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The Revelations Cycle #10
Alpha Contracts
“Before CASPers were the lords of the battlefield, men tested their metal against aliens one-on-one.”
First contact has been made, and Earth’s militaries and its premier mercenary companies stand ready to take their first tentative steps outside the Solar System. With a galaxy of aliens to explore and fistfuls of credits to be made, follow along as the Four Horsemen select their contracts and venture forth to meet their destinies.
Cartwright’s Cavaliers, Asbaran Solutions, Winged Hussars, and The Golden Horde stand ready and willing to take on the adventure, but what will they find in their Alpha Contracts, and how will they overcome it?
The Four Horsemen: Alpha Contracts will take you behind the scenes of Earth’s legendary heroes, giving you a merc’s eye view of the dangers they faced in completing their first contracts, as well as a look at mercenary warfare among the stars from a fifth company, the Avenging Angels, as its members send letters home from the front lines.
Jim Cartwright, Kuru Shirazi, Lawrence Kosmalski, and Altan Enkh. They were the best, the brightest, and the most famous mercs to ever live. But no one knows who they really were…until now. But as the man once said, “Never meet your heroes.”
First contact has been made, and Earth’s militaries and its premier mercenary companies stand ready to take their first tentative steps outside the Solar System. With a galaxy of aliens to explore and fistfuls of credits to be made, follow along as the Four Horsemen select their contracts and venture forth to meet their destinies.
Cartwright’s Cavaliers, Asbaran Solutions, Winged Hussars, and The Golden Horde stand ready and willing to take on the adventure, but what will they find in their Alpha Contracts, and how will they overcome it?
The Four Horsemen: Alpha Contracts will take you behind the scenes of Earth’s legendary heroes, giving you a merc’s eye view of the dangers they faced in completing their first contracts, as well as a look at mercenary warfare among the stars from a fifth company, the Avenging Angels, as its members send letters home from the front lines.
Jim Cartwright, Kuru Shirazi, Lawrence Kosmalski, and Altan Enkh. They were the best, the brightest, and the most famous mercs to ever live. But no one knows who they really were…until now. But as the man once said, “Never meet your heroes.”
- GenresScience Fiction
425 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 16, 2018
246 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Chris Kennedy
138 books163 followersA Webster Award winner and three-time Dragon Award finalist, Chris Kennedy is a Science Fiction/Fantasy author, speaker, and small-press publisher who has written over 50 books and published more than 400 others. Get his free book, “Shattered Crucible,” at his website, https://chriskennedypublishing.com.
Called “fantastic” and “a great speaker,” he has coached hundreds of beginning authors and budding novelists on how to self-publish their stories at a variety of conferences, conventions, and writing guild presentations. He is the author of the award-winning #1 bestseller, “Self-Publishing for Profit: How to Get Your Book Out of Your Head and Into the Stores.”
Chris lives in Coinjock, North Carolina, with his wife. Follow Chris on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ckpublishing/.
Called “fantastic” and “a great speaker,” he has coached hundreds of beginning authors and budding novelists on how to self-publish their stories at a variety of conferences, conventions, and writing guild presentations. He is the author of the award-winning #1 bestseller, “Self-Publishing for Profit: How to Get Your Book Out of Your Head and Into the Stores.”
Chris lives in Coinjock, North Carolina, with his wife. Follow Chris on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ckpublishing/.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
June 10, 2019
I obtained this book through the Kindle Unlimited program.
This is the condensed version of the book review. I insert more chatty things, and some links, into my blog post for June 10, 2019. If you find a non-sequitur in this review, it's because I didn't do a good enough editing job.
The primary focus is on the companies which became the Four Horsemen. However, the writers include small snippets from another company, the Avenging Angels, to remind us that 96 of the contracts ended in the extermination of the humans. It's a very well-done bit, and the method of the telling, which is correspondence with home, makes sure we know that it wasn't Companies who died; it was individual people, with hopes, dreams, and families.
Note: because the book deals with the main history of each of the companies separately, there is some repetition of scenes in which more than one company is involved. Feature, not a bug.
