Free (Kindle/Kobo/iTunes) The Calling [YA SFnal Apocalyptic Contest + Multilingual]

[ATDrake]

The Calling by controversial author James Frey (ISFDB, Wikipedia), probably best known for the lawsuit about the exaggerated and/or outright fabricated claims in his bestselling memoirs, and Nils Johnson-Shelton (ISFDB), is the 1st in their The Calling series of YA dystopian apocalyptic sci-fantasy novels deliberately designed to cash in on the commercial popularity of such, this one the Hunger Games-ish one where there's some sort of meteors landing which disarrange a bunch of things, and there are some chosen teen competitor saviours in A Very Important Game™ or whatever, free courtesy of publisher HarperCollins Children's Books imprint.

This is the featured Free Book of the Week in the iTunes UK store.

Currently free @ Amazon UK, iTunes UK, and Kobo (available to the UK, and also Australia when I spot-checked a couple of regional stores, but not the EU, though YMMV). Price-drop-check linkage for B&N UK, where this will probably show up later, and it may or may not already be free at Google Play in eligible countries.

There also seem to be some accompanying foreign-language supplementary freebies in the same series, in case you wanted to try out your language skills:

Endgame: Missions (volume 1). Chiyoko, Marcus, Alice, Kala: a French translation of a collection of mini-novellas in some sort of tie-in prequel series, courtesy of publisher Gallimard @ B&N UK, Amazon UK, iTunes UK, Kobo UK.

Endgame — Chiyokos Mission: a German translation of one of the same prequel novellas, courtesy of publisher Friedrich Oetinger @ Amazon UK, iTunes UK.

Description
THE END OF THE WORLD IS COMING. PLAY NOW. OR WE ALL LOSE.

After centuries waiting in secret, twelve unbroken bloodlines, armed with hidden knowledge and lethal training, are called to take humanity’s fate into their hands…

The first book in a game-changing new series by bestselling author, James Frey.

Bryan High School, Omaha, Nebraska: Sarah stands at her graduation ceremony – perfect SATs, a star athlete, her life ahead of her. Then a meteor wipes out half her school. But Sarah is not hurt and not surprised. Because she is the Player of the 233rd line – the Cahokian. And she knows what this means.

Endgame is here.

Juliaca, Puno, Peru: Jago walks the streets after the meteor hits. There’s looting and violence but he’s not scared. He is the Player of the 21st line – the Olmec. And he’s ready.

Endgame is here.

China, Australia, Turkey… Twelve meteors fall. Cities and people burn. The news is full of the end of the world.

But Sarah, Jago and ten others are already plotting and planning for the fight. They are the Players and Endgame is here.

All but one of them will fail. But that one will
save the world. We hope…

Written into this book is a puzzle. Solve the puzzle, and you will find the key to open a case of gold. Read the Books. Find the Clues. Solve the Puzzle. Who will Win?

Google Niantic is building a mobile location-based augmented reality videogame inextricably tied to the books and mythology, a major prize will be tied to a puzzle in each book, and Twentieth Century Fox has bought the movie rights <-- nothing says poorly-thought-out commercial cash-in fodder like ending your blurb thusly with a blatant product plug and missing punctuation, IMHO.

[ATDrake]

Now dropped to free @ B&N UK.