included titles are:

As with other bundles, it's pay what you want for DRM free copies of the first 5 titles, or get all 10 if you pay over $15.

To read more about the bundle and the included books, check out their website.

And if you're not as keen on SFF, they've also got a weird horror bundle.

Philip K. Dick Award StoryBundle

The new DRM free, pay what you want ebook bundle up at StoryBundle is made up of Philip K. Dick award winners.

From the email:

The basic bundle (minimum $5 to purchase, more if you feel the books are worth more) includes:

• Points of Departure by Pat Murphy
• Summer of Love by Lisa Mason
• Dark Seeker by K. W. Jeter
• The Cipher by Kathe Koja
• Life by Gwyneth Jones
• Aestival Tide by Elizabeth Hand

Even better, if you pay $15 or higher, you unlock five more titles, which include:

• Acts of Conscience by William Barton
• Knight Moves by Walter Jon Williams
• Reclamation by Sarah Zettel
• Frontera by Lewis Shiner
• Maximum Ice by Kay Kenyon

Groupees: Sci-Fi Bundle

Open Road Media has a Sci-Fi Bundle currently on Groupees.  Like HumbleBundle and StoryBundle, the premise is you pay what you want for the ebooks, with the option of donating some of the money to charity (10% in this case, to FirstBook).  Act fast though, it ends in 7 days (so August 28th if I'm counting correctly).

For a minimum $1payment you get 6 books:
Snake Agent by Liz Williams
Moving Mars by Greg Bear
Refugee by Piers Anthony
The Blue Hawk by Peter Dickinson
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Agent of Byzantium by Harry Turtledove

Pay $12 or more and get:
The Genome by Sergei Lukyanenko
Patton's Spaceship by John Barnes
Midshipman's Hope by David Feintuch
Dragonholder by Todd McCaffrey
Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling
The Disfavored Hero by Jessica Salmonson
The Burning Land by Victoria Strauss

If the total purchases go up to $15000, everyone also gets Night Train to Rigel by Timothy Zahn.

There are some interesting books in this bundle.  I've heard great things about Snake Agent and Sunshine.  My only hesitation on buying it is the piles of unread books on my floor and shelves.  But I like these bundles, I think they're a great way of getting older and/or lesser known books into readers hands.

StoryBundle's Steampunk Bundle

StoryBundle's got a new DRM-free package of ebooks, this time focusing on steampunk.  You get the 4 ebooks pictured on top as pay-what-you-want and the 3 pictured below if pay over $10.  Head to their site to see what the books are about.

StoryBundle's Cosmic Sci-Fi Bundle

Story Bundle has announced their newest ebook pay what you want (minimum $3) bundle and it's all science fiction.

One of the books included in the collection is METAtropolis, co-edited by the late Jay Lake, and they've added the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund as one of the charities you can donate 10% of your money to in his honour.

The books in the bundle are:



Destination: Void
METAtropolis
First Person Peculiar
Assemblers of Infinity
Anniversary Day
Second Paradigm

If you pay $12 or more than you also get:
Crisis on Doona
Perfectly Invisible
Legion

Epic Fantasy Story Bundle

I've bought a StoryBundle before - though I haven't had time to read any of the books from it yet.  Their books come in 3 formats, DRM free. 

From the email introducing the new Epic Fantasy bundle:


With StoryBundle, you can name your own price, pay what you think the batch of books is worth, and you'll get the first batch of six. If you pay $12 or more, you'll get three bonus books—Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson, The Immortals by Tracy Hickman, and The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson. – Kevin J. Anderson

The initial titles in the bundle (minimum $3 to purchase) are:

• The Sacrifice by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• Spirit Walker by David Farland
• MythWorld by James A. Owen
• The Camelot Papers by Peter David
• The Monarch of the Glen by Neil Gaiman
• Bloodletting by Peter J. Wacks and Mark Ryan

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $12, you'll get three extra bonus books:

• Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson
• The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson
• The Immortals by Tracy Hickman

Click the links to see what the books are about.  And here's their website if you'd like more information or to buy the bundle.

StoryBundle's Halloween Bundle

News of HumbleBundle's first ebook bundle got around the internet fast.  Hopefully it's success means there will be others.  You may not have heard about StoryBundle.  It's the same idea, you pick the price you want to pay for the 6 books and what percentage of the money goes to the website and to the authors.  You can also choose to donate part of (or, I believe, all of) the money to a charity of their choice (they give 2 options), and if you pay above a certain amount ($9) you can unlock 2 extra books.

Their current bundle (which I bought despite knowing I probably won't get to the books for some time) is Halloween themed, meaning they're all horror novels.  They're DRM free and you get both epub and mobi files.

This bundle has a mix of professionally published and indie authors, which is pretty cool.  So, if you need more books to read, go check out their site.  Click on the books and you'll see a synopsis and excerpt.

I find these book bundles pretty cool.  How about you?