With March being Women’s History Month, I’m not surprised that the selection of eBooks put up for sale are focused on some of the strong female characters that we have seen in Star Trek. There is a lot of representation from Deep Space Nine and Discovery in this batch.
All eBooks are back to 99 cents each. I wonder if the 1.99 price was only for the Picard books or if it was an experiment to see if they would sell. Amazon is also doing a special where you earn points for each book you buy. This can lead to free books.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of March 20th through March 26th.
March 20 Happy Birthday to John de Lancie. @johndelancie https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/John_de_Lancie #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #StarTrekDS9 #StarTrekVOY #StarTrekLowerDecks #StarTrekPicard #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here. It’s wonders, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross.” Q- Q Who, Stardate: 42761.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Just as repetition reinforces repetition, change begets change. I guess the truth is we never really know what’s coming.” Burnham- Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad, Stardate: 2136.8 #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Terror must be maintained or the Empire is doomed. It is the logic of history.” Mirror Spock “Conquest is easy. Control is not.” Kirk- Mirror, Mirror, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 23 “Throughout history, men have fought over the love of a woman. Why, I can quote you autopsy reports from duels as far back as 1538…” The Doctor- Parturition, Stardate: 49068.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Yeah, it’s funny. People like us always find people like them. And thank God. You have a second chance. And it may not last forever. Don’t screw it up.” Reno- Through The Valley of Shadows, Stardate: 1048.66 #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Kahless himself said, destroying an Empire to win a war is no victory.” Worf “And ending a battle to save an Empire is no defeat.” Gowron- The Way of the Warrior, Stardate: 49011.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Worry is a Human emotion, Captain. I accept what has happened.” Spock- Journey to Babel, Stardate: 3842.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“I’ve never understood the Human inclination to laugh at others’ misfortune. It feels… impolite.” Spock “That’s why it’s funny.” Chapel- Children of the Comet, Stardate: 2912.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
The energy of everyone this week after the time change.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of March 13th through March 19th.
March 13 “Wishing for a thing does not make it so.” Picard- Samaritan Snare, Stardate: 42779.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“We cannot ignore the truth about the past.” Sikso “Going to Vic’s isn’t going to make us forget who we are or where we came from. What it does is it reminds us that we’re no longer bound by any limitations, except the ones we impose on ourselves.” Yates- Badda Bing, Badda Bang, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“May I inquire as to the nature of our diplomatic mission?” V’Latak “Allow me to be diplomatic and ask that you do not. In times of crisis, ignorance can be beneficial.” Sarek- Lethe, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDiscovery #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 15 “Caesar, beware the Ides of March.” Lenore- The Conscience of the King, Stardate: 2817.6 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 16 “I’ve been trying to get you to tell me your age since we left Spacedock. Why now?” Tucker “To Vulcans, certain information is considered intimate.” T’Pol- Zero Hour, Date: February 14, 2154 #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 17 “Cead mile failte.” Michael Sullivan “Translation?” Janeway “A hundred thousand welcomes. It’s an old Irish saying. We’re all friends here.” Michael Sullivan- Fair Haven, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Fight well, and our people will sing your praises for a thousand years. Fail, and there will be no more songs, no more honor, no more Empire. Who among you hears the cry of the warrior calling you to glory?” Martok- Sons and Daughters, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 19 “I chose to believe that I was a person, that I had the potential to be more than a collection of circuits and subprocessors.” Data- Rightful Heir, Stardate: 46852.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
So I finally had a chance to recover from my first SaltCON (apparently I was not capitalizing CON as I should have been) and I’m putting my thoughts down here before they all escape my head. TL/DR section: I had a blast and I can’t wait to attend another one.
As you can see from the photo above, I was able to walk away with some loot that I gathered at the con. Three games in the swap meet room that I can use for the 2024 Character Creation Challenge (and another upcoming secret project that I hope to announce soon). These are Barbarians of Lemuria Legendary Edition, Crypts & Things and Shadowrun Anarchy. Three books I didn’t know existed. I also picked up the Star Trek Adventures Player’s Guide and Star Trek Adventures Gamemaster’s Guide from a dealer that I only see at conventions, and always buy Star Trek books from. It’s almost become a tradition that we’ve been doing since the early 2000’s. I also picked up a t-shirt for the convention.
So if you read my Prepping for SaltCon 2023 blog entry, you will know that I had a signed up for a lot of different roleplaying sessions. Here is how they went.
