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Monday, November 12, 2012

Today's Deals

Baen is having a contest and giving away five free books to anyone who has served in the military (contest ends tonight). Just send an email to contest@baen.com and tell them your branch of service. Note: Open to those who have served/are serving in other countries' militaries as well as the US.

Amazon now has Single Issue Comics on sale in the Kindle store. At the same time, they've released an update for the Kindle Paperwhite that lets you refresh the page in comics more easily (and turn off the "recommended content" on the home page! yay!). It looks like many of the comics are $2.99 per issue (which probably beats the newsstand price by quite a bit), but I also saw at least a couple of series for 99 cents: Green Lantern (2011- ) #1 and Arrow (2012- ) #1; the latter has five issues that are currently under a dollar.

Get 50% off a comic book at Kobo, as they celebrate Comic Week, using coupon code comics50 (offer self-destructs Nov 17).

Get a $5 Instant Video Credit if you register a Sony TV or BluRay player at Amazon (must be on their Instant Video compatibility list).

Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Robert Kroese's Hilarious Mercury Trilogy, marked 80% off at $1.99 per volume. Looks like a great time to grab the ending to the trilogy, since I have the first two titles. Not technically a part of the sale, you'll also want to pick up the two short stories in the series, Mercury Swings and Mercury Begins, at 99 cents apiece. Already read the series? Then check out Kroese's new Kindle Serial, Disenchanted.
By turns epic and explosive, Robert Kroese's Mercury trilogy draws inspiration from the impertinent, side-splitting, and madcap adventures of Douglas Adams’s "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy." The books chronicle the universe-saving slacker angel, Mercury. Destined to be cult favorites, today the Mercury Trilogy books are only $1.99 each (80% off).
Mercury Falls
While on assignment in Utah, Christine Temetri isn’t surprised when yet another prophesied Apocalypse fails to occur. After three years of reporting on End Times cults for a religious news magazine, Christine is seriously questioning her career choice. But then she meets Mercury, a cult leader whose knowledge of the impending Apocalypse is decidedly more solid than most: he is an angel, sent from heaven to prepare for the Second Coming but distracted by beer, ping pong, and other earthly delights. After Christine and Mercury inadvertently save Karl Grissom—a film-school dropout and the newly appointed Antichrist—from assassination, she realizes the three of them are all that stand in the way of mankind’s utter annihilation. They are a motley crew compared to the heavenly host bent on earth’s destruction, but Christine figures they’ll just have to do. Full of memorable characters, Mercury Falls is an absurdly funny tale about unlikely heroes on a quest to save the world.
Mercury Rises
Jaded religion reporter Christine Temetri and Mercury, a renegade angel, have just thwarted two diabolical plots to destroy the world. But their work isn’t finished yet: mysterious powers outranking even the Heavenly bureaucracy seem intent on keeping the Apocalypse on track. While the world is plagued by natural disasters and nations prepare for war, crazed billionaire Horace Finch plots to use a secret device hidden beneath the African desert to discover the deepest secrets of the Universe—even if he has to destroy the Universe to do it. Meanwhile, unassuming FBI investigator Jacob Slater tries in vain to find a rational explanation for the mysterious destruction of downtown Anaheim—a quest that ultimately brings him to Kenya, where he meets Christine and Mercury. Together, the three must stop Finch from activating the device and tearing reality to pieces. Uproarious and wildly entertaining, Mercury Rises proves that the devil is in the details!
Mercury Rests
After foiling an attempt to destroy the universe, Mercury has gone missing. And with the devil already putting the final fiendish touches on his next scheme to bring about the apocalypse, all that stands between Lucifer and his dreams of a hellfire holocaust are two misfit humans: jaded religion reporter Christine Temetri and mild-mannered forensic analyst Jacob Slater.

But the pair soon realize that the Prince of Darkness has set his sights higher than they can reach; he’s planning to bring his battle for domination straight to the pearly gates. They’ll need the wisecracking, ping-pong loving, apathetic angel Mercury to help save the day, the world, and heaven before the clock ticks down to the End Times…if they can find him.

By turns epic and explosive, Mercury Rests concludes the trilogy that Booklist describes as a “hilarious romp” that has “cult favorite written all over it.”

Winner of the Commonwealth Book Prize, Pacific Region 2012, Me and Mr Booker ($1.57 / £0.99 UK), by Cory Taylor, is the Kindle Deal of the day for those in the UK (no US edition).
Book Description
Looking back, Martha could’ve said no when Mr Booker first tried to kiss her. That would’ve been the sensible thing to do. But Martha is sixteen, she lives in a small dull town – a cemetery with lights – her father is mad, her home is stifling, and she’s waiting for the rest of her life to begin. Of course Martha would kiss the charming Englishman who brightened her world with style, adventure, whisky, cigarettes and sex. But Martha didn’t count on the consequences. Me and Mr Booker is a story about feeling old when you’re young and acting young when you’re not. Located in small town Australia, Cory Taylor’s first novel is already a smash hit in her home country. Martha’s adventures with Mr Booker will keep you on the edge of your seat and leave you with plenty to think about; maybe be angry about, then again maybe not.

The Scroll ($0.99 Kindle, B&N), a novella by Anne Perry, is the Nook Daily Find, price matched on Kindle. This is a part of the multi-author Bibliomystery series, with other titles by Jeffrey Deaver, Ken Bruen and CJ Box (so far).
Book Description
An ancient scroll draws a bookseller into a chilling mystery

Monty Danforth finds the tin buried beneath a shipment of leather-bound classics. Inside is a millennia-old vellum manuscript written in an unfamiliar but unmistakably ancient language. Danforth tries to photocopy and photograph it, but he ends up with blank images, as though the ink were made of something impervious to modern technology. As the scroll’s mystery enchants him, this hapless bookseller falls into a cutthroat conspiracy that he may never escape.

Soon a dead-eyed old man and his granddaughter come calling for the scroll. Danforth refuses to sell them the manuscript, but they will not be the last to demand it. Powerful forces crave the secrets locked within this ancient document, and Danforth will survive only if he can master its power.

Today's Kindle Teens Daily Deal is The Named ($1.99), the first novel in Australian author Marianne Curley's Guardians of Time Trilogy (two of which are now on Kindle). It has mostly good reviews from adults as well as teens, with the caveat that it takes a while to get into the writing style (chapters alternate viewpoints of the two main characters, Isabel and Ethan). From the synopsis, it looks like a good blend of Harry Potter meets Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. The author has just come back from her fight against bone cancer and has a new series slated to start publication next Spring.
Book Description
Ethan is a member of the Named, sworn to fight the Order of Chaos, an evil group determined to permanently change the course of history. But he is also a normal high school student trying desperately to keep up with his homework and fit in. When he is assigned to mentor Isabel, a cute classmate and future member of the Named, the line between his two lives begins to blur. So begins an epic quest as Ethan, Isabel, and others travel through time to battle dark forces and protect the future.

Grade Level: 7 and up