This week's newsletter comes with an avalanche of free books and another review.
Let's get started.
It comes that time of the year when one wants to celebrate, despite the pandemic. This month, the second edition of The Parallels is one year old. To celebrate the book's birthday, you can have a free copy from Smashwords. Just click here, or on the cover below and enter the code CL48P at checkout.
Don't waste time as free copies are limited.
And remember to leave a review once you're done reading.
A militia officer on the hunt for a murderer. A scientist with the key to humanity’s future. A girl in a glass tank with no memory. One seeking justice. One seeking fame. One seeking answers. With the galaxy on the brink of war, time is not on their side.
Aboard Hydra Station, Halazar vows to uncover the truth behind the murder of a friend and fellow officer. Saddled with an ambitious agent with authority over the investigation, she must choose between duty and justice.
Lanees, a human scientist, identifies a group of cells that may change the future of humanity. Her dream of fame seems to be coming true. However, her discovery draws the kind of attention that turns her life into a nightmare.
Meanwhile, in a secret lab on Rigel Prime, a human girl wakes up in a glass tank. With no idea of who or where she is, she struggles to understand her legacy in this strange, morose world.
Join them in their battle for survival.
This March Giveaway is dedicated to sci-fi space opera. All genre included. Click below to pick your free books/samples. There's time until the end of the month.
Enjoy this space adventure by Mike Coville, Space Walkers.
When you work on the surface of an asteroid, everyone's life is in your hands.
Jayden Curry returns to work on the Liwei Space Station after recovering from a devastating injury, but has he returned too soon? His nerves hold him back, his leg still hurts, and he has to choose to tell his team the truth and lose his spot, or keep it all to himself and hope he can push past it.
Last but not least, if you're curious about galactic bounty hunters, then Spit City Hustle by Rock Forsberg is the story for you.
Tristram Boxley, a disgraced captain of the Dawn Alliance Navy, struggles to make a living as a bouncer until a late-night encounter opens an opportunity. But even with his special ability—to stop time around him—life as a bounty hunter turns out less glamorous than his Smashwordschildhood hero made it seem... Join Tristram down in Spit City on an intense run for the bounty.
And finally here the promised review.
Before They Are Hanged is the second instalment of the First Law Trilogy. We find the characters where we had left them. My favourite one, the torturer Glokta is in Dagoka trying to discover what happened to his predecessor, vanished in mysterious circumstances and to save the city from the Gurkish’s siege.
Dandy Jedzal left for the Edge of the World with an improbable company, the magus Bayaz, Ferro the relentless former Gulkish’s slave, Ninefingers the ruthless mercenary, and Quai, the magus’ apprentice.
West is in the North trying to win a war on the second front, with the Crowned Prince Ladisla and a bunch of Northmen at his side.
I must say that once again Abercrombie delivers what promised. More torture, more crazy magical adventures, and more battles (even too many IMO, especially towards the end). Again, some people will love those chapters. Not me. Still, I read on because I couldn’t stop. This isn’t a book you can put down easily. But when I finished I was like, noooo. Is it already over? Why? Why? Why?
I wasn’t disappointed by Glotka’s path. He gets to a point where I expected him to go and makes several decisions that undoubtedly may bite his arse in the third book. His biting sarcasm is always a great joy to read. It kind of reminds me of myself.
The chapter ‘Allies’ has one of the most wonderful dialogues in the two books.
What kind of surprised me was West. However, that’s probably my fault. I dismissed his behaviour in the chapter ‘Nobody’s Dog’ in book 1 as total assholery and that was a mistake. It’s an unsettling character. Cathil, a girl who is following the army, describes him as ‘too angry for me’.
And now to what I didn’t like. Despite buying this edition on a different site from Amazon, I still found some typos and mistakes. I’ll add some screenshots below, just so you know that if that’s the kind of stuff you can’t handle when reading a book, this one’s not for you. This time, there wasn’t any issue with the formatting, so my reading was smoother than with the previous book (for reference to book one, here’s the review).
I’m having certain expectations about the future of some characters and I don’t know if I prefer to be surprised or disappointed. Probably the former.
All in all, this book was a page-turner exactly like the first one. On with book 3.
As a final gift here's an exclusive video from my last walk to the park nearby, where parrots multiply by the hundreds in the heart of Rome.