Did you know that Amazon has a list of the top-selling and free sci-fi and fantasy books? The list changes constantly — authors and publishers set their books to free temporarily to promote their work, and, of course, books move up and down in the rankings. Read on to find your fun free read for this weekend! And grab the books quickly because they don’t always stay free for long.
This week’s list is completely different from those of the previous weeks. So if you’re a fan of free books, there are going to be new things to read all the time. If you want to get this list in your inbox every Friday afternoon, subscribe to the MetaStellar weekly newsletter.
There are a lot of books to go through, so this week I’m being helped out by another member of our MetaStellar community. If you’d like to join me in doing these reviews — and taping our regular Free Friday videos — email me at maria@metastellar.com.
5. Whispers by Derek Banas
This is a standalone science fiction novel by a first-time author. It’s also the author’s first time on our Free Friday list.
From Maria Korolov:
The book opens with a prologue. A father is driving a rusty 1970s Chevrolet, with his wife in the passenger seat, his sons in the back, trying to find a parking spot at the fair. One of the boys is running a scam on the other, in an attempt to win a new bike. There’s going to be a helicopter dropping yellow tennis balls, and one of the boys tricked the younger one, David, into promising to give all the balls to him.
But there’s an accident. The helicopter gets tangled in power lines and crashes into the crowd.
David, who’s only five, gets scared and runs into the woods to hide, and stays there for two days.
Then we jump ahead in time. David is about to go to college. He still suffers from PTSD. He’s been hiding in a computer ever since the tragic day and is now a bit of a computer genius. Then we see David at college. He’s attending Penn State. He meets his new roommate, they go out for a burger, and David meets a cute waitress. The roommate is really cool and they bond over their bad childhoods.
During the meal, the roommate gets a phone call. Then we switch to the roommate’s point of view. He’s reporting on David to someone, and that someone says that David’s mother and brother will be dealt with — and that the roommate must gain David’s trust. Oh, oh.
Then we see David in one of his computer classes, where a group of other boys picks on him. In the next chapter, he goes to his philosophy class, and again the same group of boys is here, and again they pick on him.
When I was in college, none of the students in my classes overlapped, unless we planned ahead of time to take the same classes together.
Then he goes to his math class — and again those same boys are there. What are the odds? This is Penn State. It’s not a small school.
Then we switch to the viewpoint of one of the bullies. He pulls out a cellphone and talks to someone about what David is up to. So it’s not a coincidence. David is literally being followed by enemies and they’ve deliberately enrolled in the same classes he’s in. Which is a little weird, since he’s in advanced classes with, I presume, lots of prerequisites, not giant freshman courses.
But despite this mounting tension, this book starts too slowly for me — I’m a few chapters in and nothing sci-fi-ish has happend yet.
So I read the next chapter.
David meets with a professor who’s curious about how David was able to test out of so many courses and who quizzes David on math and algorithms, then offers him a job. His first challenge is to find a way to transfer knowledge into someone’s mind without wires and without them knowing and he offers David a ridiculously low amount of money — a few thousand dollars — to figure out this huge thing that nobody has yet been able to do.
Plus, it sounds more like a biology or medical challenge than a mathematics one. It’s a very, very weird question for a professor to ask. But at least it’s sci-fi-ish.
However, I’m not connecting with David as a character, even though I am a big fan of computer nerds, so I don’t think I’ll be sticking with the book.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
4. Shield-Maiden: Under the Howling Moon by Melanie Karsak
This is the first of nine books in The Road to Valhalla myth and legend fantasy series by a New York Times bestselling author. The other books are $0.99 to $9.99 each and are in Kindle Unlimited. The author has been on our list before.
From Maria Korolov:
Hervor is a warrior who lives with her mother and grandfather and the rest of her extended family. Her grandfather is the Jarl, a local leader. She does not have a good relationship with him, but saves his life, and that of the other family members, when they’re attacked in the middle of the night.
Despite her prowess with her axes, her grandfather wants her to do womanly, feminine things — and her actions saving his life won’t change his mind.
But Odin has given her a dream, a dream of a dwarven sword. As soon as her cousin Leif is back from the king’s court she plans to join him when he goes out on his raids.
I like Hervor. She’s tough and focused, she’s got great skills. She’s been going up into the mountains to train with a woman warrior who lives by herself, with her two pet bears. And I love the world-building here. The Norse setting really comes alive.
I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book.
Get the ebook free from Amazon here.
3. Outside by Shalini Boland
This is the first of three books in the Outside young adult dystopian series by a USA Today bestselling author. The other two books are $3.99, and they are both in Kindle Unlimited. This is not the author’s first time on our Free Friday list.
From E.S. Foster:
The story begins in a dystopian Britain and a mysterious woman driving down a dirt road. Something thumps against her car, and she realizes that she might have hit someone. However, she refuses to stop because people pretend to be injured to steal other people’s cars and supplies while on this road.
We then meet Riley, a young girl living with her parents in the Perimeter, a type of complex meant to protect everyone from the outside world. Riley has lived there her entire life, ever since British civilization collapsed and everything fell into chaos.
Her parents inform her that her younger sister has just died. Her friend Luc discovered her body the day before, and he was arrested as a suspect. One of the many guards patrolling the area informs Riley that nobody believes her sister’s death was an accident, and Riley is desperate to find out more.
Luckily, Luc is released after the police discover the real culprit. It turns out that the man was an outsider who had sneaked into the Perimeter from underground. Before he can be punished, he escapes his confinement.
