Free Online Reading

Free Online Reading: James Enge’s "A Book of Silences"

April will see the release of James Enge’s swords & sorcery novel, Blood of Ambrose,an epic work featuring Morlock Ambrosius, wandering swordsman and master of all magical makers. The book is a stand-alone adventure, but Morlock returns in the (already-delivered) follow-up, This Crooked Way, and we’ve just signed for a third Morlock novel, the wonderfully-titled The Wolf Age. But Morlock Ambrosius already has a significant following, as Enge has been chronicling his adventures in short fiction for some time prior to his novel debut. One such tale,”A Book of Silences,” first appeared in the pages of Black Gate magazine. We are pleased to reprint it in its entirety at the Pyr Sample Chapters page. What’s more, we will shortly be presenting “Fire and Sleet,” which follows directly on the events of “A Book of Silences” and is an original novelette that will debut at the Pyr website for the first time anywhere. So, read and enjoy!

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Free Ebook: Sean Williams’ The Crooked Letter

As you’ve probably already heard on Boing Boing or SF Signal or Bookspot Central, and as I’ve already Tweeted and Facebooked:

For the first time ever, Pyr Books is making one of our novels available for free as an eBook. Sean Williams’ The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One is available now, in its entirety, as a PDF.

When mirror twins Seth and Hadrian Castillo travel to Europe on holidays, they don’t expect the end of the world to follow them. Seth’s murder, however, puts exactly that into motion.

From opposite sides of death, the Castillo twins grapple with a reality neither of them suspected, although it has been encoded in myths and legends for millennia. The Earth we know is just one of many “realms”, three of which are inhabited by humans during various stages of their lives. And their afterlives…

In the tradition of Philip Pullman and Ursula K. Le Guin and inspired by numerous arcane sources, the Books of the Cataclysm begin in the present world but soon propel the reader to a landscape that is simultaneously familiar and fantastic.

See why SFFWorld said:

“[E]xplores the nature of life, death, and reality. Big subjects, but with the precision of an archaeological expert, Williams is more than up to the task. There is a lot to admire in Williams’ epic fantasy, the wide range of global religions and myths of which his afterlife is comprised, to the characterization of the protagonists. The story has the mythic resonance of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and American Gods, the dark fantasy/horror one might associate with something like Stephen King’s Dark Tower saga, the multiple universes/realities of Moorcock’s Eternal Champion mythos, and the strange, weird creatures one might associate with China Miéville’s Bas-lag novels. Williams imagined world is equal part those novels which preceded his, but fortunately, there is enough newness to both the approach and vision to make this the work of a singular vision….” [R]eading many of the other titles Lou Anders has published with Pyr, I shouldn’t have been surprised with both the quality of the writing and the breadth of Williams’ imagination. Like a lot of the other books published by Pyr, Williams captures what makes a tried and true genre like Epic Fantasy so popular and enjoyable of a genre and spins a tale with his unique voice. This is the type of book you finish and can’t wait to read the sequel.”

Download your copy here, and thanks for helping us spread the word!

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The Stormcaller – Free Online Reading

Check out this enormous excerpt from the soon-to-be-released fantasy epic, The Stormcaller: Book One of the Twilight Reignby Tom Lloyd.

I am really excited about this book. I’m not the only one:

“Magical creatures and high speed action scenes… packed with detail without being too heavy. The Stormcaller shows how high the bar has been raised with its sheer vision and inventiveness.” —SFX

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A Wealth of Online Reading

We’ve just uploaded a massive amount of sample pages to the Pyr website, some of them quite substantial excerpts (around 50 pages of text or so each). Generally about 3 or 4 chapters per book, but I try to pick good stopping points so it varies. Now, after all this work, it occurs to me that a lot of people may not realize what all is online, and since we’ve labored long and hard on our Funky New Format, please do follow the links below. Plus, each of the new format pages has a really cool custom banner ad. Collect them all!

First, there are two entire short stories online:
Paul Di Filippo’s Fast Forward 1 contribution, “Wikiworld
Sean Williams’ The Resurrected Man inspiration, “A View Before Dying” (old format)

Then these twelve excerpts all recently uploaded, all in our Funky New Format:
Jack Dann’s The Man Who Melted. Also, a new interview.
Kay Kenyon’s Bright of the Sky
Ian McDonald’s Brasyl
Mike Resnick’s Starship: Mutiny and Starship: Pirate
Adam Robert’s Gradisil
Justina Robson’s Keeping It Real (along with music and other extras)
Joel Shepherd’s Crossover and Breakaway
Sean Williams’ The Crooked Letter, The Blood Debt, and The Hanging Mountains

We’ll be adding more as we go, and converting some of the old ones across to the new look, but meanwhile, these excerpts are still available in the Old Format:
Michael Blumlein’s The Healer
Gardner Dozoi’s Galileo’s Children introduction
Charles Coleman Finlay’s The Prodigal Troll
Scott MacKay’s Tides
Ian McDonald’s River of Gods
John Meaney’s Paradox, Context, Resolution
Michael Moorcock & Storm Constantine’s Silverheart
Chris Roberson’s Here, There & Everywhere
Justina Robson’s Silver Screen
Robert Silverberg’s Star of Gypsies
Martin Sketchley’s The Destiny Mask

Elsewhere on the web, you can find:
Chris Roberson’s Paragaea, and an entire prequel novel, Set the Seas on Fire
David Louis Edelman’s Infoquake (Chapters 1 – 7), also four Audio chapters.
Kay Kenyon’s Bright of the Sky at InfinityPlus
My own introduction to Fast Forward 1, “Welcome to the Future

And that should be enough to keep anyone busy!

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