First, Cartwright's Cavaliers. Jim Cartwright is owner/operator of Cartwright's International, an independent contractor supplying security and transport in parts of the world where booms can ruin a perfectly good trip to the market. He has a number of significant employees, including Nina, a young woman of short stature who is highly proficient at making bad Enemies into good Enemies, with the .50 BMG being her ammo of choice.
We discover that Cartwright combines a love of action with a first-class business mind, and that he has started and sold numerous highly profitable companies, all of them selecting resources that no one else thought existed. Just remember: Jim Cartwright may have some pre-cog, or his genius may be extrapolating from available data, and he is a firm believer in preparedness.
Next, Asbaran Solutions. They are mostly drawn from the remaining units of the Iranian military, which has taken a SOUND beating as a result of the suicide bombing of the visiting aliens at the UN. In response, the MinSha had turned most of Iran into slag, then raided much of what was left over for booty. In almost every case, Resistance WAS Futile, but there were a very few notable successes. Col Kuru Shirazi led remnants away from the lethal entanglements of what was left of Iran, and also away from the jackals fighting over the corpse, and established New Persia, under civilian leadership.
Shirazi was convinced of the futility of force-on-force conflict with aliens. The few wins (which no one else had accomplished) had been achieved through tactics lumped under the term 'asymmetric warfare.' And that's the specialty Asbaran Solutions picked for their company.
Shirazi found he was able to unify others by their hatred of the MinSha, and by extrapolation, the entire Galactic Union. This was a solution devoutly to be desired by his comrades. Thus, from the beginning, his company was a Solution: to the problem of association with a dying, lethal country, and to the problem of the lost honor, stolen by the MinSha. It also made for a nice front for prospective clients: whatever your problem, we are the Solution.
The Winged Hussars. Lawrence Komalski was an information technology genius, and a person with great expectations. Specifically, he expected to inherit control of the family shipping business, while his less-competent cousin was sent out to pasture with some money to play with. Unexpectedly, at the reading of his grandfather's will, he discovered he had been outmaneuvered, and his cousin got the company. The beating his cousin also got, at Lawrence's hands, locked up in Warsaw's Rakowiecka Prison. (Note: this prison is REAL, and HIGHLY worth the time it will take you to google it. Here is the link I followed: https://researchteacher.com/inside-th... ). His cousin runs the company into the ground, and springs Lawrence from the slammer to fix things. This Lawrence does. One of his earliest changes allowed his merchant ship officers to receive military training, which turned out to be a critical choice.
No amount of beatings could introduce good sense to his cousin, who spent all of the resources on the company buying what he thought was a space-faring cargo ship; it turned out to be a worn-out warship. He then compounded that error by signing a merc contract, to serve as an armed escort for an assault group. If the contract is fulfilled, it will redeem Komalski Shipping; failure will bankrupt it. And, the contract stipulates that Lawrence has to be a part of the crew. The job goes badly.
Look, you KNOW it HAS to work out in the end, right? Because Winged Hussars are part of the Four Horsemen? You MUST read this to find out how Lawrence pulls THAT off.
The Golden Horde. If ever I read in prior books in the series that the Golden Horde merc company emerged from a drug-smuggling background, I neglected to store that fact in memory. What I retained is that the leader, Madame Enkh, was ruthless, and that she had prescient dreams, and that the Horde traced their legacy to Mongol origins. And that family ties are very, very important.
Drug trafficking IS a high profit-margin business, but it's also a high-risk business as well. The cops can be bought off, in many cases, but the competition never stops. And the discovery that one of their competitors has access to alien hardware makes current business practices untenable for the Gray Wolves, the precursors to the Horde. Even worse, the casualties they suffer are family members, and it takes a LONG time to turn a zygote into a team member.
It's tough enough to get arms, but the disintegrating corpse of the former Soviet Union provides opportunities for scavengers, willing to take some risks. Where do you get subordinates who will be bonded like family, though? There must be SOME way...
This is the condensed version of the book review. I insert more chatty things, and some links, into my blog post for June 10, 2019. If you find a non-sequitur in this review, it's because I didn't do a good enough editing job.
