Prime Geek (Books): August 5 2018
You already have
Amazon Prime (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
right?
You’re a geek, right?
You’re a geek who reads books, right?
If those three things are true, you are in luck!
There are over 100 geek-friendly books included in your Prime membership at no additional cost.
There are so many, in fact, that as is often the case with content nowadays, the challenge is discovery, not availability. Well, I hope to help you out with some recommendations.
I should mention…you don’t need to consider yourself a geek to enjoy these books. 😉
started off in another blog of mine, The Measured Circle. Over there, I’ve done posts for TV and movies which are part of Prime Video and are geek-friendly.
Books are more appropriately done here, and I’ll link from there to here.
My guess is, though, that the percentage of self-identifying geeks at The Measured Circle is a lot higher than it is in ILMK.
Things are also a bit different with e-books, because so many of them are available legally for free…and because there is another “premium” subser (subscription service) called
Kindle Unlimited (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
What I’m doing is looking at
Prime Reading (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
There are over 1,000 titles there (Amazon doesn’t give you an exact number any more), and then I’m limiting it to the Science Fiction & Fantasy category, which brings it down to 106 at time of writing:
Prime Reading Science Fiction & Fantasy category (at AmazonSmile*)
Okay…books!
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling | 4.3 stars out of 5 | 33,914 customer reviews | This is one which everyone should probably read at some point…and many will re-read at several points. I think that 100 years from now, the Harry Potter series will be considered to be as much a classic as the Wizard of Oz series is now
- I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison | 4.1 stars | 157 reviews | short stories
- Quantum Space by Douglas Phillips | 4.7 stars | 776 reviews
- Dune (Spanish edition) by Frank Herbert, translated by Domingo Santos | 4.6 stars | 2,948 reviews | yes, that’s right…Dune in Spanish! (Asimov’s Foundation is also available in Prime Reading in Spanish)
- Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard | 4.6 stars | 2,423 reviews | While you may not first think of Hubbard as a science fiction writer, and your first association with “Battlefield Earth” may be the John Travolta adaptation (a notorious box office underperformer, grossing worldwide about $30 million on a budget of about $73 million, according to Box Office Mojo), the book was a New York Times bestseller, and Hubbard was a famous fiction writer well before the other activities
- Vampire Girl by Karpov Kinrade | 4.6 stars | 1,098 reviews | You might not have heard of this, but it’s been a USA Today bestseller and is the first in a (so far) six book series
- The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle (AmazonClassics Edition) | weirdly, many of the reviews appear to refer to the second book in the Jurassic Park series by Michael Crichton, not this classic. Professor Challenger is a great character, and also appeared in other stories by Doyle
- The Wretched of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood #1) by Jeff Wheeler | 4.4 stars | 2,391 reviews
- Mind’s Eye by Douglas E. Richards | 4.3 stars | 3,356 reviews
- Dragon Trials (Return of the Darkening #1) by Ava Richardson | 4.3 stars | 351 reviews
- Area 51 by Bob Mayer | 4.2 stars | 562 reviews | This has been a long-running successful series
- A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick (Eye in the Sky, Counter-Clock World ((very PKD)), Valis, and Ubik are also available in PR)
- Machine Learning by Hugh Howey | 4.1 stars | 66 reviews | short stories | I’ve read Silo (a big success by Howey) and enjoyed that
- King of Swords (Starfolk #1) by Dave Duncan | 3.5 stars | 117 reviews
That’s just a selection of them…if you have other recommendations to make to me and my readers, feel free to comment on this post.
Enjoy!
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All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!
* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. 
Shop ’til you help!
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.
I Love My Kindle 