StoryBundle is a site that curates and sells bundles of ebooks. They tend to focus on sci-fi and fantasy, and are usually further themed within those genres. They’re a great way to find new writers, stories, and series.
This time, we’re getting a selection of fantasy novels. It’s a rather large selection of fantasy stories, with 38 items in the bundle. The diversity within the bundle is also pretty big, with classic fantasy through to Twilight Zone-esque fantasy, through to the romantic fantasy that is so popular at the moment. This bundle consists of two tiers. The first tier costs $5 and gets you four items:
- Dragon Heir – Book One: Dragon’s Call by Ann Gimpel
- Winter’s Consort 1 – A Prisoner to Spring by Brigid Collins
- Faerie Justice – Hollywood Ending by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- Underland 1: The Queen of Stilled Hearts by DeAnna Knippling
The book that most appeals to me in this tier is definitely The Queen of Stilled Hearts. I’m a huge fan of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. I love to see people run with their own takes on the setting and characters, because there are so many directions in which one can go. We can go soft, like Disney, or dark, or romantic, or horrific. It’s just such fertile soil, and I love the clockwork theme that Knippling has gone with here.
Usually, the second tier of a StoryBundle costs $20. This time, it’s $30. I think that’s pretty reasonable, given the sheer size of this bundle. Buying the second tier gives you access to all content from the first tier, plus the following 34 additional items:
- Dragon Heir – Book Three: Dragon’s Heir by Ann Gimpel
- Dragon Heir – Book Two: Dragon’s Blood by Ann Gimpel
- Winter’s Consort 2 – An Ally in Summer by Brigid Collins
- Winter’s Consort 3 – An Enemy by Autumn by Brigid Collins
- Winter’s Consort 4 – A Protector Over Winter by Brigid Collins
- Faerie Justice – Show Trial by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- Faerie Justice – Human Business by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- Faerie Justice – The War and After by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- Bryant Street – Spring by Dean Wesley Smith
- Bryant Street – Autumn by Dean Wesley Smith
- Bryant Street – Summer by Dean Wesley Smith
- Bryant Street – Winter by Dean Wesley Smith
- A Game of Lost Souls 1 – The Cinderella Hour by Lisa Silverthorne
- A Game of Lost Souls 2 – The Prince Charming Hour by Lisa Silverthorne
- A Game of Lost Souls 3 – The Ever After Hour by Lisa Silverthorne
- A Game of Lost Souls 4 – The Fallen Hearts Season by Lisa Silverthorne
- A Pinstriped Finger’s My Only Friend by Robert Jeschonek
- Dolphin Knight by Robert Jeschonek
- Earthshaker by Robert Jeschonek
- Six Fantasy Stories by Robert Jeschonek
- Underland 2: The Knight of Shattered Dreams by DeAnna Knippling
- The Zombification of the Snark by DeAnna Knippling
- The Clockwork Alice by DeAnna Knippling
- The Witches of Portland 1: By Earth by T. Thorn Coyle
- The Witches of Portland 2 – By Flame by T. Thorn Coyle
- The Witches of Portland 3 – By Wind by T. Thorn Coyle
- Stone Singers 1 – Song of Siren and Blood by Thomas K. Carpenter
- Stone Singers 2 – House of Snake and Tome by Thomas K. Carpenter
- Stone Singers 3 – Storm of Dragon and Stone by Thomas K. Carpenter
- Stone Singers 4 – Sonata of Shadow and Thorn by Thomas K. Carpenter
- Stone Singers 5 – Well of Demon and Bone by Thomas K. Carpenter
- The Darkwood Trilogy 1 – White as Frost by Anthea Sharp
- The Darkwood Trilogy 2 – Black as Night by Anthea Sharp
- The Darkwood Trilogy 3 – Red as Flame by Anthea Sharp
In this second bundle, I am again drawn to the Alice-centric works of DeAnna Knippling. There’s a second Underland book and The Clockwork Alice. The inclusion of an undead Lewis Carroll is an interesting twist. The synopsis of The Clockwork Alice makes it sound really fascinating; I love the idea of the world as a massive clock and us as merely lesser clocks, enslaved to the greater gears that turn eternally.
The Bryant Street books are also interesting to me, being collections of short stories of suburban horror. The horrific among the mundane is a theme that I really like. It’s what I liked about the first New World of Darkness (now Chronicles of Darkness) book being street-level, human-centric horror, rather than the Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, and others that we were used to from the classic World of Darkness. I love those lines as well, of course, but having the humans at the centre really grounds the horror. I like that.
The bundle represents good value. It’s more expensive than most StoryBundles, but it’s also got a lot more content. At a glance, it does skew heavily towards the current trend of dark, romantic fantasy, which isn’t totally my thing, but with such a broad bundle, it might still be worth a punt. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by such books before.
You can click here to visit the bundle page over at StoryBundle.
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