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. Ghost Talker by Byrd Nash
This is the first of six books in the Madame Chalamet Ghost Mysteries, a gaslamp fantasy series. The other books are $2.99 to $4.99 each, and are not in Kindle Unlimited. This is the author’s first time on our Free Friday list.
From Maria Korolov:
Elinor — Madame Chalamet — is eating a very nice dinner at a very fancy restaurant in the most luxurious hotel in the city when she’s interrupted by a police officer — there’s a dead body she needs to look at immediately because of the duke’s interest in the victim. After observing all necessary social courtesies, she gathers up her skirts, goes up to her room and gets her equipment, then takes a horse-drawn carriage through the city to the morgue. I’m getting Sherlock Holmes vibes here if Sherlock Holmes was a very fastidious woman and could talk to ghosts.
Elinor is sarcastic, takes no guff from anyone, and is scrupulously polite when she discovers that the police also got a second ghost talker in to talk to the victim. This other medium is famous in high society, but Elinor considers her to be a fraud. Still, the other woman is very dramatic, and Elinor is taking mental notes.
The seance is going well. Elinor herself is creeped out, and wonders if maybe the other woman has some skill after all, and an apparition appears in the air. But then the duke grabs at it and it turns out to just be gauze. The other medium is exposed as a fraud in front of plenty of witnesses and is arrested.
Then it’s Elinor’s turn. She uses her tools to bring the dead man’s spirit back and gets it to say its name and show the last hour of its life.
But now she’s in trouble. She knows who the dead man is, and the duke can’t let her go.
I like this setting very much, and I like Elinor. And I have a long car ride ahead of me this weekend so I’m glad to have found some interesting reading material!
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
4. Stealing Time by K J Waters
This is the first of three books in the Stealing Time Series, a time travel adventure. The other two books are $4.99 and $5.99 each but are both in Kindle Unlimited. This is the author’s first time on our Free Friday list.
From Tim Fairman:
A young man suffering from arrested development drunkenly plans to record footage of an oncoming hurricane at a beach house. He ventures into the storm and is immediately confronted by Mother Nature. Elsewhere, Ronnie, who has just moved to Florida to be closer to her boyfriend, is celebrating her birthday as the hurricane makes its way to land. Her boyfriend plans a romantic sleepover at the secure lab where he works, but he has nefarious plans for Ronnie. Is he involved in some weird science?
The book promises to be historical fiction using time travel to send Ronnie back to eighteenth-century London, likely at the hands of her significant other. The prologue and first chapter hint at parallel narratives focused on Ronnie’s time in the past along with the hurricane taking place in 2004.
First impressions were positive for me, as the book thrusts the reader into a fast-paced, intriguing story with the man who wanders into the dangerous storm, followed by the tease of Ronnie being tricked by her boyfriend. The tone was conversational and humorous while setting up more sinister plans. There was some clumsy figurative language that didn’t quite land, and randomly placed horniness on behalf of Ronnie, but the overarching setup piqued my interest.
Verdict: I’m a sucker for time travel, so I’m wandering into the eye of the storm with Ronnie.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
3. Apollo’s Raven by Linnea Tanner
This is the first of four books in the Curse of Clansmen and Kings romantic fantasy series. The other books are $4.99 each and are not in Kindle Unlimited. This author has been on our Free Friday list before.
From E.S. Foster:
Set in Britannia during the Roman occupation in AD 24, the story opens with Catrin, a princess and daughter of King Amren. He’s one of the kings designated to power by the Roman occupiers. Princess Catrin has been plagued by dreams of a bleeding, skull-shaped moon. She’s been trained to wield weapons in war, though her hope is to become a Druidess, something her father forbids.
It’s clear, however, that Catrin has some sort of magical connection to the world because a huge black raven acts as her physical and spiritual guide as she trains. Catrin is even able to see through the raven’s eyes as it flies overhead. One day while guarding the Britannic coast with her sister, Catrin and her raven spot a fleet of warships appearing along the horizon. Her half-brother, Marrock, who was banished several years ago, has returned with a vengeance. But just before Catrin can alert anyone, she’s pulled through a magic portal, but this portal only sends her back to where she was just standing. It’s not immediately clear what happened other than there’s magic at work. Nobody, including her sister Mor, believes her, but a war fleet does, in fact, appear along the coast. Unfortunately, it’s the Romans, and they only recognize Marrock as king.
Catrin eventually discovers that she and Marrock are two parts to an ancient curse cast by a Druidess long ago, and now that she’s been trained to wield a blade, Catrin needs to figure out how to keep her family safe from herself and Marrock.
I haven’t read too much historical fantasy, but I love the idea of a protagonist engaged in avoiding a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy. Additionally, combining this idea with ancient Celtic history and mythology sounds amazing. I also enjoyed Catrin’s bravery and how she kind of sticks out from the rest of her family. It’s clear that she’ll be doing a lot of self-exploration and finding her place as the series progresses.
