Free Friday: Today’s top free Amazon sci-fi and fantasy books for July 19, 2024

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 a couple of other members 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. The Emerald Queen by J.W. Webb

This is the first of three books in The Journeyman Trilogy, an epic fantasy series. The other books are $.99 and $3.99 each, but are both in Kindle Unlimited. Book two is The Voyage of Carlo Sarfe. Book three, The Sea God’s Woman, will be released at the end of this month and is available for preorder. This is the author’s first time on our Free Friday list.

From Maria Korolov:

While this book is the first book in its trilogy, it’s also listed as the seventh book in the Legends of Ansu series. Based on the author’s chronology, Gol is the first book in the entire series, though Gray Wolf seems to be the first book by publication date — and also happens to be free today. I’d pick that one up, if I was you, if you’re interested in epic fantasy series with lots of books in them.

But back to The Emerald Queen.

The book opens with Ariana, a young queen who has nightmares at night because ruling a country comes with a price. There was a war seven years ago, that the queen won against great odds and freed people from a sorcerer. Now the only thing threatening her is assassins, so she sleeps with a knife.

Her husband, the queen’s consort, thinks that the dreams — and the sudden onset of bad weather — are caused by a goddess waking up inside Ariana. But Ariana says that the goddess is completely dead.

All of this seems to be in reference to earlier books.

She gets up and heads off to a deserted ancient temple. Nobody worships there anymore since the gods are dead. But now she’s not so sure that they are. She goes inside and prays to her own goddess, and asks for a sign. The goddess answers, with a bright light that shakes the temple and the surrounding city.

In the next chapter, we meet Tam, who lives in a villa in the City of the Clouds, and can see the mad emperor’s palace from his window. Tam is an alcoholic, because of his guilt over the horrible things he did seven years ago. His wife is torn with worry. Tam leaves for a nighttime walk, and his wife is alone in the villa when intruders come in and attack her.

When Tam come back, he finds the villa’s door open, and signs of a fight. There are two dead men in his wife’s room, but she herself is missing.

I like the writing style and the pacing here, very old-school epic fantasy. I’ll keep this series on my reading shelf.

My recommendation? Pick up The Emerald Queen and Gray Wolf today since they’re both free. Start reading with Gray Wolf, and, if you like the author’s style, get the rest of the books — or grab them through Kindle Unlimited, if you’re a subscriber. That’s what I’m going to do.

Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.

4. The Farthest Star by A.R. Knight

This is the first of three books in The Far Horizons science fiction adventure series. The other books are $4.99 each and are not Kindle Unlimited. The author has been on our Free Friday list before.

From Tim McHugh:

This book takes place on a starship traversing the galaxy in the far future. It seems to follow a plot that I’ve seen many times before, a deep space journey gone wrong, but with a twist: our main character is a robot. Usually I prefer my sci-fi to take place on a distant planet or in a dystopian world. Here we have a plot contained to a single space ship so I’m not the main audience for this one.

The first three chapters move at a slow pace but do a good job setting up the plot and our main characters. We start with Gamma, an android that wakes on the ship, who is not exactly sure why he’s there and is trying to figure it out. There are no humans in the crew and it falls to Gamma to figure out what he has to do. We follow him as he learns to use his mechanical body.

We meet a few more characters along the way, including The Librarian and Kaydee. The Librarian helps to enlighten Gamma a bit as to his role on the ship, while Kaydee seems to have different motivations. The first few chapters don’t do much to move the plot forward but as the book goes on we will follow Gamma as he tries to complete the currently unknown goal of the spaceship while the others act towards their own ends.

The writing in this book is very good, it flows well and the author is smooth with his descriptions. The pacing is very slow at the start, the plot has not moved forward much in the chapters that I read, but I expect the pace to pick up once Gamma understands his functions.

I’m not going to stick with this one, but if you like unique space travel stories, you’ll probably like this one.

Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.

3. Skyborne: School of Combat by Taylor Night

This is the first of five books in the Skyborne epic fantasy series. The other books are $2.99 to $4.99 each, and are not in Kindle Unlimited. The last three books in the series are scheduled to be released later this year but are all available for preorder. This is the author’s first time on our Free Friday list.

From E.S. Foster:

The story opens with Elyra, a young girl who lives on a farm with her mother. But as it happens, their barn is about to burn down. Elyra rushes inside in time to save one of the livestock, but as she gets home, she finds her mother distraught. A letter from the Skyborne Academy just arrived, recruiting Elyra whether she likes it or not.

So this girl is definitely not having a good day.

It turns out that Skyborne students are all recruited for their special abilities or because of their noble lines. All students are trained in combat, becoming soldiers to fight against the country’s rival kingdom. Elyra has no idea what special abilities she has, but her mother refuses to elaborate.

After saying goodbye, Elyra walks to the Skyborne Academy. She’s invited inside, finds her room, then enters a hall to be welcomed by the Grand Master. She’s also the immediate target of a group of bullies since she comes from a village. Luckily, another student, Caspian, comes to her defense. It looks like she might have a friend here while she’s trained in magic.

I will start off by saying I like the idea of this piece. I get the feeling that not everything is what it seems. But the prose moves very quickly, and I noticed a couple of typos. With everything moving so fast, I didn’t have a chance to really get to know the characters, though I did like what I learned about the world. All in all, I don’t think I’ll continue with this story.

Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.

2. The Awakening by Nora Roberts

This is the first of three books in The Dragon Heart Legacy romantic fantasy series by a New York Times bestselling author. The other books are $4.99 and $12.99 and are not in Kindle Unlimited. This is the author’s first time on our Free Friday list.

From Maria Korolov:

I know Nora Roberts is super popular — and I’m a big fan of her In Death sci-fi mystery series, which writes under the J.D. Robb pen name. But when I think of Nora Roberts, I think of mainstream romance, and I’m not a fan of things romantic. Personally, I’m more of a fan of things pointy and deadly.

But this book has dragons right there in the series title, and I do love dragons.

It opens with a prologue. Six hundred people, men and women, all members of a clan that had just lost their leader, are getting ready to dive into a lake. The one who finds a sword will become the new leader. One of them is Keegan. He promised the old leader that he would try, so he plans to dive deep, and take up the sword if it should happen to come to his hand. Then he sees the face of a woman, perhaps a mermaid, and hears her voice in his head, telling him that the sword is his.

The sword leaps into his hand. He considers dropping it, because he doesn’t know how to lead. He knows how to fight, how to train, and how to fly, but not how to lead others.

But the mermaid tells him that the old leader believed in him. So he tightened his grip on the sword, pointed it upward, and it carried him out of the lake and up into the air.

This section is very powerfully written, and the setting is fully realized and full of magical detail.

Then, in chapter one, we jump to present-day Philadelphia.

Breen, who teaches language arts to middle schoolers is on a bus home from work. It’s Friday, and she’s looking forward to her two days off. Except for the fact that she’d be spending most of them grading papers. She hates teaching.

Then she sees a man who looks deep into her. Who looks familiar. He makes her mouth go dry, and she’s terrified that he’d sit next to her. She stands up, to get off the bus, and brushes past the man on her way out.  When her arm bumps his, she hears a voice in her head, telling her that it’s time to come home.

She gets anxiety attacks. She had one the night before the first day of school. And one before her first parent-teacher conference. And she must have imagined the voice.

But it’s a nice day for a walk, and she’s got time. She decides to go to her mother’s house, pick up the mail and sort it, water the plants — her mother is out of town — then catch the next bus home. At her mother’s house, she opens a window, and an unexpected gust of wind blows in and scatters papers around her mother’s office. She starts picking them up and sorting them to file them away — and discovers that her mother has been managing an investment account for her, with nearly four million dollars in it. She immediately calls the investment company and demands to see somebody. She learns that her father had set up the account for her years ago, just before he disappeared. She could have used it to pay for college, instead of scraping by while working multiple jobs. She demands to have her mother’s name taken off the account.

Good for her. I like her very much.

I’m definitely sticking with this book.

Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.

1. A Hundred Breaths by Jean M. Grant

This is the first of three books in The Hundred Trilogy, a romantic fantasy series. The other books are $4.99 each, and are not in Kindle Unlimited. The third book will be released this coming December, but is available for preorder. This is the author’s first time on our Free Friday list. Each book can be read on its own.

From E.S. Foster:

This story takes place in Northern Scotland in the 1200s. The Norse Vikings have just invaded. Gwyn, the daughter of a powerful leader, wants to flee to avoid any bloodshed, but her father has different ideas. He would rather stay and continue fighting.

She dreams about escaping to the isles where Ancients, her own race of people, can live freely. She also wants to protect her brother, who is blind and seen as a disappointment by her father. As a Healer, Gwyn wants to cure her brother’s blindness, but it’s a huge undertaking and an act that would literally suck some of the life out of her.

Her sister, a Seer, predicts that they will succeed against the Norse, but not everyone in their household will make it out alive. She tells Gwyn she must choose who lives and who dies.

We then see things from Simon’s perspective. He’s one of the Norsemen invading Gwyn’s land, but despite the Norse’s plans to conquer, he only wants to find a Healer for his mother. It just so happens that the most skilled healer in the area is Gwyn’s mother. Simon’s father already plans to kill Gwyn’s father, so Simon hopes to take advantage of this.

Gwyn and her sister return home. While her mother believes they should do nothing, her father heads to meet the Norsemen. Gwyn is forced to watch while her sister informs her who she sees is going to die.

But once the fighting starts, Gwyn rushes in to use her healing abilities on the wounded, no matter which side. The battle eventually comes to a halt when one of the leaders tries to negotiate. To protect her brother from her father, Gwyn decided to make a deal: turn herself over to the Norsemen to help protect her brother. It turns out that she and Simon are going to have to work together to get what they want.

I haven’t read too much historical fiction, but I love learning about medieval times and reading Norse legends. I loved the idea of a Healer potentially sacrificing themselves to save someone else and the moral implications of that. So if you like historical fantasy with a dash of romance, I recommend this series.

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:

Maria Korolov

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.

Tim McHugh

Tim McHugh writes sci-fi and fantasy. Though he currently works full time in the software industry, he has a love for stories with grey characters and moral ambiguity that tell us something about the world. His book A Voice for the Scavengers is now available on Amazon.

E. S. Foster

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 at her blog, E. S. Foster.