The primary focus is on the companies which became the Four Horsemen. However, the writers include small snippets from another company, the Avenging Angels, to remind us that 96 of the contracts ended in the extermination of the humans. It's a very well-done bit, and the method of the telling, which is correspondence with home, makes sure we know that it wasn't Companies who died; it was individual people, with hopes, dreams, and families.
Note: because the book deals with the main history of each of the companies separately, there is some repetition of scenes in which more than one company is involved. Feature, not a bug.
First, Cartwright's Cavaliers. Jim Cartwright is owner/operator of Cartwright's International, an independent contractor supplying security and transport in parts of the world where booms can ruin a perfectly good trip to the market. He has a number of significant employees, including Nina, a young woman of short stature who is highly proficient at making bad Enemies into good Enemies, with the .50 BMG being her ammo of choice.
We discover that Cartwright combines a love of action with a first-class business mind, and that he has started and sold numerous highly profitable companies, all of them selecting resources that no one else thought existed. Just remember: Jim Cartwright may have some pre-cog, or his genius may be extrapolating from available data, and he is a firm believer in preparedness.
Next, Asbaran Solutions. They are mostly drawn from the remaining units of the Iranian military, which has taken a SOUND beating as a result of the suicide bombing of the visiting aliens at the UN. In response, the MinSha had turned most of Iran into slag, then raided much of what was left over for booty. In almost every case, Resistance WAS Futile, but there were a very few notable successes. Col Kuru Shirazi led remnants away from the lethal entanglements of what was left of Iran, and also away from the jackals fighting over the corpse, and established New Persia, under civilian leadership.
Shirazi was convinced of the futility of force-on-force conflict with aliens. The few wins (which no one else had accomplished) had been achieved through tactics lumped under the term 'asymmetric warfare.' And that's the specialty Asbaran Solutions picked for their company.
Shirazi found he was able to unify others by their hatred of the MinSha, and by extrapolation, the entire Galactic Union. This was a solution devoutly to be desired by his comrades. Thus, from the beginning, his company was a Solution: to the problem of association with a dying, lethal country, and to the problem of the lost honor, stolen by the MinSha. It also made for a nice front for prospective clients: whatever your problem, we are the Solution.
The Winged Hussars. Lawrence Komalski was an information technology genius, and a person with great expectations. Specifically, he expected to inherit control of the family shipping business, while his less-competent cousin was sent out to pasture with some money to play with. Unexpectedly, at the reading of his grandfather's will, he discovered he had been outmaneuvered, and his cousin got the company. The beating his cousin also got, at Lawrence's hands, locked up in Warsaw's Rakowiecka Prison. (Note: this prison is REAL, and HIGHLY worth the time it will take you to google it. Here is the link I followed: https://researchteacher.com/inside-th... ). His cousin runs the company into the ground, and springs Lawrence from the slammer to fix things. This Lawrence does. One of his earliest changes allowed his merchant ship officers to receive military training, which turned out to be a critical choice.
No amount of beatings could introduce good sense to his cousin, who spent all of the resources on the company buying what he thought was a space-faring cargo ship; it turned out to be a worn-out warship. He then compounded that error by signing a merc contract, to serve as an armed escort for an assault group. If the contract is fulfilled, it will redeem Komalski Shipping; failure will bankrupt it. And, the contract stipulates that Lawrence has to be a part of the crew. The job goes badly.
Look, you KNOW it HAS to work out in the end, right? Because Winged Hussars are part of the Four Horsemen? You MUST read this to find out how Lawrence pulls THAT off.
The Golden Horde. If ever I read in prior books in the series that the Golden Horde merc company emerged from a drug-smuggling background, I neglected to store that fact in memory. What I retained is that the leader, Madame Enkh, was ruthless, and that she had prescient dreams, and that the Horde traced their legacy to Mongol origins. And that family ties are very, very important.
Drug trafficking IS a high profit-margin business, but it's also a high-risk business as well. The cops can be bought off, in many cases, but the competition never stops. And the discovery that one of their competitors has access to alien hardware makes current business practices untenable for the Gray Wolves, the precursors to the Horde. Even worse, the casualties they suffer are family members, and it takes a LONG time to turn a zygote into a team member.
