Contractor The Contractors Book 1 edition by Andrew Ball Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Contractor The Contractors Book 1 edition by Andrew Ball Literature Fiction eBooks 
The Earth is under siege - and no one knows about it, because the invaders erase those whom they consume.
A handful of men and women stand on the border between the mundane and the magical. They have a special spark of soul; not quite enough to be naturally gifted in spellcraft, but greater than the average person, a tiny flame that can ignite incredible potential. They possess the ability to fight back against the Vorid; the ability to become a Contractor.
Daniel Fitzgerald is one of those people, but when duty comes calling, he promptly slams the door in its face. He has no illusions of grandeur. He is not someone special. He wants to go to school and study law. And frankly, he doesn't really like people, and he doesn't want anything to do with magic. He just wants to be left alone.
But when the entire planet is a battlefield, there is no place to run.
Contractor The Contractors Book 1 edition by Andrew Ball Literature Fiction eBooks
Books by indie authors are always very hit and miss for me. The majority I read end up "shelved" on my kindle half finished. Occasionally, I'll hit on a gem that renews my faith in independent authors,and I'm thrilled to say this is definitely a gem.Plot - I enjoyed the fairly unique mix of sci fi and fantasy elements, mixing extremely advanced technology and civilizations with magic. Mr. Ball takes time to flesh out the universe and give you tantalizing glimpses of possible plots to come, but doesn't bog the story down in huge expositions and lectures. It's not a hard sci fi book by any stretch, but it also doesn't try to be. The pacing is very strong and fast, but not so fast that you get lost or important details are easily forgotten. You can see some of the plot points coming, but rather than make the book predictable, it left me looking forward to seeing how it plays out.
Characters - I loved the main character, Daniel, who could easily be characterized as an anti-hero. Intelligent, with a dry wit and caustic tongue that tends to grate on people and get him into trouble, he still remained likable for me in that his actions were consistent, mostly believable, and motivated by good intentions and a sense of justice and fair play. Supporting characters were sometimes verging on standard tropes, but they were complex enough and had enough back story to make them generally understandable and acceptable. The antagonists were varied - though there was one main enemy in the book (and likely will be for the entire series), a number of characters opposed Daniel on general principle, out of fear, or other motivations. One near the end of the book even appeared fairly sympathetic towards him but still ultimately decided he was an enemy for well explained reasons. This made for a great deal of variety in the conflict. If I had one criticism, it was that it seemed like nearly every primary character had one or both of his/her parents die or leave during childhood. I don't know if this was an effort to build sympathy for them, but I found it to be fairly jarring and I asked myself, "Seriously, another one?".
Prose - Mr. Ball's writing wasn't dense, nor was it childish. I found the structure and flow to be easily grasped and understood, without huge amounts of "fluff" to increase word count or drag the story down. No major grammatical or spelling errors stood out for me, so it was certainly cleaner than many indie books I've read. Half the time I find myself groaning with a plea to the author to find an editor and I appreciated that this was not the case here.
Overall, I was very happy with the story and look forward to the second book a great deal. It's rare nowadays that I find an author that I want to follow, let alone one whose first novel out of the gate made such a good impression on me. I'm very excited to see what will come.
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Contractor The Contractors Book 1 edition by Andrew Ball Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
I thought this book was COOL!
I'm a hardcore anime fan and when I read the part where...small spoiler here....it's discovered that if your soul gets sucked out and over time your existence fades away from reality and people will forget you ever existed. I realized that sounded very much like one of my favorite anime series Shakugan no Shana. In that anime, the denizens of another reality derive power from absorbing "Power of Existence" from humans. Once they absorb it, the human is allowed a temporary existence, so as to avoid a sudden collapse of reality, and fades away. This breach will allow reality to heal from the missing person. Also the battles are faught in a special pocket barrier that freezes reality for the "normal" world so battles can't be seen. Again very much how Shakugan no Shana works too.
I wonder if Mr Ball is a fan of Shakugan no Shana? If so he's done an excellent take on the story. Also his hero is a very reluctant hero as much as Yuji from Shakugan.
But if you like action, witty dialogue, strong morals and evil badass villains. Give this novel a shot. You won't be dissappointed. I am eagerly awaiting the next novel.