If you enjoy fantastical history with a touch of romance, I recommend giving this series a try.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
2. Elemental Hall: Nautica by Morgan Rice
This is the first of five books in the Elemental Hall romantic fantasy series by a USA Today bestselling author. The other books are $3.99 to $4.99 each and are not in Kindle Unlimited. This author has been on our Free Friday list before.
From E.S. Foster:
We begin with Sera, a young woman who is out diving for clams off the remote island she and her family live on. After completing her task, she retreats to her boat, only to get caught in a storm. But before her boat can capsize, she touches some of the waves coming up and the water starts to calm down. Soon the storm is completely gone.
When she returns to the shore, her mother introduces her to a mysterious man. He explains he’s from Elemental Hall, a strange magic academy where students are trained in all forms of elemental magic. Sera realizes that he is the one who caused the storm.
At first, Sera isn’t too thrilled about randomly leaving home. But it’s either that or spend the rest of her life fishing and getting married to a man she doesn’t know.
So she sets sail to get to the academy. When she gets there, the same man greets her and tells her that she’s late. Also, classes started weeks ago. Sera has to hurry to find her classes and her own room despite having no idea where to go or what to do. On her way, she meets Aria, who explains that a challenge is about to take place, something students can’t miss.
Sera and Aria reach the area where the challenge is being held. Without much thought, one of the teachers announces that Sera will go first. She’s forced to dive into the water to complete whatever task is in store for her. But she finds out she can breathe underwater, so that’s a plus. So begins a battle against humanoid angler fish. Sera not only comes out of it alive, but it looks like she’s got the makings of a good student at the academy.
So this book moves really fast. I made it three chapters in, and Sera learns all about the academy, travels there by boat, and competes in her first challenge. I never really got to know the characters or the world, as the story was much more plot-focused. I don’t think I’ll continue with this one.
Get the Kindle ebook free from Amazon here.
1. Star Scavenger by G. J. Ogden
This is a complete box set of all five books in the Star Scavenger Series, a space opera series. The books are normally $3.99 each but are all in Kindle Unlimited. This author has been on our Free Friday list a few times. The box set is part of a series of eight box sets, called the G J Ogden Space Opera Sci-Fi Box Sets, priced between $0.99 and $9.95 each. All the box sets are in Kindle Unlimited.
From Melody Friedenthal:
Star Scavenger begins with a prologue. In it, readers learn that an unnamed “great ship” – a phrase used over and over, to my exasperation – has purged dozens of species, but one has survived. Which, apparently, is us humans, who live on Earth and Mars.
An AI has observed this purge and hopes that the lone remaining System will remain hidden from the ship.
In chapter one, we’re introduced to our protagonist, Powell, a spacecraft pilot and smuggler chaser. Powell is a new recruit to the Relic Guardian Force, and now he’s chasing a relic hunter through space. Apparently, the smuggler has forgotten to pay his or her taxes…
Also in the spacecraft is Powell’s trainer, Griff, a cool customer, who likes to sneer at his student while smoking cigarettes in their spaceship. Hmmm.
Powell has decided that Griff is corrupt – maybe more so than the smugglers they hunt. Griff intends to ignore protocol and kill the smuggler without giving him a chance to surrender. But the smugglers do surrender – and Griff shoots them anyway. Result: three dead smugglers and Griff gets ownership of the smuggler’s cargo.
So we have a hero and an antagonist.
Powell concludes he’s made a serious career mistake, despite the excitement of working in space.
He also lives on a different world, on the far side of a wormhole from Earth. The first, accidental, human travelers through the wormhole had found this inhabitable planet and on it, a crashed alien spacecraft. No aliens, though – it’s been dead a long time. But humans mined it for technological secrets. Soon more wormholes were found and, in Powell’s time, the passage through them became commonplace.
Which led to smugglers hunting for alien tech and others hunting for smugglers. And people like Griff making personal profit from the findings.
There’s a lot of technobabble and exposition in chapter two.
Despite the heavy exposition, I think this book has possibilities and if I had more time, I would likely read more.
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!
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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 at her blog, E. S. Foster.
Tim Fairman lives in Iowa with his wife and three sons. He's been neglecting his love of fiction writing for too long, so he's back pursuing his passion.
Melody Friedenthal is a librarian at a public library and a copyeditor for MetaStellar. In her spare time she's the chief bottle-washer for To Tell A Tale Writers' Group and is an affiliate member of the SFWA. Her work has been published in Tales From Shelf 804: an anthology, N3F, Bardsy, MetaStellar, and New Myths. She believes writing is a gateway drug, alpacas are cute, and dark chocolate is heaven.