It's tough enough to get arms, but the disintegrating corpse of the former Soviet Union provides opportunities for scavengers, willing to take some risks. Where do you get subordinates who will be bonded like family, though? There must be SOME way...
May 16, 2018
The Four Horseman Universe is turning out to be a fantastic series, and this entry highlights the beginnings of the 4 Mercenary companies that are known as "The Four Horseman". Jim Cartwright is a bored billionaire, who owns a PMC, and sees the advantage in learning to kill aliens for money. Kuru Shirazi is a Colonel in the Iranian army who wants to kill MinSha for what they did to Iran, and his fellow Persians. Lawrence Kosmalski is a Pole who just wanted to be the owner of a shipping company, but his cousin Lech turned the company into a Space mercenary unit, flying a freighter. They return to Earth in the EMS Pegasus, a heavy cruiser they "find" in an asteroid field. Altan Enkh and his family are drug dealers from Uzbekistan. They plan on selling drugs to the aliens they meet, and end up forming a Mercenary company to do so. Along the way, they turn into soldiers, even if they are a little rough around the edges.
The four main story lines are interspersed with letters home from members of the "Avenging Angels", one of the failed 100 Merc companies awarded the first Merc contracts for Earth. It highlights that the aliens have a completely different attitude to life as mercs, and that humans will have to scramble to catch up in order to not only survive, but to make money.
The four main story lines are interspersed with letters home from members of the "Avenging Angels", one of the failed 100 Merc companies awarded the first Merc contracts for Earth. It highlights that the aliens have a completely different attitude to life as mercs, and that humans will have to scramble to catch up in order to not only survive, but to make money.
September 3, 2019
Kennedy and Wandrey have another winner on their hands. After reading about the various forays of the Four Horsemen and about other companies in their universe, it is refreshing to get a look at how they began and what led them to succeed. Was it strategy, perseverance, open-mindedness, or plain dumb luck? Whatever their beginnings, succeed they did! Pick up a copy and come along for the ride. Just remember to keep your seat belt on and all limbs inside the moving vehicle.
February 7, 2018
Dawn of the horsemen!
Absolutely love this series of books!
Powered Armour,deadly aliens and battles that aren't afraid to leave corpses all over the place.
This deals with the beginning of the four horsemen and each story is well written and a page turner.Leaves you longing for more!
Absolutely love this series of books!
Powered Armour,deadly aliens and battles that aren't afraid to leave corpses all over the place.
This deals with the beginning of the four horsemen and each story is well written and a page turner.Leaves you longing for more!
February 10, 2018
Great book
The four horsemen universe is a great place to spend quality time. All of the books are so compelling and captivating that you don’t want to put them down once you start reading and you desperately look forward to more of these adventures. I’m looking forward to reading the omega wars series now, if only I could find the book “ a fiery sunset”.
The four horsemen universe is a great place to spend quality time. All of the books are so compelling and captivating that you don’t want to put them down once you start reading and you desperately look forward to more of these adventures. I’m looking forward to reading the omega wars series now, if only I could find the book “ a fiery sunset”.
October 19, 2018
How it all began
The Four Horseman Universe is great place full of aliens and interesting characters. The most famous of the human mercenaries are known as The Four Horseman. This book details the history of them, as well as provide some clues that are further explored in other books.
The Four Horseman Universe is great place full of aliens and interesting characters. The most famous of the human mercenaries are known as The Four Horseman. This book details the history of them, as well as provide some clues that are further explored in other books.
February 2, 2018
Interesting to see how it all started
Out of hundreds of merc companies these four make it thru their first contracts. All can mark this up to luck!! Read it to see how it all worked out.
Out of hundreds of merc companies these four make it thru their first contracts. All can mark this up to luck!! Read it to see how it all worked out.
February 8, 2018
I hope it really isn't the end...
This book filled in many holes and tied a lot of loose strings together. I hope more of these stories will come together. It feels like just a taste and I will be sad if these wonderful characters fall by the wayside.
This book filled in many holes and tied a lot of loose strings together. I hope more of these stories will come together. It feels like just a taste and I will be sad if these wonderful characters fall by the wayside.
January 17, 2019
Great books, awesome characters, and overall a fun read.
