If you’ve read Brandson Sanderson’s first YA novel Steelheart, you’re going to love the novella Mistosis!

I actually didn’t wait for the audio recording of Brandon Sanderson’s debut Young Adult novel Steelheart. I went for the hardback as soon as it was available.

If you haven’t read Steelheart, you should, and definitely before listening to the free Audible.com recording of Mitosis, as the short story won’t make any sense without it’s predecessor.

Steelheart fills the futuristic sci-fi, technologically advanced yet suffering-world void that The Hunger Games Trilogy left behind. Our point-of-view character, David Charleston, is a teenager who is caught between two eras in time: his childhood was spent in our everyday lives as we now know it in the metropolitan of Chicago, and the other half of it is spent in the dark, new-age world of Newcago, in the hands of the Epics. One Epic in particular, Steelheart, has a steel grip on the city, and David has a personal score to settle with this super human. The only problem is, David isn’t superhuman, or a Reckoner (the underground force of regular humans who strike attacks at Epics). Oh, it’s intense, and you can read the prologue for free from Brandon Sanderson’s website (FYI: at Larkable, we don’t get any kick-backs for sending you Brandon Sanderson’s way; we just really, really, really liked Steelheart and think you will too).

Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Kingkiller Chronicles (Open Your Ears To reviews coming very soon) is quoted on the back cover of Steelheart, saying “Unfortunately for my ego, Steelheart is another win for Sanderson, proving that he’s not a brilliant writer of epic fantasy, he’s simply a brilliant writer. Period.” And Christopher Paolini, author of the Inheritance Cycle (Open Your Ears To reviews coming eventually), says “A tense, fast-paced adventure. Brandon Sanderson is one of the best fantasy sci-fi writers working today.”

Now that you’ve certainly been intrigue and have every intention of reading the first book in the Reckoner’s Series, you can download the audiobookella (I’m coining that term now) for free from Audible.com (the link can also be found directly from Sanderson’s website) with an Amazon user login. Again, Larkable isn’t getting any kick back for this…we should, but blast it, we just idol worship Brandon Sanderson too much to be bought and sold. This is straight-up us as avid readers highly recommending a really great book series.

Mitosis is all about another encounter with an Epic who comes to terrorize Newcago, and it’s a brilliant way to spend an hour. Macleod Andrews does a decent job narrating from David’s point of view–he sounds like a teenager, at least–and his character distinction is pretty…distinguishable. He might not be the best narrator we’ve ever encountered, but we can whole-heartedly verify that he is nowhere near the worst, either.

In Mitosis we follow David’s point of view in first person and team up with a few familiar faces from the first book. Again, DO NOT listen to it before Steelheart. It’s going to be spoilers galore and, as mentioned, if you even remotely liked The Hunger Games you’ll love Steelheart. David’s personality is nothing like Katniss Everdeen’s, the overbearing government is most certainly not the same, and Brandon Sanderson’s genius varies greatly from Suzanne Collins’, but the advanced technology and battle strategy will have you flying through the chapters like there’s no tomorrow. That, and David’s thought trail will definitely have you cracking a smile as you read and possibly, shamelessly, laughing out loud.

We were so happy to see Mitosis come out between the releases of Steelheart and the highly anticipated Firefight! The first book ended on such an intense note that we’re dying to see what comes next, and this novella was an excellent hors d’oeuvres to tide us over to January 6, 2015.

So sit back, download this free audiobook, and enjoy an hour like you’ve never enjoyed it before!