Free Apocalyptic Books (sixteen)

Same drill. These are free. But only for right now. If you want them get them now.

1) APOCALYPTIC ODDITIES by Terry McDonald

2) The Church Peak Hotel by Eric James

3) The Mall by Bryant Delafosse

 

FORRRR SCIENNNCEEEE!!!!

that is all

Free Apocalyptic Books (fifteen)

The original idea for posting free apocalyptic kindle format book came from freezombiebooks. There is sad news:

Friday, March 1, 2013

I have some bad news. Amazon recently made some changes to its affiliate program, making it impossible for sites like this one to make money. If this site makes no money, I can’t spend time working on it. As such, this site will no longer be updated.
 
I’d like to think that FreeZombieBooks.com has helped provide enough reading material to keep even the most hardcore zombie fan busy for a long time to come.

Thanks,
Tristan

Never worry constant readers. I was never in this for profit and my blog will never have ads. Links posted are to things I find relevant (or silly/random on occasion). The intent was to post free books weekly. Problem is apocalyptic writers don't post their books for free often so I'll continue to post as I  find enough good free ones to make a post worthwhile.

As always these are free. But they are kindle format only. Also I have no idea how long they will remain free so download them now.

1. C-Shapes by Matthew Fish and E. Isabelline

2. Arena One: Slaverunners (PART ONE) (Book #1 of the Survival Trilogy) by Morgan Rice

3. The Days and Months We Were First Born- The Unraveling (Book 1 of 3) by Christopher Hunter 

4. Hard Winter The Novel by Neil Davies

5. Zombie Bitches From Hell: An Apocalyptic Horror by Zoot Campbell (hats off to you Tristan and thanks)

Musical Interlude the Twenty-Eighth

I'm not a religious  person at all, however, I do enjoy the apocalyptic fiction of The Revelation of St. John. The following is a sample song from the double album from Aphrodite's Child, 666. The album is a musical interpretation of Revelations.I give you 'Loud, loud, loud'

'The day the cars will lay in heaps
their wheels turning in vain,
we'll run along the empty highways
shouting, screaming, singing
loud, loud, loud, loud.'

Free Apocalyptic Books (fourteen)

You know the drill. These are free but might not be for long. Get hoppin, some of these freebees have been real gems.

1. After The Ending (The Ending Series) by Lindsey Pogue

2. Extensis Vitae by Gregory Mattix

3. Playing God by Douglas Moore

4. Eidolon: The Thousand Years Ghost by Jenessa Grimm

5. The Man Who Saved Two Notch by R.W. Ridley

6. Kikaffir - a Black Comedy by Ian Martin

Spotted randomly

Have you ever found yourself so deep in a costume that it takes several views of a photo before you even recognize yourself? Happened to me just recently. Me, out in public, wearing the street sign armor and a spiked antlered colander. And looking just filthy as well.





Photo via Vaillancourt Photography

Vardan Partamyan The After/Life

The theme of this book is one that very familiar to me and if you read apocalyptic fiction in any sort of regular fashion it will be immediately recognizable to you as well. Raven is a small boy and is aware that the news has been filled with an ever increasing volume of news stories that are very alarming to his parents and that they are worried and becoming more worried with each passing day. But he is not worried. Raven makes light of the whole thing with humor and intimation of the panicky voices he hears. Then one day at school the television gives the alert signal and the bombs drop.

After that the vast majority of the book takes place inside a vast and well apportioned nuclear bunker. This follows well known (and loved) PA themes that you'd find in books like Wool by Hugh Howey and The City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau and to a lesser extent What Niall Saw by Brian Cullen. It the placement of the bunker that made the story so different. It's the setting itself that I connected with.

When the bomb dropped Raven was at school. The bunker he was hustled into was hidden beneath the school. How the school came to have a giant state of the art bunker complete with a vast garden, a large armory, a barnyard full animals, as well as all the food needed to feed the residents of the bunker is not really explored. Raven does mention his surprise at its existence but he doesn't know either.

The interesting thing about the bunker being under a school is that all the adults were either teachers or were the administrative staff. So as the fledgling society begins to coalesce it chooses its leadership on those lines. The leader is known as The Principal, Teachers take on teaching duties as well as a political position. As children grow up in the School and graduate they take a test. If they score well enough they are trained as Teachers. If they don't score well they take other jobs that need to be done in the School grounds (the bunker).

Things go fairly well until Raven hears a radio signal. He tells his girlfriend and she goes apeshit. Soon after that there is an uprising, a new Principal takes the helm, and soon things spiral out of control. In the back of his mind Raven is wondering if the world outside is really as bad everyone thinks or if he's been trapped and locked away for no good reason.  

All in all a great book. Read very quickly and I wanted more. Here's hoping the you write the sequel Verdan ... and if so I stand ready to read and review it. Cheers.

Final thought: The giant radioactive squid monster was fantastic ... loved that part.

Musical Interlude the Twenty-Seventh

I really want to believe that this song is about the movie I adore so much: Miracle Mile. I want to believe that 'Get outside, get all around the world' is where Harry and Julie board the helicopter.

I want to think that this part is Julie and Harry talking in the elevator and that the last part 'come up for air' is alluding to the ending.

I'd be alright if I could just see you
Come up for air, come up for air
A miracle mile, where does it lead to?
Come up for air, come up for air


Your 'mileage' may vary. Enjoy.

I give you Miracle Mile by The Cold War Kids.

