Free Audiobooks: WARP and The Time Machine

Two audiobooks are available for free from SYNC this week (through May 21st).

WARP: The Reluctant Assassin
by Eoin Colfer
Riley, a teen orphan boy living in Victorian London, has had the misfortune of being apprenticed to Albert Garrick, an illusionist who has fallen on difficult times and now uses his unique conjuring skills to gain access to victims’ dwellings. On one such escapade, Garrick brings his reluctant apprentice along and urges him to commit his first killing. Riley is saved from having to commit the grisly act when the intended victim turns out to be a scientist from the future, part of the FBI’s Witness Anonymous Relocation Program (WARP). Riley is unwittingly transported via wormhole to modern day London, followed closely by Garrick.

In modern London, Riley is helped by Chevron Savano, a nineteen-year-old FBI agent sent to London as punishment after a disastrous undercover, anti-terrorist operation in Los Angeles. Together Riley and Chevie must evade Garrick, who has been fundamentally altered by his trip through the wormhole. Garrick is now not only evil, but he also possesses all of the scientist’s knowledge. He is determined to track Riley down and use the timekey in Chevie’s possession to make his way back to Victorian London where he can literally change the world.

The Time Machine
by H.G. Wells
When the Time Traveller courageously stepped out of his machine for the first time, he found himself in the year 802,700–and everything had changed. In another, more utopian age, creatures seemed to dwell together in perfect harmony. The Time Traveller thought he could study these marvelous beings–unearth their secret and then retum to his own time–until he discovered that his invention, his only avenue of escape, had been stolen.


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The Time Machine is among the more influential works of science-fiction. Listening to/reading it will help build a greater appreciation for the genre as well as enable you to understand allusions to Morlocks, Eloi, and other components of the book not only in science-fiction stories but in a broad range of literature. The text is available for free here; follow along with the audiobook or read it on your own.

To get either audiobook (or both!), click the link in their title, above, or start at the download page.

You'll need to install the OverDrive® Media Console™ first, but the page walks you through that. The audiobooks have download buttons below the green sync-head thing in the third column of the page.

Enjoy!