Some of the characters I played over the weekend.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition by Pazio: I played a half-elf rogue who was working with several other party members to help a merchant named Nelar in recovering some heirlooms from his family crypts. He was planning to sell them in order to save his business. The PF2 system was pretty straight forward. The gamemaster explained the differences in the rules and was very helpful. I liked how he used colored poker chips to represent each “bad guy” and then had a colored stand to represent where each person was in the initiative order. The adventure was very simplistic (get in, get past the defenses and get out) and I’m not certain if it was published or an original adventure. The GM was understanding when my paranoid PC brain went into effect. I thought that someone was attempting to stop us so that they could ruin the merchant’s business. The PF2 rules were not too bad and I’d be interested in playing more. A pre-generated character was used and I’ll probably make a character for the next Character Creation Challenge. I picked up a bunch of the books on PDF from a recent bundle sale. However I really wish that Pazio’s website didn’t suck when it comes to downloading the PDF purchases.
Alien by Free League: I’ve already mentioned meeting the author previously and how I wanted to try this game. When we first started, the large room used for RPGs at SaltCON was filling up. This resulted in more noise which ended up helping with the “lots of pressure” portion of the game since we were in uncomfortable situations. There were only two players for this session and we both played Colonial Marines. We were escorting a group of scientists and corporate flunkies to a new planet to explore. As you can imagine, we ended up running into Aliens, Engineers and Predators. I used a pre-generated character, but would have loved to use the character I had made earlier this year in the Character Creation Challenge. I would like to play this system in a campaign.
Dungeon Crawl Classics by Goodman Games: Yes I got to experience a zero-level funnel for this game. I had read about it previously and really wanted to try it. We were going through one of the printed adventures with a full table. It was very interesting attempting to use just the equipment that we were assigned before heading out on the adventure. I was attempting to make the surface under the feet of a summoned demon slippery by using the fine sand carried by a gravedigger. Eventually between all of the zero-level characters we were able to defeat the bad guy. I’d still like to play this system in a campaign.
Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition: This game was canceled due to the DM falling ill which was too bad because the adventure scenario sounded really fun. Hopefully the DM can run it at the next con. So I went over to the Dungeons and Dragons Adventures League table and created a 1st level dwarven fighter and jumped into an intro game. We had to track down some bandits that had attacked a caravan. The local league handed out some wooden tokens with logos on them for participating.
Mistborn by Crafty Games: I went into this session not knowing anything about the system or the original source material. I was hoping to learn about both. The books were set in a world were only the nobles were supposed to have magic, but you could get magic by sipping vials of liquid with metal flakes in them, or something like that. The system was really, really funky. The scenario was a murder mystery and our criminal gang was like a group of Leverage type characters, I think. We actually had some combat in the last 10 minutes of the game and it was really bad. I do not see myself playing this system in the future. When I made a character for John Carter of Mars, I was inspired to go download the John Carter books for my Kindle. I was not inspired to go look at the source material for this game.
James Bond 007 by Victory Games: Excellent game master with an excellent scenario. He was able to explain the rules quickly and answered any questions that we had. We played members of the ResQ branch of MI-6 and our job was to help James Bond complete his assignment (keep the bad guys away from him, help if something is incomplete or messes up) without him knowing that we are there. So we have to help fight the bad guys as well as keep undercover. There was an excellent group of players (including one that had never seen the Bond films). Now that I’ve had a chance to try the JB007 RPG system, I’m sad that I missed out on it. However, the Classified RPG is a retroclone of the James Bond game and the GM was using parts of that book.
Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius: This scenario was heavily inspired by Star Trek: Lower Decks. We were a band of misfits working together on a California-class starship under a drunk captain. I randomly drew the human helmsman that was fresh out of the academy (where he had annoyed his flight instructor). So I played the character as a kid with his voice breaking the entire game. I got compliments from the other players for that. It was also good to get another dive into the STA system and I’d like to be able to continue in a campaign and homebrew some items.
Artemis- Dominion War: This was a LAN computer game set up like a Star Trek bridge in one of the side rooms at the convention. One computer was set up for the engineer, another for weapons, science, helm, etc. I was asked to play the captain of an Excelsior-class starship trying to defend the Federation. All of the players were new to the game and I thought we did quite well for a bunch of newbies. This was my only non-RPG game of the weekend. Many thanks to the volunteers of the USS White Buffalo for putting this together.
GURPS by Steve Jackson Games: Yes, I gave a not-so-good review when I created a GURPS character in the last challenge, but the gameplay system itself isn’t too bad. If I don’t have to make a character, then I don’t mind playing. The GM ran us through a game set in the Aliens universe. It had a ton of action and we were either laughing at our jokes or running for our lives. I liked how the GM handed us equipment cards with our ammo limits on the cards. Every time we fired, we had to mark off the number of shots we had taken.
Cyberpunk RED by R. Talsorian Games: So I had played the classic Cyberpunk back when it first came out. I had even made a character for Cyberpunk v3.0 in a past challenge. It was interesting catching up with this universe (there had been a lot of changes from the previous products) and the GM ran it really well (he was the same GM that ran the James Bond game). I was impressed with the system and I’ve moved it up on my buy list. I know at least one friend who is/was playing this so I wonder if I could get into a campaign sometime in the future.
Final thoughts:
As I mentioned above, I had a lot of fun at SaltCON. I made sure to give some thanks to one of the organizers at the front desk before I left. I had picked up a con t-shirt as well and I’ve already purchased my ticket for the summer event. The spring event sold out and the summer event has even less tickets available. There are water bottle refill stations at the Davis Convention Center. The food sold at the concessions stand was not bad (and about average price) but I also brought a couple of snacks in my backpack to tide me over until I had a meal break. The con is very very heavy on the board game side that it seems to drown other games out (again it went years before I realized there was more than just D&D Adventures League there). Even the swap meet and flea market were 95-98% board games. I think I was lucky to find the three books that I did. I wonder what it would take to get more of an RPG presence in the swap meet or flea market? I’d hate to haul a bunch of books down only to find out that I brought the wrong things. I did like that the swap meet was set up with the game, a post it note with the price, contact info and venmo info for the seller. I could just text the person and get a confirmation that my purchase was complete.
When I was talking about the con online I had a few responses from Utah players saying “Wait? There’s a gaming con in Utah?” and I would provide some details. So hopefully there will be a few new attendees at future events. This event had 2,000 gamers and it was considered a sell out. I’ve been told that the con is always looking for GMs to run games in exchange for free admission (and the number of hours required was very reasonable). One friend even asked me if I wanted to run a game. But that goes back to my conundrum of “I want SaltCON to be my non-volunteer convention.” If I were to GM anything, I’d probably try to run something non-standard or out-of-print like the James Bond experience I was able to enjoy. There were a few people who came by to see if any openings had become available. You’d want to experience something at a convention that you don’t normally get a chance to play or do. A track of these games would really make the con stand out.
I was warned ahead of time to sign up for my games as soon as possible using the online scheduling system. The gaming schedules were a little weird when I was trying to coordinate my schedule with some overlapping preventing me from trying out a few systems. Games of a similar nature overlapping each other (two STA games within the same timeframe). I found out later that the GMs set their own times. I would hope that someone could coordinate to try to avoid the overlap. The one GM who ran Dune got a lot of “I wish I could have played” responses so he is planning more than one session for SaltCON Summer. I did like the fact that I could download the schedule to a calendar file that I could import into my Google calendar. I then had it at my finger tips when I needed to check what was coming up (or go back and read the original description).
I made some new contacts at the convention which was kewl. I’ve always felt that RPGs was a social interaction that was better experienced in person. I also had the opportunity to meet up with some gaming buddies that I hadn’t seen in a while. With one, we had 30 years of catching up to do. Besides trying out a few different systems I also got to see some techniques and tools in action. When I got home I had to order the 20in1 Card Deck from Precis Intermedia. I was also impressed with the Roll 4 Initiative Dry Erase Dungeon Tiles that was used by one GM. If I had found either one of these, or a copy of Cyberpunk RED, in the dealers room, I would have picked them up then.
The only real negative thing I’d probably say was the game room itself. As I mentioned above, it got really noisy at some times. During our James Bond game there was some sort of multi-table game going on where some in-game yelling was going on and we had to stop until the yelling had ceased. This really disturbed the other tables and probably should have been moved to another area.
I’m glad that SaltCON is here and I’m also glad that it is only a few miles away from where I live. It was very nice not to travel down daily to Salt Lake like I usually do for conventions down there. It was really good to roll the dice and have fun in a few games over the weekend.
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of March 6th through March 12th.
March 6 “We’re not gods! We’re not evil ones. We’re men, like yourselves.” Kirk- The Omega Glory, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“We can’t go back to the Borg Collective, and we no longer have a leader here.” Hugh “I’m not sure that’s true.” Picard “Perhaps in time, we will learn to function as individuals and work together as a group.” Hugh- Descent, Part II, Stardate: 47025.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 8 “I can’t begin to imagine your loss. But try to see beyond your desire for revenge.” Janeway “Revenge is all I have left.” Arturis “No. As long as you’re alive, there’s hope.” Janeway- Hope and Fear, Stardate: 51978.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 9 “Do you think because we have lunch together once a week, you know me? You couldn’t even begin to fathom what I’m capable of.” Garak “I’m a doctor. You’re my patient. That’s all I need to know.” Dr. Bashir- The Wire, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 10 “Counselor Deanna Troi, personal log, stardate 44805.3. My mother is on board.” Deanna Troi- Half a Life, Stardate: 44805.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Do you know that scotch was actually invented by a little old lady in Russia? Not many people know.” Chekov- Star Trek Beyond, Stardate: 2263.2 #StarTrek #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 12 “”From the library of Admiral Jonny Archer”?” T’Pol “I had high hopes when I was a kid.” Archer- Fusion, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
So I’ll be attending my first gaming convention in a very llllooonnnggg time. SaltCON is a gaming convention that has been running in Utah for years and will be running this weekend. However until recently, I thought it was just a convention for board games. Some friends would be running the Artemis spaceship bridge simulator (complete with lights, sound effects and more) so I’d stop by to help them set up or bring Seventh Fleet flyers. But I never stuck around, again thinking it was just board games. I don’t mind board games, they just are not my draw to a convention.
SaltCON in March is their biggest event (2,000+ attendees). They also hold smaller events in the summer (600 attendees) and late summer (800 attendees). So to my surprise, one of my friends was telling me about how he ran the Stargate RPG at the last convention. I was a little amazed actually and after some thinking (and before the ticket prices went up) I purchased my pass several months ago. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the upcoming con. I wanted to sit down and play as many role-playing games as possible. Thanks to the patience of the convention organizers (who responded to my emails in a timely manner) and the advice from some friends who had attended in the past, I was able to get several games reserved. I’m a little sad because the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium session filled up before I had a chance to grab a seat. But I was able to get seats for the following games.
-Pathfinder 2nd Edition (The scenario sounded interesting and it will give me a chance to check out this system)
–Alien (I’m really excited about this one, especially after meeting the game designer)
–GURPS (The adventure sounds like it is set in Aliens and I don’t have to make the character)
–Cyberpunk RED (I’ve never had a chance to try this new version yet)
Because of the time schedules, there were a couple of other games that were presented that I couldn’t fit in. These included Low Fantasy Gaming and Tiny D6 Frontiers. Perhaps I’ll be able to get in on a pick-up game when I have some free slots open during the con.
The very first “con” I went to was a gaming convention at a local library back in the late 80’s. I don’t recall if it had a name but I remember playing Dungeons and Dragons for several hours. In the early 90’s a local comic and gaming store called Comics Utah ran Kubla Khan for several years. Another gaming store (of a name that I can’t remember) ran several conventions in the mall they were in called WinterGameFest, SpringGameFest, etc. There was also gaming at the various CONduits in which I was able to sneak in a game or two. In a past website, I had a convention resume listed. I need to get that finished for the Blog of Holding.
So I will write up an after-action report when SaltCON is done to let you know how it went. I’ve been planning and prepping (backpack, dice, meals, books, etc.) for quite some time. I’m very grateful that the con is in my county (as compared to most cons in Salt Lake or other distant areas). It will be nice to sleep in my own bed each night after the convention.
Let’s roll some dice.
This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
Trying to make sure all the pieces are in place before going to SaltCon.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes Twitter account and the @STrekQuotes Mastodon account for the week of February 27th through March 5th.
February 27 “I had to be the best because only the best get to be here.” Sonya Gomez- Q Who, Stardate: 42761.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
February 28 “You sleep lightly, captain.” Vanna “Duty is a good teacher.” Kirk- The Cloud Minders, Stardate: 5818.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 1 “You only get one shot at the latinum stairway. If you miss it, you miss it.” Quark- Playing God, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Telling us why you’re going to fail before you make the attempt is never wise.” Dr. Crusher- The Ensigns of Command, Stardate: 43133.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“You made the logical choice.” Spock “Why doesn’t it feel that way?” Pike “For the same reason you made it: because you value life.” Spock- Memento Mori, Stardate: 3177.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“You realize, of course, if we give him the formula, we’re altering the future.” Dr. McCoy “Why? How do we know he didn’t invent the thing?” Scotty- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Stardate: 8390.0 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
March 4 “How come I always see you down here eating alone, Lieutenant?” Paris “I prefer to read rather than engage in… What do humans call it—short talk?” Tuvok- Ex Post Facto, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
Going through my past blog entries I realized that it’s been a while since I posted a batch of my homemade memes. Here are a few that I randomly pulled out of the “My Work” folder. If you are brave enough, you can see the past memes I’ve created here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI and Part VII. All of the entries in this post were created with MS Paint.
I’ve posted this on some of my social media sites and it has made the rounds on the internet. The look on Dr. McCoy’s face while holding the communicator made me think of the caption.
The only real reason I watch the Superbowl is to see the commercials. Companies spent a lot of money to show us the “best of the best” advertising. Sometimes they work really well, and sometimes they have wasted a lot of money. After the crypto commercials last year with the weird QR codes, I was surprised to see a lot of commercials with QR codes this year. So it inspired me to make this meme.
If you haven’t seen Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, go watch it now. Oh, are you back already? Good. This scene from the first episode was turned into a series of memes where the TV displayed different shows that Captain Pike could have been watching because it was a classic. I had to drop a scene from the Red Dwarf episode “Gunmen of the Apocalypse”. I received lots of compliments on this entry including the use of the letterbox. Honestly, it was just the way the picture fit on the screen.
I actually just made this meme an hour before posting this blog entry. I saw the pun on one of the newsletters I subscribe to and knew I had to meme it. Luckily I’ve been making meme blanks and this one stood out to me.
What are some of your favorite memes? Do any of my past memes stand out to you? I have a Jokes and Memes channel on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. Not only am I posting my latest memes there, but others have been sharing as well.
So another item that came up in January, but the review had to be pushed back to this month because of the Character Creation Challenge, was the arrival of a KickStarter reward. I’ve backed KickStarters before for RPG material (and I have a few that are scheduled to be delivered in 2023). In 2022 I backed an independent publisher who wanted to put out a series of bestiaries for OSR games. Specifically in the B/X flavor (which is a given since it’s in the title of the book). This was The BX Advanced Bestiary Vol. 1 by Third Kingdom Games.
From my KickStarter submission I received the hardbound book which is 133 pages long. The ISBN number is 2370011833927. The cover states that the contents are designed for use with the Old-School Essentials RPG but could be used with any OSR style system. The cover art and interior art are all black and white. The author, Todd Leback, was able to obtain artwork from eight different artists for all of the entries. There are also several house-rules that are made available for GMs to consider and an appendix with several items, optional player races (which are classes in this OSR).
This tome covers monsters from A-D (Ape, White to Dryad). The interesting thing is that each entry also contains variants of the different monsters. So the GM can keep the players on their toes. “What do you mean this boar has an iron hide?” The entry for the dragon is 18 pages long which covers information on ages, lairs, allies and types of attacks.
A sample of one of the dragon pages in the book
There are about 100 monsters contained within the pages of the BX Advanced Bestiary Vol. 1. I’ve been in contact with the author and he responded very quickly to any issues (one of the images was accidentally submitted as blurry due to low resolution, which he offered a replacement book with the imaged replaced). I am impressed with both the organization and the book itself. I’ve been told that there will be KickStarters for future volumes. I plan to back them as they are released since the support levels were very reasonable. This is the type of effort we should be supporting. Fans of the game producing materials for other fans to use.
What roleplaying game KickStarters have you backed? Tell me about them or ask any questions about this book on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord page.
With the Character Creation Challenge last month, I didn’t have the bandwidth to talk about the Star Trek eBook deals that Pocket Books offers. So here are the books for February 2023.
There are a lot of Star Trek: Picard books in this bundle. Probably because the third (and final) season of that series starts this month. If you haven’t seen the first episode yet, go watch it now. There are lots of good starship easter eggs and a very good music selection.
I’ve reviewed one of the books in this bundle. Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope. This is the first book in the series and one that I enjoyed reading.
These eBooks are available for 1.99 or 99 cents depending upon the series. Amazon is also doing a special where you earn points for each book you buy. This can lead to free books.