This week is dedicated to free books and a series of awesome science fiction authors. I know some of them personally. In addition to all this, you get another review from yours truly, and some pretty pictures of the new guests at the Damaers.
The books in this bundle are by authors whose books are available wide. In case you're wondering, wide is the term we authors use in opposition to books only available in Kindle Unlimited. Why is it so? Because Amazon imposes independent authors in KU to be exclusive to Amazon. And that's why you'll never find my books in Kindle Unlimited, but you'll find them at all online retailers.
You can click here and start downloading books any time.
Global terrorism. The declining population. An uncertain future.
Does the Sphinx hold the answers?
The leaders of the world have failed. War is spreading and no amount of negotiation will prevent what’s coming. Instead, the United States President turns his eye toward the find of the century.
Belkis Finch is hand chosen for the job of retrieving a long lost cache of documents. With his family in tow, they’ll uncover the mystery of the Sphinx in hopes it will lead to a brighter future.
But a discovery of this magnitude doesn’t go unnoticed. The head of a prominent terrorist organization lurks in the shadows, waiting for the perfect opportunity. The fun family adventure instantly takes a dangerous turn when he makes his move and all hell breaks loose.
Will hope for the future fall into the wrong hands? Find it out here.
When an unidentified vessel appears beyond Jupiter, both Earth and Mars begin a frantic race to claim it, aware that whichever planet succeeds might in so doing achieve advantage over the other. But who should they send? Joe Falcon would never consider himself the ‘right’ person. Drifting around the Asteroid Belt in a converted freighter, working as a surveyor and miner with a crew of oddballs and misfits who, like himself, are running away each from his or her own private demons, he cannot think of a single good reason why he should be the chosen one. But how could he not go?
When the surveyor Butterball rendezvous with the Visitor, Joe discovers a ship so immense, exploring its thousands of square kilometers of decks is unrealistic. As the alien vessel responds to his presence in wondrous yet frightening ways, not a trace of its inhabitants can be found. Virtually everything Joe and his team sees defies explanation, and little is what it appears to be. Joe soon realizes he and his crew are expendable and cannot take anything or anyone at face value, including the alien ship’s owners. And all the time, the crew is being watched and studied. Then humanity learns that this wondrous spacecraft is not their real problem. Never would Joe have imagined it would fall to him to make the decision that would alter the destiny of two worlds, launching humankind onto the path to a glorious future, or to extinction.
Falcon’s Call is an action packed dive into the unknown, written in the style of the great, classic, science-fiction stories. If you like surprising plot twists, compelling characters and a hero who actually cares, you must read this new novel by Mike Waller.
Get your copy here.
On mining Colony 52, it’s just another Christmas Eve. Or is it?
Deak is counting down the seconds until Christmas, the day he lost everything, when he’s interrupted by a soft knock on his door, and a cry for help. Will he answer the plea, or end his unbearable grief?
You can download this story from Sahara Foley here.
This week review's space is dedicated to book four of The Expanse, Cibola Burn, by James S. A Corey.
Cibola Burn, book 4 of The Expanse, deals with part of the consequences of the Ring connecting the solar system with thousands of new systems and potentially Earth-like planets. The first exoplanet ever explored by humans is Ilius, a planet rich in lithium. The UN sends a ship of scientists to analyse if the place can be hospitable in the long run and to what end, but when the ship arrives, they find a colony of Belters already settled there. Trouble is born even before the scientists land. Holden and the crew of the Roci are sent as mediators between the factions.
The story is good enough, thanks to the villains: the planet itself and Murtry, the security chief of the scientific mission. The latter is even worse than Ashford from book 3. But it is known, that a good story needs a well-written villain, otherwise it gets boring. So, what I mean by worse is that Murtry is a great villain. And so is Ilius. They're actual arseholes, and forgive me the French. This makes it even more interesting than the previous book, but nothing compared to book 2, so fare the best of all. We also meet again Havelock, Miller’s Terran colleague from book 1. He has a dedicated point of view, and as much as I wanted to like him, mostly for his connection to my beloved Miller, I found him less interesting than I hoped for as a character. He lets himself be influenced so easily that one wonders where are his (metaphorical) balls?
My take on this series so far is that I can’t stand the change of characters in each book. The good ones are just shadows by book three. It’s not that I don’t like books with multiple points of views. I do. So far, all the stories I wrote have multiple points of views. But the only consistency from book 1 onward is boring Holden, and I can’t stand the guy. So you see my problem.
Obviously, this is subjective to my dislike for Holden. Everyone who likes him, and I’m sure there are many fans out there, will love all the books one thousand per cent.
I'd give this book 3,5 stars if that were an option, so it'll get 4 thanks to Murtry and the thickening of the plot. We still don't know where the Protomolecule came from, who destroyed those aliens, nor why. I'm hoping to see more Miller in future books, although I know that's unlikely to happen in book 5. How do I know? At the time of writing this, I'm already halfway through book 5.
At last, I want to show you a collage of pictures of the Damaers' new guests and tell you a short story.
Thirteen years ago, Wall-e and Eva, two turtles, were born. Six months later, they joined the Damaers, and while Wall-e left us to leave in a private pond after a few years—he was too aggressive towards the little Eva—she stayed with us until she fared to other shores, that I like to call the Heaven of Turtles.
Today, we welcome Wall-e's first offspring. They will stay with us until they won’t be easy prey to natural predators. Then it’s back to the pond with father Wall-e and mom, whoever mom is.
We don’t know the gender because it’s too soon to see, but we decided to give them names nonetheless. I present you Nemo (the darkest one) and Dory. They're smaller than the already tiny ones pet shops sell. And we already love them.