The Electric Church by Jeff Somers

'Gantz and I wandered, keeping the dirty river on our left and letting her keep us in her sight., until we were on a wide but deserted street. At one time it had edged the river, but recently the river - a dirty, brown-flavored sludge flowing stolidly past us - had toppled the embankment and lapped halfway across the broken pavement. When the time was right we ducked into the shadows offered by a wall of rubble dumped there decades ago and waited. Across the river from us was a hemisphere of rusted metal, a huge spoked contraption half-buried in river sludge, leaning at an extreme angle but somehow peaceful in its stillness. It was bent slightly, and I tried, briefly, to imagine it upright and suspended in the air again, but it was hard to imagine anything whole and functioning again.'

-Avery Cates

First things first. This little scene takes place after Avery flies to England. I will send the book to a random pick of those who can identify the ruins as described in the excerpt. Post in the comments. You know you wanna.

A buddy of mine and fellow apocalyptic fiction fan turned me onto this series. I'm not entirely sure if this PA or not. There are lots of ruins and things are not well but for me the end hasn't happened just yet. The world is vastly different from the world as it is today. I'd say dystopian.

It's the story of Avery. He's a bad guy with a heart of gold. Only kills those who needs killing and follows his own person code very strictly. He's a Gunner. Means he's a hired gun, kills for money, but only those who have it coming. In this future world there's a new religion called the Electric Church they promise eternal life and a chance to shake hands with god.

They, are in, fact robots with human brains. One day Avery gets hired to go up against the Church and the end result of that conflict might just be the apocalypse the world had been teetering on. The second part of the story will solve that I'm thinking.

So as a thank you to my buddy Deathrattle I'm giving my copy away. Like I said I'll choose randomly from those that identify the ruins in the excerpt. Good luck. I'll pick in two weeks.

Breakers by Edward W. Robertson

Way back on the 17th of May 2012 I posted my sixth installment of free apocalyptic books for the kindle. In the posting was an offering for Breakers. I always download the books I post while they're free but many times it takes awhile for me to read the book. I do have quite the long list of to be read stuff. Point here is that I just now got around to reading this one. But when I finally got around to reading it I was very pleasantly surprised. Turned out to be pretty damned fantastic.

It's a story told from two different view points and it alternates back and forth between the two every chapter. First we meet Raymond and his wife Mia. They live in California and are fairly recent additions after a move from Washington. They figure they'll find work easily and as the book begins we see that it hasn't worked out quite that way at all. Money is tight and Walt is desperate. Desperate enough to even sell drugs. Their own world is falling apart.

Next we meet Walt. He lives in Manhattan and has a fairly hot girlfriend who he thinks might be on the edge of leaving him. To avoid this he fakes a heart condition thinking that she couldn't possibly leave him while he was in poor health. And he's right.

Then one day while he's out and about a guy stumbles out of a restaurant pukes blood and then falls over an dies on the street.

The disease is named 'The Panhandler'. Two reasons for the name are given. First that it 'Nickles and dimes you to death' through blood lose and second is the it appeared in the Idaho panhandle (Idaho doesn't have a panhandle you say .... pfffffft. Hold the pan by the handle and then point it at the floor .... see it now?).

Meanwhile in California things are beginning to go bad as well. Raymond goes to the store with every intention of making purchases and being a good citizen and whatnot. However when he arrives there's a full scale looting and riot happening so Raymond joins in. As more people get ill society breaks down but for Raymond this is good news and the civil unrest that is being caused by the disease means that he can finally find a job. He gets work as an armed guard and as the world around him and Mia die they live pretty comfortably. After the owner meets an unfortunate demise they move into the mansion and hunker down, scavenge and just wait for the disease to burn itself out.

This part of the story was alright some scenes of mayhem and destruction. Walt's story was far better.

Things in New York quickly go bad as well and as as The Panhandler rages it's clear that there is no cure and that it's 100% lethal. So soon you have those are immune, those who are ill, and lots of corpses. One of those who snuffs it is Walt's girlfriend.  It doesn't long for the military to begin rounding up the immunes and bundling them away for some research.

Walt escapes and sets out on a journey by foot across country. Along the way he fights off other survivors and scavenges daily for food and water. This was the part of the book I liked best.

And then about half way into his journey he gets into an epic battle with a giant space lobster. But it's ok though folks, the aliens make sense in the story. And all is good.

The best part of the whole book (for me anyhow) was the super fast understanding that the world had changed and that any of the old rules no longer applied. You don't give the bad guy a second chance, you don't hesitate. When you have the drop on someone who was going to kill you, YOU FUCKING KILL THEM FIRST! Then you walk away with no regrets ready to face the next situation. Not wanting it, attempting to avoid it, but ready. You don't monologue with the guys you take whatever advantage you are able to grab. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was a mix of The Stand (just no evil dude wandering around) and Falling Skies I guess. But really a great book and one of the best I've read recently. If you were lucky and scarfed it while it was a freebie good for you. But if you didn't it's a mere 99 cents and well worth it.

Free Apocalyptic Books (thirteen)

Once more; these are free but I don't know for how long. Get 'em while they're hot folks.

1)  A God-Blasted Land: The Bastard Cadre #1 by Lee Carlon

2) Outcome (Breakers) by Edward W. Robertson

3) Plague City (novelette) by Matthew Milson

4) Take the All-Mart! (Reprobates of the Wasteland #1) by J.I. Greco