Mr. Ball You write. I will buy.
Excelsior!!
A solid home run. One of the best books I've read recently and I expect the author to be on the shelf soon in all the bookstores. I guess it really depends on if this talented author can write fast enough to keep his fans from forgetting about him and losing interest. I hope he can because at this point I can't wait until the next is released. That is the crux of the matter because more people than not become bitter towards new indie authors when it takes them 6 months, a year or even longer to publish a sequel.
On the plus side the grammar was excellent and shows the support of excellent proof readers with only a few exceptions. The characters are identifiable with and the romance angle was superb. I would suspect his older sister had a hand in that. As it should be.
Cons (SPOILER) Absolutely massive cliffhanger at the end of the book. The Vorid are coming back. That is guaranteed. The Hero is taking a vacation and every fan of this novel is held in suspension while rooting for the primary protagonist. .
Bottom line? It's now a race to see if the author loses fans because of the length of delay to the sequel OR next in the series. I will buy the next I think, however if the delay is great enough, possibly I won't because then I'll have to wait another huge amount of time after being left with another HUGE cliffhanger. We'll see how this author shapes up.
I agree with Taylor Silver's take on it, especially the part about how people with power will cling to it with all they can.
Like an ant on a branch in the ocean.
Additionally, I'd like to add three things
1. The dialogue couldn't seem less forced if it were ad-libbed on Whose Line Is It Anyway -- it's spontaneous, but it's GOOD.
2. The protagonist is a deadpan snarker, though he leans more towards the snark part than the deadpan part.
3. The next book is, according to the author, due out in 2015 (he hasn't specified exactly when).
This book does make use of curses, swears, expletives, 'bad words' (or w/e you want to call them) with a realistic frequency. In a battle for life-and-death, characters don't say "Darn!", and, likewise, when in a regular situation, characters don't curse like sailors.
*UPDATE*
(1/5/2016)
Revised date for the 2nd book is early 2016.
Books by indie authors are always very hit and miss for me. The majority I read end up "shelved" on my kindle half finished. Occasionally, I'll hit on a gem that renews my faith in independent authors,and I'm thrilled to say this is definitely a gem.
Plot - I enjoyed the fairly unique mix of sci fi and fantasy elements, mixing extremely advanced technology and civilizations with magic. Mr. Ball takes time to flesh out the universe and give you tantalizing glimpses of possible plots to come, but doesn't bog the story down in huge expositions and lectures. It's not a hard sci fi book by any stretch, but it also doesn't try to be. The pacing is very strong and fast, but not so fast that you get lost or important details are easily forgotten. You can see some of the plot points coming, but rather than make the book predictable, it left me looking forward to seeing how it plays out.
Characters - I loved the main character, Daniel, who could easily be characterized as an anti-hero. Intelligent, with a dry wit and caustic tongue that tends to grate on people and get him into trouble, he still remained likable for me in that his actions were consistent, mostly believable, and motivated by good intentions and a sense of justice and fair play. Supporting characters were sometimes verging on standard tropes, but they were complex enough and had enough back story to make them generally understandable and acceptable. The antagonists were varied - though there was one main enemy in the book (and likely will be for the entire series), a number of characters opposed Daniel on general principle, out of fear, or other motivations. One near the end of the book even appeared fairly sympathetic towards him but still ultimately decided he was an enemy for well explained reasons. This made for a great deal of variety in the conflict. If I had one criticism, it was that it seemed like nearly every primary character had one or both of his/her parents die or leave during childhood. I don't know if this was an effort to build sympathy for them, but I found it to be fairly jarring and I asked myself, "Seriously, another one?".
Prose - Mr. Ball's writing wasn't dense, nor was it childish. I found the structure and flow to be easily grasped and understood, without huge amounts of "fluff" to increase word count or drag the story down. No major grammatical or spelling errors stood out for me, so it was certainly cleaner than many indie books I've read. Half the time I find myself groaning with a plea to the author to find an editor and I appreciated that this was not the case here.
Overall, I was very happy with the story and look forward to the second book a great deal. It's rare nowadays that I find an author that I want to follow, let alone one whose first novel out of the gate made such a good impression on me. I'm very excited to see what will come.
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