I had been waiting for this for a while, the story of the Alpha contracts. But, authors tend to know how they want people to be introduced to their world, and I'm glad I read the series as they suggested.
I had been waiting for this for a while, the story of the Alpha contracts. But, authors tend to know how they want people to be introduced to their world, and I'm glad I read the series as they suggested.
October 7, 2019
So addicted to this series
A great addition to I've of my favorite series. Military Sci-fi/Space Opera/Mecha with plenty of Aliens. 10 books read in 2 weeks. Can't wait for further developments.
A great addition to I've of my favorite series. Military Sci-fi/Space Opera/Mecha with plenty of Aliens. 10 books read in 2 weeks. Can't wait for further developments.
January 29, 2018
Awsome
Great book, could not put it down,but like every 4HU book they are all great, i have read them all 3 times so far, cant get enough. Thanks for a great ride.
Great book, could not put it down,but like every 4HU book they are all great, i have read them all 3 times so far, cant get enough. Thanks for a great ride.
March 28, 2018
wow, what a cool set of short stories giving us an inside to the origins of the four horseman companies I can not wait for more
May 9, 2018
Wow! What a finish!
Loved the story lines, plots and endless action. Great series hope it continues with more books and more characters! It would be a shame to end it now.
Loved the story lines, plots and endless action. Great series hope it continues with more books and more characters! It would be a shame to end it now.
September 15, 2018
Excellent prequels for the 4HU.
April 13, 2019
Aliens, Earth and War
Well written space novel that is a complete book, no cliffhangers, that leave you wanting to read more. Can’t wait to read more about the 4 Horsemen.
Well written space novel that is a complete book, no cliffhangers, that leave you wanting to read more. Can’t wait to read more about the 4 Horsemen.
June 19, 2019
Backstory
A story for each of the Four Horsemen, about how they managed to survive their first merc contract. Each unit has a unique strategy, and a good bit of luck as well.
A story for each of the Four Horsemen, about how they managed to survive their first merc contract. Each unit has a unique strategy, and a good bit of luck as well.
August 25, 2019
Awesome!
This book put the entire 4HU in true perspective for me. The history...backstory.....was both a humorous and necessary chapter for enthusiasts of this series
This book put the entire 4HU in true perspective for me. The history...backstory.....was both a humorous and necessary chapter for enthusiasts of this series
December 29, 2019
If you've read any of the 4 Horseman series, most of these units are familiar to you.
Here's how those units came to be.
Here's how those units came to be.
March 10, 2020
I loved this history lesson on the origin of the 4 horsemen, one of my favorite of this series.
Read
November 17, 2020Good prequel for the series - describes the origin of the Four Horsemen.
June 23, 2021
Short, straightforward stories about the formation of the Horsemen. Though of little consequence to the main overarching storyline since no new information was revealed.
October 9, 2022
Could be 5 stars
Should have been 1st book in series instead of 10fh. But book itself does good job of explaining
How everything began.
Should have been 1st book in series instead of 10fh. But book itself does good job of explaining
How everything began.
January 30, 2023
Good opening stories
This is the foundation stories for the four horsemen and each is a good introduction to them. I would recommend it.
This is the foundation stories for the four horsemen and each is a good introduction to them. I would recommend it.
September 24, 2024
By far the best book in The Revelations Cycle. I can't believe they left this until the tenth book.
February 20, 2025
My favorite so far of the series.
January 21, 2024
Much better than the preceding volume, giving some backstory to the Four Horsemen (plus one non-surviving unit). Some black humor, but still entertaining.
June 3, 2020
Jumping forward to Book #10 of a series after only having listened to book #1 may seem like madness, but Alpha Contracts is actually a prequel to the Revelation Cycle Series. These are the stories of how the Four Horseman's first contracts came to be, and reading any of the other books in the series, is not necessary.