Shaken by all the events, Riley tries to prepare for Skye’s funeral, but she also vows to catch the killer. She decides to enlist Luc’s help, and they prepare to leave the safety of the walls.
I loved the premise of this story. The idea that a confined dystopia isn’t as safe as the characters thought it was really upped the stakes for me. This story does move really fast at certain points, but all in all, I want to keep reading to find out more!
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
2. Hollow Court by Robin D. Mahle and Elle Madison
This is the first of two books in The Lochlann Deception romantic fantasy series by a pair of USA Today bestselling authors. The other book is $4.99 and both are in Kindle Unlimited. The series is related to the four-book The Lochlann Treaty Series, and the four-book The Lochlann Feuds series. This is the authors’ first time on our Free Friday list.
From E.S. Foster:
The story begins with a flashback to Davin, a young man currently being assaulted by a group of enemy soldiers on a castle rooftop. Lady Galina shows up and the soldiers flee, but Davin isn’t too happy that Galina came to his rescue.
He absolutely hates her, and the feeling appears to be mutual. It turns out that Galina only stopped the soldiers from killing Davin because the ties between their kingdoms are already threatened. Davin is only there because he and his cousin were kidnapped. In response, he says he owes her a life debt, but neither of them really takes the oath seriously.
A year and a half later, Galina is betrothed to Alexei, but she sees it more as captivity and the imminent loss of her freedom. Davin, on the other hand, had a change in fortune. His cousin is now queen of Galina’s kingdom, putting him back in high status. Though his birthright is still being challenged, he’s more concerned with whether Galina will arrive because that’s the last thing he wants.
They end up running into each other at some point during a ball. They hide their disdain for each other, but Alexei is furious that Galina spoke to another man. He abusively reminds her that she belongs to him when they return from the event.
Now Galina only has one thing on her mind: escape. The only problem is that she needs Davin’s help to keep from upending the royal court.
As much as I’m not a fan of romance, I kind of enjoy enemies-to-lovers. I especially liked this one because it was wildly entertaining to watch Davin and Galina try to avoid each other. Since it was so entertaining, I look forward to reading more of the story and finding out what happens.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
1. Man, True Man by Mari Collier
This is the first of three books in The Chronicles of Tonath sci-fi series. The other two books are $2.99 each, and they are not in Kindle Unlimited. This is the author’s first time on our Free Friday list.
From Maria Korolov:
The book opens with a spaceship being pulled apart by two conflicting dimensions. There’s one man aboard, and he gets into a scouting craft and escapes to a planet, that, mysteriously, is able to exist inside this anomaly. Scanners show that it’s safe for human life.
He’s plummeted to the planet’s ocean and is barely able to get out before the waves slam his craft into rocks. The waves carry him to shore, cracking his head against the rocks.
He pulls himself to safety, and notices that his hands are caked with blood and there’s a cut on his head. Then he realizes thathe doesn’t know who he is. All he knows is that he needs to get someplace safe.
He knows that he has to find water, and he follows an animal trail through the forest until he comes to a spring. By instict, he finds mosses and wraps them around his wounds. He catches, and skins an animal, makes a fire, and cooks it.
Then he’s found by two locals, primitive green men on horseback, who attack him. He fights back and kills both of them, then steals one of the horses.
It’s a tense, exciting beginning. Who is this guy? Why did he comes to this planet? What is he running from? Who are the people living here? What are these two dimensions the planet is stuck between?
In the next chapter, we meet Brother John, a monk in the Brotherhood of the Way. He meets a wagon train. One of the wagons has a human in it, a man with wounds on his head and arm and arrows in his back and thigh. That must be the mystery man from the first chapter.
Brother John has the wounded stranger taken to the Healing Quarter.
When the injured man wakes up, he’s being tended to by a Dr. Crossen. At first, the man doesn’t understand what Dr. Crossen is telling him. His words were gibberish — but then they rearranged themselves into a language. Dr. Crossen tells him that he’s not human because he has two hearts, and if anyone finds out, he’d be in great danger.
The doctor is a prisoner of the monks, kept there because he committed the heresy of questioning their teachings. So he’s willing to thumb his nose at them.
The doctor asks the man his name, and warns him that it better be something normal and pronounceable. But the man can’t remember his name, or who he is.
Over the next few chapters we learn more about this society, their religion, and their hatred of the Greenies — the primitive people we saw in the first chapter. They have a more advanced technology than the Greenies, including, for the past thirty years, railroads and freighters.
The monks decide to name the mystery man Loren.
And the Teacher, the head guy, has to decide whether Loren is a prophesied savior — the True Man — or an enemy.
Loren just wants to be allowed to leave, so he can find work and repay the monks for saving him.
I like this book very much. It reminds me a bit of Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. I think I’ll stick with it.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
See all the Free Friday posts here. Do you have other free books for us to check out? Comment below or email me at maria@metastellar.com.
Have you read any of these books? Are you planning to? Let us know in the comments!
Or watch Maria and Emma discuss all five books in the video below:
MetaStellar editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist, writing stories set in a future virtual world. And, during the day, she is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@metastellar.com. She is also the editor and publisher of Hypergrid Business, one of the top global sites covering virtual reality.
E. S. Foster is a writer and graduate student at the University of Cambridge. Her work has been featured in a variety of literary journals and small presses. You can find out more about her and what she does on her blog, E. S. Foster and her personal website E. S. Foster - Author