Is it any good? Its brilliant
If you are expecting mechanized combat suits, then you won't find any here. Unlike later books in the series, this is set very squarely in the modern day (Angela Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany in the book, so VERY current). Much of the joy from the book comes from seeing how humanity deals with adapting to the rest of the new alien universe, it's an underdog story, and it's a joy to experience
The book is spit into 4 sections, each covering the different Horsemen merc units, with smaller intermission stories included as break-ups in-between. Each of the main stories are completely different, some contain humour, others tragic loss, but all are well written. It doesn't matter if the merc company is private military, or blatant criminals, you fully get behind each of their stories.
If you are even vaguely interested in the 4HU books, then I fully recommend starting here. It's great to have this added back story, and really does help flesh out why the 4 Horseman are revered.
Other point of note - if you listen to the Audiobook version, Todd McLaren is perfect in this. The guy at times sounds like Tom Hanks, completely with his cadences - it's an exceptional paring.
Lastly - that ending? Perfect. Easily a 5/5 experience
Is it any good? Its brilliant
If you are expecting mechanized combat suits, then you won't find any here. Unlike later books in the series, this is set very squarely in the modern day (Angela Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany in the book, so VERY current). Much of the joy from the book comes from seeing how humanity deals with adapting to the rest of the new alien universe, it's an underdog story, and it's a joy to experience
The book is spit into 4 sections, each covering the different Horsemen merc units, with smaller intermission stories included as break-ups in-between. Each of the main stories are completely different, some contain humour, others tragic loss, but all are well written. It doesn't matter if the merc company is private military, or blatant criminals, you fully get behind each of their stories.
If you are even vaguely interested in the 4HU books, then I fully recommend starting here. It's great to have this added back story, and really does help flesh out why the 4 Horseman are revered.
Other point of note - if you listen to the Audiobook version, Todd McLaren is perfect in this. The guy at times sounds like Tom Hanks, completely with his cadences - it's an exceptional paring.
Lastly - that ending? Perfect. Easily a 5/5 experience
January 25, 2025
While this is the tenth book in the series, I listened to it in the fourth slot. Friends suggested that I listen to it out of order to help answer some of the questions that I was asking after listening to the first four of the series.
The book is set up in four parts, with interludes. Each of the four major parts tells the story of the beginnings of the only four Earth Mercenary Units to complete their contracts and return home with at least some of their people. Between each of these four parts are letters/emails sent home to relatives from two members of a fifth Merc Unit, the Avenging Angels. You may guess what happened to them.
These (essentially) short stories are much better written than the first four novels in the series. As a reader, I felt better able to connect to the main characters and had a much easier time caring about what happened to them. Personally, I'm not one for to much tactics, science and technology, which was a bit of a downer for the first four novels. The tech and tactics in these stories were much closer to what I know of current military operations and much more accessible. These two items are what makes me give this novel four stars.
As far as the audio, the reader of this novel was MUCH better than the reader(s) for the first four novels. He did a much better job of changing his voice to match the idiosyncrasies of the many alien species that are in these stories.
The book is set up in four parts, with interludes. Each of the four major parts tells the story of the beginnings of the only four Earth Mercenary Units to complete their contracts and return home with at least some of their people. Between each of these four parts are letters/emails sent home to relatives from two members of a fifth Merc Unit, the Avenging Angels. You may guess what happened to them.
These (essentially) short stories are much better written than the first four novels in the series. As a reader, I felt better able to connect to the main characters and had a much easier time caring about what happened to them. Personally, I'm not one for to much tactics, science and technology, which was a bit of a downer for the first four novels. The tech and tactics in these stories were much closer to what I know of current military operations and much more accessible. These two items are what makes me give this novel four stars.
As far as the audio, the reader of this novel was MUCH better than the reader(s) for the first four novels. He did a much better job of changing his voice to match the idiosyncrasies of the many alien species that are in these stories.
April 23, 2020
Fantastic read. Great Characters, loved every page. It really was great to go back to the beginning and see where it all started. How the 4 Horsemen survived when 96 other Mercenary companies failed and never returned. It gave great insight into where they came from and to see how they are now is quite a journey. I would recommend it to anyone. The 4 horsemen universe is diverse, and full of intrigue, amazing characters and stories. The most wonderful part is the authors keep them all interwoven and connected, each story is just a small piece, whether from the Omega Wars, Revelations, Tales from the 4HU, they all fill in the blanks to make one huge amazing story.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews